Untwisting Reality

The Prison Industrial Complex

• By Poetry X
• 27 April, 2014
• 1 Comment

There are very few things where the United States is number one, and one of them is that the US has the biggest prison population on the entire world – per capita and in absolute numbers, many call it “the prison industrial complex.” The US represents only 5% of the world population, but has 25% on the entire imprisoned global population. In addition, The US is number one when it comes to send juveniles to detention centers. It must be noted our taxes fund the prison system but is run in a big part by private corporations and they make profits in record numbers. Up to 2011, for-profit prisons held about 6% of state prisoners and 16% of federal prisoners. In 2010, the two largest private prison companies received nearly $3B in revenue, and their top executives received annual compensation packages worth well over $3M [ACLU Nov 2nd 2011]. Just on juvenile corrections itself, it is estimated that the US wastes about $6B each year, since different approaches could get better results [Washington Post Jun 15th 2013]. Law enforcement takes advantage of any minor opportunity to provide prisons with a lofty number of “law offenders”. For example, nearly half of undocumented immigrants detained by the federal government are in a for-profit prison and through the program known as Operation Streamline the US puts immigrants behind bars up to six months before they are deported [Huffington Post Sep 6th 2013].

There have been major scandals with judges sentencing law offenders, although these scandals are poorly covered by the television networks due to their close links with the prison corporations. Judges have been caught receiving incentive payments in order to give the longest sentence to the alleged law offenders. We have the “kids-for-cash” scheme where Mark Ciavarella Jr. and Michael Conahan, judges from Pennsylvania, were caught taking bribes and kickbacks for putting juveniles into prison for-profit detention centers, centers owned by Ciavarella’s friends. Ciaravella would cash in about $2.8M for sending kids for detention. [Capitalism, a Love Story by Michael Moore ] Harley Lappin retired as the director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons just a month before becoming the executive vice president and chief corrections of the CCA (Corrections Corporation of America), the largest private prison in the United States. [Democracy Now Jun 8th 2011]

In addition to this issue of unjust sentencing, the government itself has compromised to fill prisons with a constant flow of law offenders in order to maximize profits for private companies. Inmate lockup quotas imposed by private prisons may range from 80% to 100%. For example, in 2012, CCA (Corrections Corporation of America), the largest private prison company in the US, offered to 48 states governors to sign a 20-year contract if the states guaranteed 90% occupancy. The effect can be seen in Colorado where three private prisons cost an additional $2M of taxpayer money due to these occupancy requirements though crime has dropped by a third. On top of that, far away of these companies giving any benefit to the crime problem, actually they cut expenses even more resulting on less safety, overcrowding, areas without secure doors and an increase in crime both inside the prison and in the communities where they function. [AlterNet Sep 20th 2013]

But we have a “democracy,” so where is the problem with “our elected” authorities giving contracts to corporations such as CCA? Well, private corrections political donations during 9 years (since 2004) amounted for at least $400,000. So, wonder how our politicians go so easily in signing these for profit contracts [Huffington Post Jan 6-2014].

In a related matter, it was found the DEA has been using NSA wiretap information to go after law offenders, a practice that is illegal whatsoever. Law enforcement has been instructed to cover up this practice no to let the public know about this unconstitutional practice – a direct violation of the 4th, 5^th and 6^th amendments [Reuters Aug 5th 2013]. However, we can deduct this practice helps to fulfill the quotas impose on the states by private prison companies. That sounds like a conspiracy but let’s consider police force functions in terms of fulfilling theirs “statistics”. That means they have to make arrests and issue tickets, which implies that some, or maybe many police departments, if not all, have imposed arrest and ticket quotas on their officers. It is alleged that the Auburn, Alabama police department has imposed on their officers a 100 contacts quota, which includes among other “violations”, traffic stops, issuing warrants, field interviews and arrests. This would require about two contacts per shift hour to each law enforcer. [Reason TV Jul 26th 2013] An important aspect of this is Stop and Frisk, which actually implies the same kind of practice but is called performance calls in the case of New York. [The Atlantic Wire Apr 30th 2013] Let’s not put aside the racist aspect of this practice, after all the vast majority of prisoners are minorities. In fact, New York Police Department Commissioner Raymond Kelly was caught bragging about how stop-and-frisk allows installing fear in minorities [Think Progress Apr 2nd 2013]. Not surprisingly, it is alleged that police men actually implant drugs on individuals in order to make the numbers of the day [Huffington Post Oct 13th 2011 / Los Angeles Times Apr 23-14].

As a business model, the prison industrial complex works smoothly in a sinister way. The government defunds schools, takes workers’ rights away, lets corporations outsource labor and as result, the demand for prisons increases. Some describe this vicious cycle as the “school to prison pipeline” – as schools are defunded and closed, mass incarceration increases. There we have our own government intentionally destroying the educational system to let charter schools in. There are less and less incentives for teacher to stay or even start that profession [The Atlantic Oct 18th 2013]. A much deeper component of the prison industrial complex is the racist system that stands strong against minorities, especially black people.  The media constantly embrace the idea we are living a post racial time but statistics and reports show differently –  blacks over-represent the prison population.