Think The Prison Industry Will Never Effect You?

Most people are not familiar with the US Prison Industry Complex and at the end of my Nemenhah comments I will offer some alarming statistics that leave none of us untouched.

Now a diatribe on a subject that deeply concerns me.

For people who are not experienced with the probation system, they may not realize the seriousness of it and that the system exists only by a never ending flow of more human bodies, creating more crimes, often victim less, and finding more people to commit those “crimes” and who will thus eventually fall under the probationary system or the greater prison industry complex..

Without new crimes, the easiest fodder for the probation system is obtained from “violating” those already on probation. 

They are already in the system, already vulnerable, and with the thousands of unknown laws, it would be very easy to “violate” the person so that he would have to remain and continue to pay money into the system, which continues to feed the gluttonous system. 

 It takes so little for a person's life to be drastically effected and often destroyed by the break up of families, careers and health consequences, and is very much at the whim of the probation officer. It is truly an example of a wicked circle.

If you think that you or those you know will never be effected by the prison system and the resultant probation, you may want to give it another thought. Here are some simple facts that may surprise you: (information excerpted from Wikipedia & http://www.doublestandards.org/pelaez1.html )

The Prison Industry is the largest growth industry in the United States

The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world.

More people are behind bars in the United States than any other country.

Halliburton ( Kellogg Brown & Root) was recently awarded a $385 million contract to construct detention centers in the United States

The United States has 5% of the world's population and 25% of the world's incarcerated population

As of 2006, a record 7 million people were behind bars in the United States, on probation or on parole

Of the total, 2.2 million were incarcerated.

The People's Republic of China ranks second with 1.5 million, though China has over four times the population of the US.

Russia with a mere 870,000.

What has happened over the last 10 years? Why are there so many prisoners? Why does the US have more than any other country, including the third world countries with their deplorable reputations?
"The private contracting of prisoners for work fosters incentives to lock people up. Prisons depend on this income. Corporate stockholders who make money off prisoners' work lobby for longer sentences, in order to expand their workforce.
 The system feeds itself, " says a study by the Progressive Labor Party, which accuses the prison industry of being "an imitation of Nazi Germany with respect to forced slave labor and concentration camps."

In recent years, there has been much debate over the privatization of prisons. The argument for privatization stresses cost reduction, whereas the arguments against it focus on standards of care, and the question of whether a market economy for prisons might not also lead to a market demand for prisoners (tougher sentencing for cheap labor). While privatized prisons have only a short history, there is a long tradition of inmates in state and federal-run prisons undertaking active employment in prison for low pay.

Who is investing in the US Prison Industry Complex?

At least 37 states have legalized the contracting of prison labor by private corporations that mount their operations inside state prisons. The list of such companies contains the cream of U.S. corporate society:

IBM

Boeing

Motorola

Microsoft

AT&T Wireless

Texas Instrument

Dell

Compaq

Honeywell

Hewlett-Packard

Nortel

Lucent Technologies

3Com

Intel

Northern Telecom

TWA

Nordstrom's

Revlon

Macy's

Pierre Cardin

Target Stores... and many more.

No need to ship jobs & businesses offshore, when we can lock people up here and force them to work.

All of these businesses are excited about the economic boom generation by prison labor. Just between 1980 and 1994, profits went up from $392 million to $1.31 billion. Inmates in state penitentiaries generally receive the minimum wage for their work, but not all; in Colorado, they get about $2 per hour, well under the minimum. And in privately-run prisons, they receive as little as 17 cents per hour for a maximum of six hours a day, the equivalent of $20 per month.

The highest-paying private prison is CCA in Tennessee, where prisoners receive 50 cents per hour for what they call "highly skilled positions." At those rates, it is no surprise that inmates find the pay in federal prisons to be very generous. There, they can earn $1.25 an hour and work eight hours a day, and sometimes overtime. They can send home $200-$300 per month.

The prison industry complex is one of the fastest-growing industries in the United States and its investors are on Wall Street. "This multimillion-dollar industry has its own trade exhibitions, conventions, websites, and mail-order/Internet catalogs. It also has direct advertising campaigns, architecture companies, construction companies, investment houses on Wall Street, plumbing supply companies, food supply companies, armed security, and padded cells in a large variety of colors."

An additional fact, left unmentioned, is that of the 37 states that have contracts with the prison industry, and that state agencies MUST purchase from the prison system rather than a private business, IF that item is made by the prison industry. So, private businesses will lose contracts to prison industry. Here is an enlightening website from the state of Washington.

Washington State Dept of Corrections Online Shopping

http://www.doc.wa.gov/business/correctionalindustries.asp

Books have been written, and no doubt more will be, about the potential social, economical, moral & ethical consequences of there being financial incentives for locking up people, keeping them in the system and favoring prison industry contractors rather than the private sector.

http://www.unicor.gov/index.cfm federal prison industry inc

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8289 Prison industry, slavery or big business?

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig9/bacon1.html Involuntary servitude

http://www.tbrnews.org/Archives/a2846.htm prison ships

http://www.prisonactivist.org/prison-labor/ prison labor links, by state

http://www.texemarrs.com/052008/detention_camps_are_real.htm

NOTE:  I wrote this article several years ago and shudder to consider how much more entrenched it is today and how many more lives are impacted.

Toni