Shipping off undesirables

Britain has a long history of removing problems in very direct fashion, specifically social problems.

We are all familiar with Australia's history as a prison for Britain, mentioned in Great Expectations and innumerable history books. Americans are possibly familiar with the state of Georgia's history as an early dumping ground for debtors and criminals.

However, criminals were not the only targets of such forceful movement. The poor were also forcibly moved. The tradition of relocation continued in the 20th century with council estates. The poor are moved from some slum in an urban area to a "nicer" council estate just outside of town, which then quickly becomes another slum only with more greenspace.

Social mores were also grounds for physical relocation. It's not difficult for an American to imagine that some of the religious groups that ended up founding the US were forced onto ships at gunpoint instead of leaving of their own volition. Pregnancy among single women was also a cause for social extradition, sending women to convents when they were fashionable, and sent away to prison-like institutions as in the movie the Magdalene Sisters, which takes place in Ireland.

But I had never heard of this.

Between the early 19th century and 1967, as many as 150,000 children were taken away from their families and sent to the colonies (such as Australia). While there, they found conditions ranging from adoption with families, to languishing in orphanages, to abuse, and slave labour. The Scotsman reports that Gordon Brown is going to apologise for this travesty.

Children were told stories of "The Cruelty Man" growing up, which was in actuality the ISPCC (Irish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children) or NSPCC (National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children). Such a man would take you away from your family if you were bad.

The one theme in all of these variations of a method is that not once do they begin to consider the underlying causes of criminality, or if they happen to get far enough, poverty. The poor are merely cattle to be herded in one direction or another, and indeed need to be herded, cajoled, and forced.

Is the US any better with its enormous prison population? Is it any better with its soup kitchens? Is it any better for town mayors to bid for corporations and bribe them to provide jobs for the local populace?