Rats that might teach us something
By Brandon Astor Jones
"If we liken humanity to the forest and humanity's laws to the trees therein, then most Americans — especially posturing politicians — will not see the forest for the trees. Ever." — Irving Elmer Bell
I agree with Bell. Most of US society is blind to itself. That blindness is demonstrated in a host of ways but in my opinion one of the more vivid examples has to do with how animals are treated — in comparison to how human beings are treated.
I like dogs. I advocate good treatment for all pets. Therefore, I understand how disturbed many of Georgia's citizens are over the recent spate of animal cruelty reports in the news. In July, a three-month old kitten was covered with petrol and set ablaze. In September, a stray cat was shot with an arrow. Last week a puppy was found with its mouth wired shut; and there was the killing of two pet rabbits, one of which was found sliced open, with its head and tail cut off.
More than 100 concerned people recently gathered to ask Georgia legislators to get tougher on those who commit animal cruelty crimes. At present such crimes are misdemeanors and are punishable only by a fine or brief jail term.
State Senator Robert Brown promises to sponsor animal cruelty legislation when the General Assembly convenes in January. He wants to make animal cruelty a felony. The district attorney for Bibb County, Charles Weston, says, "This is a piece of legislation whose time has come".
Randall Lockwood, the vice president of the Humane Society of the United States, tells us, "Perpetrators of violence [do not] stop to count the number of legs on their victims". Then there is Lieutenant Larry Gibson, of the Clayton County Police Department, who feels that tougher sentences are in order because animal abuse is often the precursor of more serious violence against humans.
In short, Georgians are up in arms about animal cruelty. I was struck by the irony of Senator Brown's words when he suggested that the reason tougher animal cruelty laws had not passed previously was that people do not understand "the issue, how it affects society as a whole, the implications it has for our children and how we treat each other as human beings".
When corrections commissioner J. Wayne Garner led an overly prone to violence group of corrections officers into Hayes State Prison and urged them to brutally attack scores of non-violent prisoners, no-one even mentioned changing the law. So many Georgians are outraged by animal cruelty, but for the most part remain church-mouse quiet when men, women and children are brutalised inside Georgia's prisons and jails.
Alas, it seems to be quite all right to rape, impregnate, force abortion upon, beat, execute and even torture them. The majority of Georgia's citizens will remain silent about it. Media only report it when forced to.
The United States Supreme Court is about to review whether Florida's electric chair is unconstitutionally cruel and unusual punishment (in that very often it causes its victims to burst into flames and bleed profusely).
However, here in Georgia in 1985 Alpha Otis Stephens sat moaning 15 minutes after 2300 volts had savagely surged through his body during the torture that most Georgians fondly call an "execution". So they executed him again. After 20 minutes of torture, he was eventually pronounced dead.
Just last week the former Cherokee County deputy, Don Ware, pleaded guilty in federal court to the violation of a prisoner's civil rights by the use of excessive force. While in custody, Christopher Stone was kicked and beaten by Ware and deputy James Donohue. Ware stood with one foot on Stone's neck and the other on his lower back for three minutes; all the while Stone was docile, with his hands cuffed behind his back! Then they dragged him to a cell and strapped him into a restraining chair and, while he was tied down and silent, sprayed him with pepper gas.
Fortunately for Stone, the entire incident was caught on videotape. Ware faces one year in prison and a $100,000 fine because what he and Donohue did is only a misdemeanour. Ware is lucky that Stone does not have two more legs.
Yet, wishing Ware could draw a tougher sentence accomplishes little. A tougher sentence is easy to give. The US prison system does not need tougher sentences. What it needs is fewer people in the system.
There is only one way to accomplish that, in my opinion. The method will require courage and hope for every generation, starting with this one.
If people will allow those who can to teach us all how to care more for every living creature there will be less and less harm done to men, women, children and even animals. The state cannot teach the sacredness of life by taking lives (capital punishment) nor can it continue to encourage the emotional and physical brutalisation that it subjects its prisoners to.
If you encourage love and respect in most people — free or confined — they will become less violent and more loving by your deeds and association. Love and respect are like seeds. You plant them in people, especially children, and nine times out of 10 you will get love and respect back. On the other hand, if you plant hate, intolerance, disrespect, selfishness and revenge, that is what you get back a thousandfold.
Moreover, it is not wise to talk down self-righteously to those who have not been fortunate enough to have the parental guidance and other things that all but guarantee socioeconomic success. Unless the state, and the people in each community, begin to take a more loving and respectful view of every man, woman and child in it, no man, woman, child, kitten, dog or rabbit will be safe.
Researchers at McGill University in Montreal have recently conducted experiments which reveal that infant rats, when subjected to mothers or foster mothers that lick and groom them while they nurse, become smarter and more community-minded than those subjected to indifferent mothers. Love and respect for one's individual space, and the space of others, can be nurtured even in rats.
Also worthy of note is that when unaffectionate mother rats saw foster mother rats and human handlers being affectionate with their offspring, they became affectionate as well. Let us hope that people in the US, especially some of Georgia's politicians, will not be outdone by those Canadian rats.
[The writer is a prisoner on death row in the United States. He welcomes letters commenting on his columns (include your name and full return address on the envelope, or prison authorities may refuse to deliver it). He can be written to at: Brandon Astor Jones, EF-122216, G3-63, Georgia Diagnostic & Classification Prison, PO Box 3877, Jackson, GA 30233, USA.]