Monuments to Ignorance: It's time for Colorado to try social justice for a change

CANON CITY, Colo, Man builds monuments to the things he worships; in Colorado that's police stations, courts, and prisons. In the last six months from Denver to Pueblo the state has experienced major investment in the criminal justice economic complex. Monuments to justice with a capital "J" and " $."

These grand new monuments of man's power over man often have benign, self-righteous names like, ''Justice Center" or "Complex." The new Municipal Justice Center dedicated in Pueblo last Friday even rendered a quote about justice from Martin Luther King Jr. I doubt the clients of the new center have the same definition of justice as the people who occupy the desks in the $25 million facility. I also doubt Mr. King would have much use for the kind of justice dispensed at the center to the predominantly poor and minority patrons.

During the same week the new facility celebrated its grand opening, reading scores were released showing Pueblo and Southern Colorado to have some of the worst schools in the state. How far would $25 million go to improve schools and minority education … now that would be justice worthy of a monument. The pueblo police chief Ruben Archuleta said of the new center, "I tell people we went from a 'Barney Miller' environment to 'CSI.'" One wonders if Archuleta knows "CSI" is about science and education -- not buildings.

Pueblo is not alone in their worship, and monumental building.
At a time when the state legislature cut $260 million from education spending, The Department of Corrections’ budget grew by $10 million so it could open its $165 million super maximum security prison in the Fremont Correctional Complex -- a prison coined, ''a clean version of hell," by former warden Robert Hood. When HB 1421, a bill calling for the closure of a prison, was debated in the Senate Ken Kester, R - Las Animas said, “I'd hate to see any community lose a prison. It could be devastating to the economy of some town, and probably one in Southern Colorado." This perverse philosophy of incarceration as an economic engine is pervasive across the state. How ironic that as high-tech jobs flee the state, Colorado builds prisons while they close schools.

Prisons have become the new plantations, inmates the new cash crop, and Colorado one of the last great slave states. A web documentary, "Prison Valley" recently exposed Colorado's exploiting practices of incarceration and justice. It took a foreign film company to recognize how distorted the state's views had become Colorado seems to be too desensitized to notice the abuse.

Metropolitan Colorado is not immune to these mixed-up ideas of criminal justice. Denver also recently opened a new $378 million justice center, even allowing the city bourgeoisie (non-inmates) to purchase a night in the new jail -how fun. Those that participated didn't like it much, not even in a new complex. Several months before the opening of the center, Denver area schools were lamenting the flight of skilled minority teachers, particularly African-American teachers, out of the state -- wonder why they left? These teachers were critical role models, messengers of hope, and a way off the streets to the kids they taught. Now these teachers are messengers of hope in another state, and the message sent to Denver area youth is a shiny new jail and justice center -- the message received is loud and clear.

So Colorado, build your monuments, worship justice, the big “J'' kind of justice -- monuments of the criminal industry, of jails, of police armed to the teeth, like soldiers going to war. But maybe once, just once, try worshiping justice with a small “j” -- social justice: Justice that begins with fairness and equal opportunity in the classroom … one that includes higher education for living wage jobs, and ends with prosperity that doesn’t include the exploitation and incarceration of others … true justice.

The state has no problem closing a school these days, why not close a jail -- can't a school be a monument to justice?