The Senator's Wife
Ladyvet
Prolog
A decades-long shift in the American political and legal systems to an
ultraconservative fundamentalist government has changed the nation profoundly.
It started with President Bush's Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade and
culminated in a patriarchy in which women were practically chattel. The press
became a tool of the government, allowing events to occur without scrutiny or
publicity. The Prison-Industrial Complex became a major revenue generator as
well as a political force. Employers made billions of dollars of excess profits
employing inmates. Captive workers received neither wages nor benefits.
Politicians remained in office by doing everything possible to appear tougher on
crime than their opponents. Parole and early release were abolished. New laws
with tougher mandatory sentences proliferated to satisfy the public's demand for
safety from crime, punishment for miscreants and the ever-increasing needs of
the Prison-Industrial Complex. Three Strike Laws mandating life in prison were
invoked against everyone convicted of three crimes, whether felonies or
misdemeanors. Of the twelve million Americans incarcerated, over forty percent
were women. Many were serving lengthy or life sentences for performing or
receiving abortions, bearing children out of wedlock, committing adultery and
other non-violent offenses. The privatized prison system was run on a for-profit
basis. The prison-based economy was dependent on an ever-increasing number of
slave laborers. Thomas Jefferson's warning that a people willing to sacrifice
liberty for security deserved neither had long been forgotten.
