In September of 2012 I was arrested in a surprise ambush by police who had only a few hours earlier assured me that no charges were going to be filed. For the following three years I was violated and tortured psychologically, terrorized, dehumanized, emasculated, openly humiliated, forced to work without compensation and my communication with the outside world was suppressed almost entirely. Now that I have been released from prison there is almost nothing left from my former life that I worked so hard for. At the time of my arrest I had no idea that I had dissatisfied any legal statute and I had no prior criminal record. I have cooperated fully and at no time have I been a threat to anyone or to further dissatisfy any law. I am convinced after everything that I have experienced while incarcerated that the Criminal Justice System is foremost a human trafficking business who's primary objective is to break and control people for financial gain.

• America has the highest incarceration rate and the largest incarceration population of any developed nation in the world with 1.5 - 2.5 million people behind bars, and 6 - 7 million persons under some type of supervision.
• 12 million individuals cycle through the county jail systems in a given year for periods of less than a year.
• The U.S. prison population has increased by 700% since 1970, and has more than doubled since 1990.
• The U.S. incarceration rate is 693 per 100,000 residents, compared to 76 in Germany and 69 in the Netherlands.
• The United States has much longer sentences than any other part of the world. The typical mandatory sentence for a first-time drug offense in federal court is 5 or 10 years, compared to other developed countries around the world where a first time offense would warrant at most 6 months in jail. The average burglary sentence in the United States is 16 months, compared to 5 months in Canada and 7 months in England.
• The average length of prison sentences in the U.S. is 4.5 years, compared to 8 months in Norway.
• The average length of prison sentences in the U.S. has increased by 36% since 1990.
• About half of those in prison are away from home for 5 - 15 years at a time with little regard for their privacy, health, or safety, and with no effective rehabilitation.
• There are 600% more men in custody than woman (87% / 13%).
• Men receive sentences that are 63% longer, on average, than women who are convicted of the same crime.
• The number of inmates in for-profit prisons (profit driven private institutions) throughout the U.S. rose 44% in the past decade.
• 55% of male inmates and 73% of female inmates in state prisons are suffering from some kind of mental illness.
• More than 356,000 people with mental illnesses are incarcerated in the United States, which is 10x more than those who are rightfully receiving treatment in state hospitals (35,000).
• Mentally ill inmates stay incarcerated longer than other prisoners, and are disproportionately abused, beaten, and raped by other inmates.
• Inmates and their families are openly exploited financially. Under its current contract with phone service provider Global Tel*Link, the L.A. County Sheriff's Department receives 67.5% of the revenue generated from jail phone calls in "commission" kickbacks. It costs a minimum of $25 to have access to the phone service and $1.25 for the first minute of a call. Supplemental food purchases by family members can be marked up 500% or more as well in comparison to civilian supermarket prices.
• More than half of those released from prison will be rearrested. A 2005 study found that the recidivism rate was nearly 80%.
• One in three Americans has a criminal record.

There are millions of people being legally abused and exploited in this great country and we must begin making drastic changes to help them for the best collective interest of the United States citizenry. Prison Ref's purpose is to identify the many problems in America's Criminal Justice System and offer solutions in an effort to correct them.

More than thirty years ago I was sleeping peacefully while a woman was being raped in the very next room. The man assaulting her had climbed up a ladder and entered the living-room through an open window. Accepting the seemingly inevitable outcome that she had helplessly suffered first when she was only seven years old, my mother asked only that the man be quiet so he wouldn't wake me. Mom overdosed shortly after the attack and we never lived together again. I can still remember the red lights flashing on the fire trucks as I was returning home from riding my bike around the block. Several years later it was me who was being prayed upon. After a few more decades of masking her unbearable pain with drugs and alcohol and supporting her addictions through prostitution, Mom finally couldn't be resuscitated in the summer of 2006. I was nonchalantly rubber-stamped for hell as a registered sex offender by America's degenerated, "Gotcha!" legal system in 2012.

No one was there to help my mother and I when each of us were sexually misled and abused on so many occasions, and yet our Criminal Justice System was just chomping at the bit to mercilessly shame and condemn us for being inappropriate. In the United States we are sexually damned in a vicious judicial paradox. First we are literally forced into hyper-sexuality as our government actively permits us to be surrounded by ever increasingly risque sexual suggestion for its own monetary profit, often to the extent of turning a blind eye to it's own laws. Then we are crucified in a false public display of correction at the first hint of sexual impropriety in order to further exploit us. Families are intimidated by the fear-driven tactics of law enforcement to the point of entirely forfeiting their right to help safeguard their children through practical discussion of sexual issues and concerns.

The specious intensity of human sexuality in today's society is a kind of synthetic drug that has been strategically manufactured and distributed to appease the insatiable greed of modern commercialism. So many people are feeling inadequate, over exposed and out of control as they unavoidably fail to maintain an unrealistic expectation of greatly disproportionate sexual-gratification. The resulting social tension and defensiveness has unfortunately set many of us at odds with one another. My mother and I never really had a chance in the absence of someone willing and qualified to help us understand that our lives had become dangerously and unacceptably inappropriate. Sleg Hammer's purpose is to help people safely and responsibly navigate the highly subjective landscape of human sexuality by objectively communicating its influences, impact, boundaries and consequences.