Even before reading the following post, I've long realized that the loved ones of inmates are suffering abuse from the prison system and it's employees, as well as being ostracized in the community as if they, too, had committed a crime.

I guess caring about someone society has deemed unacceptable is politically incorrect, an unwritten crime in America.

I've had eggs thrown at me in Starke, had 'the bird' shot at me, and been called "street walkin' convict lovin' whore" (among a variety of other colorful epitaphs).  So, you don't have to be married to or give birth to or even be distantly related to a prisoner to have society shun you for caring.  I never knew this, nor had I even thought about it until I began this work.  So, now I want to know why.

The way the laws are written today (to throw as wide a net as possible) anyone could end up caring about someone in prison or even being a prisoner themselves.

The cost of justice is so high, that even innocent people don't have much of a chance anymore.  Non-violent people, the mentally ill, downtrodden groups of all kinds give up their innocents - right along with the poor, the off-race, and the guilty.  Anyone could end up loving a prisoner or being one themselves.

Motivation?  The forfeiture laws make the cops rich; and profit margins of the prison industry make a lot of manufacturers, suppliers, and investors rich;  probation fees feed a lot of fat-cats and their servants; Children services get paid per snatched child;  How could any citizen think they won't end up in prison or see someone they care about end up in prison (unless they have a big savings to finance the best justice money can buy?

Then there's that 'Christian' thing that confuses me:  "What you do unto the least of them, you do unto me..." Forgiveness, compassion, mercy and Love are all things that Christians profess to want from their creator, So, I want to know why society shuns people paying for their crime and ostracizes their families too?

It's no wonder that so many families lose it before the second year is up.  They are trying to support the healing of people society won't, and society won't even support them in the effort, even though society benefits from the healing.  I don't know, seems awfully self-destructive to me.