condemning what they are calling a new form of inhumane exploitation
in the United States, where they say a prison population of up to
2 million - mostly Black and Hispanic - are working for various
industries for a pittance. For the tycoons who have invested in
the prison industry, it has been like finding a pot of gold. They
don't have to worry about strikes or paying unemployment insurance,
vacations or comp time. All of their workers are full-time, and
never arrive late or are absent because of family problems; moreover,
if they don't like the pay of 25 cents an hour and refuse to work,
they are locked up in isolation cells.
There are approximately 2 million inmates in state, federal and
private prisons throughout the country. According to California
Prison Focus, "no other society in human history has imprisoned so
many of its own citizens." The figures show that the United States
has locked up more people than any other country: a half million
more than China, which has a population five times greater than
the U.S. Statistics reveal that the United States holds 25% of the
world's prison population, but only 5% of the world's people. From
less than 300,000 inmates in 1972, the jail population grew to 2
million by the year 2000. In 1990 it was one million. Ten years
ago there were only five private prisons in the country, with
a population of 2,000 inmates; now, there are 100, with 62,000
inmates. It is expected that by the coming decade, the number will
hit 360,000, according to reports.
What has happened over the last 10 years? Why are there so many
prisoners?
"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 work force. 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."
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."
According to the Left Business Observer, the federal prison
industry produces 100% of all military helmets, ammunition belts,
bullet-proof vests, ID tags, shirts, pants, tents, bags, and
canteens. Along with war supplies, prison workers supply 98% of
the entire market for equipment assembly services; 93% of paints
and paintbrushes; 92% of stove assembly; 46% of body armor; 36%
of home appliances; 30% of headphones/microphones/
of office furniture. Airplane parts, medical supplies, and much more:
prisoners are even raising seeing-eye dogs for blind people.
Crime Goes Down, Jail Population Goes Up
According to reports by human rights organizations, these are the
factors that increase the profit potential for those who invest in
the prison industry complex:
* Jailing persons convicted of non-violent crimes, and long
prison sentences for possession of microscopic quantities of
illegal drugs. Federal law stipulates five years' imprisonment
without possibility of parole for possession of 5 grams of crack
or 3.5 ounces of heroin, and 10 years for possession of less than 2
ounces of rock-cocaine or crack. A sentence of 5 years for cocaine
powder requires possession of 500 grams - 100 times more than the
quantity of rock cocaine for the same sentence. Most of those who
use cocaine powder are white, middle-class or rich people, while
mostly Blacks and Latinos use rock cocaine. In Texas, a person may
be sentenced for up to two years' imprisonment for possessing 4
ounces of marijuana. Here in New York, the 1973 Nelson Rockefeller
anti-drug law provides for a mandatory prison sentence of 15 years
to life for possession of 4 ounces of any illegal drug.
* The passage in 13 states of the "three strikes" laws (life in
prison after being convicted of three felonies), made it necessary
to build 20 new federal prisons. One of the most disturbing cases
resulting from this measure was that of a prisoner who for stealing
a car and two bicycles received three 25-year sentences.
* Longer sentences.
* The passage of laws that require minimum sentencing, without
regard for circumstances.
* A large expansion of work by prisoners creating profits that
motivate the incarceration of more people for longer periods of time.
* More punishment of prisoners, so as to lengthen their sentences.
History Of Prison Labor In The United States
Prison labor has its roots in slavery. After the 1861-1865 Civil
War, a system of "hiring out prisoners" was introduced in order to
continue the slavery tradition. Freed slaves were charged with not
carrying out their sharecropping commitments (cultivating someone
else's land in exchange for part of the harvest) or petty thievery
- which were almost never proven - and were then "hired out"
for cotton picking, working in mines and building railroads. From
1870 until 1910 in the state of Georgia, 88% of hired-out convicts
were Black. In Alabama, 93% of "hired-out" miners were Black. In
Mississippi, a huge prison farm similar to the old slave plantations
replaced the system of hiring out convicts. The notorious Parchman
plantation existed until 1972.
During the post-Civil War period, Jim Crow racial segregation laws
were imposed on every state, with legal segregation in schools,
housing, marriages and many other aspects of daily life. "Today,
a new set of markedly racist laws is imposing slave labor and
sweatshops on the criminal justice system, now known as the prison
industry complex," comments the Left Business Observer.
Who is investing? 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. 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.
Thanks to prison labor, the United States is once again an attractive
location for investment in work that was designed for Third World
labor markets. A company that operated a maquiladora (assembly
plant in Mexico near the border) closed down its operations there
and relocated to San Quentin State Prison in California. In Texas,
a factory fired its 150 workers and contracted the services of
prisoner-workers from the private Lockhart Texas prison, where
circuit boards are assembled for companies like IBM and Compaq.
[Former] Oregon State Representative Kevin Mannix recently urged
Nike to cut its production in Indonesia and bring it to his state,
telling the shoe manufacturer that "there won't be any transportation
costs; we're offering you competitive prison labor (here)."
Private Prisons
The prison privatization boom began in the 1980s, under the
governments of Ronald Reagan and Bush Sr., but reached its height
in 1990 under William Clinton, when Wall Street stocks were selling
like hotcakes. Clinton's program for cutting the federal work force
resulted in the Justice Departments contracting of private prison
corporations for the incarceration of undocumented workers and
high-security inmates.
Private prisons are the biggest business in the prison industry
complex. About 18 corporations guard 10,000 prisoners in 27
states. The two largest are Correctional Corporation of America (CCA)
and Wackenhut, which together control 75%. Private prisons receive a
guaranteed amount of money for each prisoner, independent of what it
costs to maintain each one. According to Russell Boraas, a private
prison administrator in Virginia, "the secret to low operating
costs is having a minimal number of guards for the maximum number
of prisoners." The CCA has an ultra-modern prison in Lawrenceville,
Virginia, where five guards on dayshift and two at night watch over
750 prisoners. In these prisons, inmates may get their sentences
reduced for "good behavior," but for any infraction, they get 30 days
added - which means more profits for CCA. According to a study of
New Mexico prisons, it was found that CCA inmates lost "good behavior
time" at a rate eight times higher than those in state prisons.
Importing And Exporting Inmates
Profits are so good that now there is a new business: importing
inmates with long sentences, meaning the worst criminals. When a
federal judge ruled that overcrowding in Texas prisons was cruel and
unusual punishment, the CCA signed contracts with sheriffs in poor
counties to build and run new jails and share the profits. According
to a December 1998 Atlantic Monthly magazine article, this program
was backed by investors from Merrill-Lynch, Shearson-Lehman,
American Express and Allstate, and the operation was scattered all
over rural Texas. That state's governor, Ann Richards, followed the
example of Mario Cuomo in New York and built so many state prisons
that the market became flooded, cutting into private prison profits.
After a law signed by Clinton in 1996 - ending court supervision
and decisions - caused overcrowding and violent, unsafe conditions
in federal prisons, private prison corporations in Texas began
to contact other states whose prisons were overcrowded, offering
"rent-a-cell" services in the CCA prisons located in small towns
in Texas. The commission for a rent-a-cell salesman is $2.50 to
$5.50 per day per bed. The county gets $1.50 for each prisoner.
Statistics
Ninety-seven percent of 125,000 federal inmates have been convicted
of non-violent crimes. It is believed that more than half of the
623,000 inmates in municipal or county jails are innocent of the
crimes they are accused of. Of these, the majority are awaiting
trial. Two-thirds of the one million state prisoners have committed
non-violent offenses. Sixteen percent of the country's 2 million
prisoners suffer from mental illness.
The above by Vicky Pelaez
