After spending almost two decades in numerous state and federal prisons of the American prison system, I am of the mind that caring and compassion in American society grows strong, decreases, and then rises again over time. My current observation is that an American cycle of diminished compassion is reaching a high point. I say this because I'm currently in the Minnesota, U.S.A. prison system, one of the most compassionate systems I've hitherto experienced and, even here, I recently heard a legislator comment during a discussion of prison double-bunking and crowding that the "comfort" (i.e. the reduction of suffering) for people convicted of crimes should be of no concern. When Minnesota, the last stronghold of kindness for the scapegoats of a society's frustration, begins to defend cruelty, I figure the bottom of the cycle must be near. If I'm correct in the wave analogy, in the cycling of compassion, then many incarcerated men and women can take heart in the thought that American society will soon have satiated its vindictiveness. If I'm wrong, the diminished compassion will not stop with the prison populations. When we prisoners are beaten and broken beyond our entertainment value, the cruelty will spill over into general society.

With an ear and eye tuned to media trends one can observe that the curve of compassion is sent on a downward inclination whenever the suffering of others becomes politically and economically profitable. Media producers take advantage of the trends. Currently, producers, supporters and viewers of the television programs American Justice, John Walsh, Cops, FBI files, New Detectives, Cold Case Files, Forensic Files, and similar shows are profiting from the death and suffering of human beings. What other objective can the shows have? They showcase the unskillful behaviors of society's poorest individuals. They rehash the struggles of hapless victims and display sick photo clips of the dead, nude bodies of young women and men. Criminals and potential criminals love these shows and spend many hours watching them, learning from them, and justifying their own behaviors by being able to say, "See, I'm not the only one. I'm a member of a group." This meaning that one's behaviors cannot be all that horrific if others are also doing the same things. Where the health of a society is concerned these "true crime" shows are potentially more damaging than any pornography that could be publicly displayed, and yet these crime programs are promoted by the same conservatives who oppose pornography.

Even while violent crime per capita has dramatically declined, a proliferation of sensationalized crime television shows has kept the public blinded by anger and fear and to perpetuate that fear and anger to sustain corporate earnings. With the public thus blinded, the John Walshes of the world are free to forward their own agendas of hatred, and politicians are given a platform from which to exploit the fears of a propagandized public. Media personalities and politicians are free to, and are even commended for, dehumanizing people who are suspected of committing crimes. What other group taken from the public pool can they get away with abusing? The dehumanization is accomplished by exploiting the suffering of crime victims and by repetitious labeling of selected humans as scum, dirt bags, animals, predators and so on. Once reduced in people’s minds to the state of being animals or less, all humanity can be tossed aside when it comes to the treatment of offenders by the courts, law enforcement and corrections personnel. It is like they all studied the same guidebook, Mien Kemp. The strategy worked for Hitler. With a frightened and angry public behind him, Hitler was free to forward his personal agenda of hatred.

This is not to say John Walsh and other victims of crime do not have reason to feel angry. However, when public policy becomes driven by political and corporate profits and by the anger of individuals, watch out. Anger and greed are the forerunners to cruelty and cruelty can never be confused with being compassion, or wisdom.

On any evening, if one desires, he or she can watch, listen to, and read enough sensationalized media reports to become convinced that the best approach to life would be to lock one's self in a fortified bunker and foster hatred toward everyone who has ever done something offensive or who may do something offensive. Perhaps if one has the means, he or she can put effort into having the offending parties, or the potentially offending parties, destroyed as far as his or her fear-diminished morals will allow.

Unfortunately, many people consistently view and read and listen to one horrid media story after another, terrorizing their souls and feeding garbage to their minds. Not only can I imagine the resulting horror fostered in these individuals, but as one of society's incarcerated individuals I can easily witness the results. Manufactured fear has given birth to a gamut of dehumanizing labels and to a proliferation of cruelties. For example, it is becoming common for people to be given prison sentences of twenty, thirty, and even sixty years. Today, a twenty-year sentence is looked on by the public as no big issue. The blinders of dehumanization are so effectively in place that instead of seeing the loss a person suffers by spending all of his twenties, thirties, and forties in prison, American society can justify its cruelty by viewing the person as an animal or worse. The death penalty, prison crowding, abolishment of parole, the push to enact two strike laws, and the effort to keep people imprisoned even after their sentences are completed are extensions of this dehumanization.

If it were not such a serious situation one could easily get a bellyache from laughing at such cowardly displays, but such cowardly displays as the death penalty, name calling, two strikes laws, and preemptive incarceration can only create feelings of sadness and of shame in and for our community.

One only needs to watch a few news reports to start experiencing the feeling of living in a community of small and frightened people. The picture comes to mind of a family of people peering around the edges of drawn window shades to see how the dog they have just released from their home is faring against the stranger approaching their door. It's a sad, pitiable sight, a preemptive nightmare for the family and for the salesman.

The prevalence of fear in our society also is fueling the cruel and frightening trend toward preemptive crime control. Not long ago, I saw a movie on television in which law enforcement utilized psychics to determine who would commit a crime in the future, so the person could be arrested before the crime occurred. In the movie, the psychics were not always correct. Unfortunately in today's American society the issue of preemptive crime control is not a fantasy. It can be evidenced in the trend toward attacking other countries before they can, or might, attack us. But the trend did not begin there, it began with a frightened and angry society's thirst for vengeance, with the idea that one could, through certain manipulative efforts, inflict even more punitive measures against people convicted of crimes than the laws they were sentenced under allowed. This preemptive incarceration is already being practiced in the United States under the guise of a determination of a mental disorder. Today an unscrupulous state official can keep a person in prison after his or her sentence has expired simply by convincing the state with the help of the state that a person is suffering with a mental disorder that prohibits one from controlling his or her own behaviors. This is a blatantly unjust and hypocritical action. If the "mental disorder" argument is legitimate, why are the inflicted people tried, sentenced to prison, and, in some cases, executed? If one is not in control of his or her actions, how can he or she be held legally responsible in the first place?

The irony is that the notion of crime being the result of not being able to control one's behaviors was born from within the defensive structure itself. In an effort to keep people from being killed via the death penalty, defense attorneys employed psychologists and began to claim that defendants had not been able to control their own behaviors during their offenses. While this ploy did little to stop the defendants from being murdered by the state, it did, hypocritically, become a tool used by unscrupulous public officials helping crime victims and others unsatisfied with the extent of a convicted person's court ordered punishment, and it has become a tool used by an increasingly frightened and cowering section of the population.

While everyone of sound mind knows that one crosses the street because one wishes to do so, the uncontrollable behavior charade has become a convenient way for a terrified public to mentally account for the actions of other people. In years past, bad actions were attributed to the influence of witches or spirits or a devil. Today, bad actions are explained by a more general notion of a person being unable to control his or her behavior because of a vague thing called a "mental disorder". As with the illnesses of old that were attributed to the mischief of witches and warlocks, any explanation is thought of as better than none. An excuse is less frightening than the alternative that the person actually intended to commit a bad act. Besides, if the person who committed a crime is known to have voluntarily committed the crime, it stands to good reason that he or she could also voluntarily not to commit a crime in future. This scenario, that a person can choose to change one's behavior, this fact, does not satisfy the bloodlust of the vengeful or relieve the paranoia of the fearful. And unfortunately, an agenda of vengeance will not dissipate until the fear and anger of the community dissipates. The infamous witch trials and subsequent hangings are witness to this historical trend.

So when will Americans recognize that the proliferation and support of dehumanizing media is greatly responsible for the creation of their own fears and emotional disturbances? When will Americans understand the concept of GIGO (garbage in, garbage out), what one feeds his or her mind will determine his or her actions? Perhaps most Americans will not come to such realizations until the results of their own fear and anger become more physically evident in their own lives. Perhaps that is what the cycle of compassion has consisted of all these years, when the down trodden are exploited to their limit and society begins to view its middle class people as targets of anger and exploitation, then the cycle is pressured to reverse its direction. Things do not need to reach this point. Middle class Americans can avoid this pain by working to reverse the cycle of dehumanization and exploitation of people before it reaches their doorsteps. Think about it. What is right and just and true cannot be manipulated, distorted, exploited, or ignored without consequence. And, how could a life free of anger, hatred, and fear not be preferable to one consumed by these emotions? Perhaps if we all stop entertaining ourselves with the misfortunes of others, we will all be freed from much needless suffering.