the registering process is crazy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

As an ex-teacher in juvy (a court school) I thought your(MHP) prison piece today was excellent.

I watch you(MHP) every weekend and like Chis Hayes too.

Just a brief aside: Is MHP a Democrat? Has she said if she is a Democrat, and if not, why hasn't she identified with a political party? Where does she fit on the political spectrum? Is she too far left to say she's a Democrat? She said she's a seminarian and she's an academic, but who is she politically? Why doesn't she just say? Is she a member of the Green Party? Is she a Socialist? What's the deal? She should just tell her viewers the truth. People have had it with the corporate contrivance, and corporate connivers, and corporate liberals. . Gobama!

Can't do the time, don't do the crime.

It is unethical and immoral, for any governmental enity, to outsource, to a private contractor, the responsibility of securing an individual, against his/her will, and with the removal of their rights.

This is always a touchy topic because I understand both sides. We need to focus on prevention and why there are so many minorities in jails and prisions. I understand why LA would focus on re-establishing the jails for safety reasons, however, the privatization and profits made are unethical. We need to focus on families, education, and the value of work in our society.

This is a very touchy issue because I can see both sides. However, we need to focus on prevention. Why are so many of our men, especially minorities, incarcerated in either our jails or prisions? We need to education or children on the importance of education, family, and self confidence. We need to address the wrongs within the family unit and in our communities. Committing a crime is usually a last resort; an act of disperation and dispair. We need to direct our resources to these issues.

Although I commend Ms. Harris-Perry for tackling this issue, my concern (as it is with everyone who covers this) is that she also failed to connect-the-dots to show how the destruction of due process is by far the greatest threat we face. To make an early point which should be clear at the end, if you were shocked by the torture at Abu Ghraib then you have not been paying attention.
The best place to start is 1935 with retired USMC Major General Smedley Butler's indictment of the military. In his book War Is A Racket, Butler came to realize he was simply the muscle for big business in the wars against those Caribbean and Central American countries that had the resources big business wanted. His quote "wherever the dollar goes, the flag follows" could not be more succinct. At the end of World War II money went overseas for Arab oil, and by the 1980s we found ourselves back in Central America fighting against their wars of liberation.
Now whatever Nixon did to politicize crime and Reagan did to exploit it, it was President George H. W. Bush who actually launched a domestic war under the umbrella of the "War on Crime" (drugs & gangs). On September 5, 1989 as Bush waved that bag of crack cocaine across his desk during his first primetime address from the Oval Office, he was announcing America was again at war. Bush was desperate because the Berlin Wall would come down within months and the former Soviet Union would collapse in just over a year.
At stake was the likewise collapse of the defense contractor-empires without another war. Winning the Cold War not only meant military cutbacks and bases closures, it also meant the next enemy would have to be found from within and of course, the darker the better. This War on Crime has little to do with actually pursuing justice and mostly everything to do with profiteering. So grab a pen and paper and list everything that has happened since 1992.
By 1996 not only had California passed the draconian "Three Strikes" law (if the law's author had been a basketball fan it would have been "Six Fouls") we also had eight new prisons. The system had changed to make it easier to incarcerate those of color. The money to fight crime was pouring in, special-units were expanding and the success of incarcerating non-whites was so great it created the need for private prisons. Do you remember how totally awesome it was to call gang members "urban terrorists" until September 11, 2001?
Escalating tuition costs is another price to be paid, which is only natural when a state spends more on prisons than on higher education. Yet no matter how bad it is for adults, it is nothing compared to what happens to juveniles. The marching orders are to cut them off at the knees, make them dysfunctional, make them hate authority and it is done with the hope that child will self-destruct in some horrible crime that gets them years in prison.
I know this because I was asked to do it. I also know it because no one can give you an answer as to when the War on Crime will be over, because in truth it is meant to last as long as African-Americans and Latinos live in America. Now to tie this in with my first point, just know that those who gave us this domestic war are the very same people who botched Afghanistan and Iraq. However, as we know, the defense contractors made a fortune. Happy Killing!

Thank-you so much for the shows about prison reform. Please google "Ohio old law inmates" (although these are men who have done a lot of time and would rather be referred to as convicts). This is a bad problem in Ohio. It means no matter how much a person has slowly reformed themselves over the years, they might as well have a life without parole sentence. Many see themselves as "job security" for the parole board and prison system, or see themselves being used to keep the peace among the large younger prison population, instead of getting to eventually do anything else in their lives in the outside world.

i have been trying to contact the show today while they are talking about the efforts to disenfranchise Pennsylvanians. I am a potential victim of this scheme, and I called the state and had the go through with me a large stack of ID,s, none of which were acceptable to them because they lacked the stamp of the DMV. What nobody seems to recognize,incuding today's guests is that this is an attempt to deny voting rights to non-drivers, namely CITY-DWELLERS who have less need for cars and who (not coincidentlaly) tend to vote for Republicans.

After reading and watching this interview I am not at all surprised by this..This is exactly what the State of Louisiana wants for their State. Lock them up and throw away the key! The prison system is a"BUSINESS" and as long as the Federal Government continues to finance this business nothing will ever change..

My son, who is a first time offender, is serving a life without parole sentence in Angola. Yes, he did commit a crime..but to give him such a harsh sentence is not only a grave injustice for him it is also a grave injustice for the State of Louisiana. Especially when nobody involved was physically harmed..I remember this vaguely..The District Attorney, Mr. Paul Connick, announced on national television that my son would be punished harshly because if my son thought that he could come down"here" and commit a crime he better think again. What exactly did he mean by " come down here?" I'll tell you what he meant exactly..If your're a white man from the North you better look out!! And that's exactly what happened..

The people of Louisiana need to wake up! When you think nothing of the fact that fathers, sons, brothers and their children "all" end up in a place like "Angola" there is definitly something wrong with this picture..

Maybe you don't think that this couldn't and wouldn't ever happen to you or your family..Let me tell you something..It can happen to any of us..I'm a mother who never in her worse nightmares thought I would be visiting my only son in a place like "Angola"..I pray that somebody will make a change..somebody who has a compassion heart and truly understands that people make mistakes and everybody deserves a second chance..Even Charles Manson gets a chance for parole..why can't the men in Angola get a chance for parole???

This is my daily prayer..Amen!

On Sep 8, ’12 the question arose, why are the poor not a factor in our politics?

The poor express no demand: The poor are not consumers, neither economically nor politically. In the way of the world, they need not be served. They have no spokespeople or leadership to articulate their demands or to make claims on their behalf. Being sick and hungry and ill-protected against the elements, they are exhausted and atomized. They are not organized and lack means to become so. They don’t have union jobs, for example, or belong to recognized interest groups. Unlike a wounded-but-dangerous middle class, the poor have all they can do just to survive.

The poor have neither political nor monetary coin: The poor don’t vote as much as other groups. They don’t make political campaign contributions or pay lobbyists. They can’t even offer to pay more taxes in exchange for what they need. They come to politics hat in hand, conferring no power upon the few politicians who might otherwise be able to take action on their behalf. Politics, like a boardinghouse table, is a place to help yourself, and the poor lack reach.

The poor are invisible: The poor are economically ghettoized and can’t “get around”, neither literally nor figuratively. It is extremely difficult to contact them — at work, if they should be so lucky, or at a place of residence or on the internet. Ultimate outsiders, the poor are, in short, not well-connected. They are anonymous to society at large. In respect to the poor there is no locution analogous to “my son is gay” or “my roommate is black” or “my neighbor is retired.” The poor, alas, are not with us.

The poor are undeserving: The American dream is, oxymoronically, material. It is a dream of riches that predates “life, liberty and property”, back to the Protestant work ethic of colonial days, which is to summarize: God loves rich people. If you are poor, you have manifestly offended God. Poverty, in this view, is not a social condition, but a spiritual one. It is not something that is rightfully addressed by politics, but by individual soul searching and self help. In America, to demand that we improve the lot of the poor is, not to put too fine a point on it, un-Christian.