Final perspectives and views on the PIC

  A link that Prisonsucks.com has to offer is “Nine Perspectives for Prison Abolitionists.” This was a helpful handbook for me because it solidified my views as a prison abolitionist, which is an extremely leftist approach to the Prison Industrial complex. The main points that led me to become a prison abolitionist were:

1.     The multibillion-dollar industry of prisons and using prison labor feeds off of the powerless and voiceless of our country in order to financially benefit.

2.      Rehabilitation has become non-existent part of the criminal justice system. Instead, the goal of prisons has become more about obedience and punishment.

3.     The atmosphere of prisons has become hopeless, and the inmates have become a number, they are no longer human once they are incarcerated.

 

So, the main issue with these three points is that they explain how the prison system has violated human rights and civil rights. These are a problem for the larger community and society as a whole because if these prisoners are not being rehabilitated at all, they are going to fall into the same pattern when they are released. Prisoners are not going to automatically have the resources to become law-abiding citizens when they are released if they are not given them while they are incarcerated. Examples of this “rehabilitation” might be, education, social responsibility training, job training, learning about their individual skills and what they have to offer society. Everyone has something positive to offer this world and many prisoners have become so hopeless because of the oppression that they feel on the outside and inside, they do not know this about themselves. Therefore, helping prisoners to realize what they can give to the world and what their purpose is, becomes a huge part of rehabilitation and recognizing that these inmates are actually humans that deserve the same things that everyone does. The simple fact that someone makes a mistake in their life weather it be selling drugs or commiting murder does not mean that they are worthless. But, this is the message that they are being told by our current criminal justice system and so this is why I am so committed to changing this system. Prisonsucks.com gives these nine vies to begin this movement for change in the prison industrial complex:

Perspective 1: Imprisonment is morally reprehensible and indefensible and must be abolished. In an enlightened free society, prison cannot endure or it will prevail. Abolition is a long range goal; an ideal. The eradication of any oppressive system is not an easy task. But it is realizable, like the abolition of slavery or any liberation, so long as there is the will to engage in the struggle.

Perspective 2: The message of abolition requires "honest" language and new definitions. Language is related to power. We do not permit those in power to control our vocabulary. Using "system language" to call prisoners "inmates" or punishment "treatment," denies prisoners the reality of their experience and makes us captives of the old system. Our own language and definitions empower us to define the prison realistically.

Perspective 3: Abolitionists believe reconciliation, not punishment, is a proper response to criminal acts. The present criminal (in)justice systems focus on someone to punish, caring little about the criminal's need or the victim's loss. The abolitionist response seeks to restore both the criminal and the victim to full humanity, to lives of integrity and dignity in the community. Abolitionists advocate the least amount of coercion and intervention in an individual's life and the maximum amount of care and services to all people in the society.

Perspective 4: Abolitionists work with prisoners but always remain "nonmembers" of the established prison system. Abolitionists learn how to walk the narrow line between relating to prisoners inside the system and remaining independent and "outside" that system. We resist the compelling psychological pressures to be "accepted" by people in the prison system. We are willing to risk pressing for changes that are beneficial to and desired by prisoners. In relating to those in power, we differentiate between the personhood of system managers (which we respect) and their role in perpetuating an oppressive system.

Perspective 5: Abolitionists are "allies" of prisoners rather than traditional "helpers." We have forged a new definition of what is trulyhelpful to the caged, keeping in mind both the prisoner's perspective and the requirements of abolition. New insights into old, culture-laden views of the "helping relationship" strengthen our roles as allies of prisoners.

Perspective 6: Abolitionists realize that the empowerment of prisoners and ex-prisoners is crucial to prison system change. Most people have the potential to determine their own needs in terms of survival, resources and programs. We support self-determination of prisoners and programs which place more power in the hands of those directly affected by the prison experience.

Perspective 7: Abolitionists view power as available to each of us for challenging and abolishing the prison system. We believe that citizens are the source of institutional power. By giving support toÑor withholding support from-specific policies and practices, patterns of power can be altered.

Perspective 8: Abolitionists believe that crime is mainly a consequence of the structure of society. We devote ourselves to a community change approach. We would drastically limit the role of the criminal (in)justice systems. We advocate public solutions to public problems-greater resources and services for all people.

Perspective 9: Abolitionists believe that it is only in a caring community that corporate and individual redemption can take place. We view the dominant culture as more in need of "correction" than the prisoner. The caring communities have yet to he built.

Educational Funding in Prisons

Funding for educational programs in prisons has almost been completely demolished. According to an article by Gillian Granoff, “In 1994 the government issued a federal crime bill, which made inmates ineligible to receive Pell Grants that had provided scholarships for prisoners to earn a bachelors degree while incarcerated.” Furthermore, in terms of spending, “Funding for prison college programs were eliminated, leading to the closing of some 350 such programs nationwide. Many states, including New York, barred inmates from taking college extension courses. Even secondary education programs suffered.” My question is then, why are we cutting funding and making it nearly impossible for inmates to get an education when our justice system is supposed to be (at least somewhat) about rehabilitation? It does not seem as though these new policies are in correlation with the values that the judicial system was based upon.

Researchers have even found that keeping a prisoner in jail for one year instead of sending that person to college is ten times more costly. So, if it is not about the money then why not implement educational programs in prisons? My theory is that the judicial system is no longer concerned with rehabilitation or even with the rights or well being of inmates.

Because the judicial system is terrified of this image being spread, some people in defense of the system have come up with five ways in which universities and prisons will be linked to “improve the education of inmates.” These include book drives for inmates, GED tutoring program, and some actual college level courses. Although Gillian Granoff views these programs in an extremely positive light and as a huge accomplishment I would beg to differ. Yes these programs are probably great however; there are only five of them! We have over 1,200 prisons in the United States and Gillian Granoff can only come up with five higher learning programs for these approximately two million people? Something is wrong, this cannot be a good thing and I would highly suggest that she and the readers of this article think critically about the right to education.

Source: http://www.educationupdate.com/archives/2005/May/html/FEAT-BehindBars.html

Schools as Prisons

http://www-unix.oit.umass.edu/~kastor/private/schools-as-prisons.html
This article describes how in recent years, schools have been built that represent prisons. The main two ways the article describes this correlation was through structure and surveillance. Overall, this shows that the educational system has no faith in their youth. They do not trust or have any expectations for the students and when this happens, the youth will fulfill the expectations of the institutions and teachers but not surpass them.
This is simply another way for prisons to get more inmates and, as the number of private prisons is increasing, this is profitable for these institutions. Why would the government want to support these private companies if they are not directly profiting from them? Well, most private prisons donate large amounts of money to campaigns for elected officials. When these people are elected then, they look out for the interests of these private institutions. Therefore, nobody will question the growth of prisons because the majority of the population see’s the crackdown on crime as beneficial to our society.
The intention behind building this school was that it would reduce violence in and around the school. This was not the case however because according to the article, “Repression hasn't halted growing violence outside the schools, and the schools ARE a microcosm of the world around them. Figures from the National School Safety Center show that during the 1993-1994 school year 46 students were killed on school grounds during the school day. Moreover, 3 million felonies and misdemeanors are committed at schools annually, and the severity of crimes has increased.” If these results have already been determined, why is this a model that many other states and school districts are looking at? In my opinion, I do not think that this type of school structure is conducive to youth growth and development both educationally and mentally. Instead we should have high expectations for our students and trust them. That is not to say that if they get caught doing something they should not be punished or talked to. In the beginning, they should be given trust and if they do something to take that trust away then they can be monitored but also given a chance to regain that trust.

Suggestions for Change in the PIC

The suggestion for the abolition of prisons is always an uncomfortable topic. We know many of the ways that prisons are hindering our society these are including but not limited to:

·Civil Rights violations

·Human Rights violations

·Disinterest in rehabilitation

·Criminalization of entire communities (mainly communities of color)

            So, now that we are able to identify the main problems, what do we do about them? Is there a way to change these things? What should we as a society be fighting for exactly? These are all good and viable questions and it is difficult to say that the system that we have right now can be reformed into a positive place for rehabilitation. So many people and organizations agree that it would be best to tear our whole prison systems down and rebuild with completely new ideals in mind. Some of the ideals I would suggest we should hold in mind when reorganizing would be:

·Rehabilitation

·Individual rights

·Moving away from the objective to make money using prison labor

·Creating a cohesive community

            I am not suggesting that I have all of the answers, but our governmental structure is set up in a way where these things are not really possible. People are invested in the individualistic ideals and so it is very difficult for people to come together for a common good because, the people with the power are always going to be lifting themselves up while stepping on the “lesser” people to achieve their goals. In a perfect world and idealistic vacuum however, we could educate everyone on these issues and make them see that it is not always about tying to achieve the “American Dream” but that realistically we must work together to achieve a common goal for the most people rather than this individualistic outlook that realistically keeps the majority of people from achieving their goals. So, my suggestion for change then is to look at these ideals and others and move away from our learned way of thinking and towards a more reality based viewpoint on the prison industrial complex.  

Resource: http://www.criticalresistancegainesville.net/article.php?preview=1&cache=0&id=58

California's Proposition 5

Links: http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/suneditorials/la-oew-cooley-kreit31-2008oct31,0,4173671.story

http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/11/damn_lies_shenanigans_to_stop_drug_bette

            Proposition 5 was on the ballot for California this weeks election. Although it did not pass, this was a wonderful attempt at reducing the prison population. As the article outlines, the proposition would give more money to drug rehabilitation programs and crime prevention programs to hopefully rehabilitate rather than merely punish and incarcerate.

            This article presented both sides of issue however the argument against the proposition was at the end of the article and left a sour taste in the reader’s mouth. Also, the argument for the proposition was not as strong as the argument against in terms of how it was presented. This article was published in the Los Angeles Times, which is a huge news source for many people in California.

            The argument against the proposition is that it will actually increase crime rates. They say that this proposition would allow for the sate to be more lenient on crime and especially drug offenders who are “selling and distributing drugs to our children” they say that more people would become drug dealers because the state would not prosecute them as hard. However, this is not necessarily true and evidence for this has been supported and shown in the second article.  

            Finally, the group that was most invested in this proposition failing was the people and companies involved and invested in the California Prison Industrial Complex. “All the key players [in the California prison industrial complex] are insulated from any critical feedback and they are all feeding off each other, each getting more bloated with more power and money,” Nadelmann says. “In each case it is going to be citizens and tax payers who bear the brunt of the burden of government’s irresponsibility.” (thestranger.com)

website analysis

Link: prisonindustrialcomplex.org

This website is a good start and attempt at addressing the issues presented in the Prison Industrial Complex. However, with this strong website name I would have expected it to go further in depth about what the PIC’s objectives are, what they are doing, who is affected, and why it is bad. Instead, in this website the creator (George H. Russell) speaks very strongly in opposition to the complex and calls for education and change but it is not a very informative website.

George H. Russell gives a list of companies that benefit from the imprisonment of others he says that some of these are:

1. Contractors who built prisons along with the hundreds of sub-contractors that make specialized prison beds, toilets, window bars, toilets, locks etc.



2. Food services that unload hundreds of tons of inferior food products on our prison population.



3. Clothing manufacturers who manufacture not only guard uniforms but prison uniforms as well, plus the silly garb that is given to convicts upon release.



4. Other profiteers include gun manufacturers, those who make the chemicals used to kill our citizens, casket makers for the dead ones, the medical profession tasked with keeping the condemned alive until they can be put to death, and even the P.R. operatives who lie to the press about the system and its abuses. 


            The problem with this list is that it does not include the companies that use prisoners to make and build or sell their products such as long distance telephone companies, GM, Chevron, IBM, Motorola, Compaq, Texas Instruments, Honeywell, Microsoft, Victoria's Secret and Boeing. Federal prisons operate under the trade name Unicor and use their prisoners to make everything from lawn furniture to congressional desks. This irony is sad and true simultaneously, prisoners are trapped in a system where they are subconsciously promoting their own oppression. 

video review: a corrupt criminal justice system

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wJ47wqZ0xE&feature=related

This video shows an aspect of the judicial system and specifically how the police departments conducted business in a less then ethical manor. It focuses on repossessing property and money for the profit of the individual police officers and the departments in general. This sort of corruption happens everywhere but the difference between the United States and other countries is that as a public, we are ignorant and naive to what goes on behind the scenes.

For example, when I studied abroad in Argentina last semester, I took an Argentina History class. This was different from any U.S History class I have ever taken and actually was more closely representative of a Comparative Ethnic Studies class. Even though they only have less than one percent native population left because of mass genocide, they still knew that this was wrong and explained what happened. Also, they were aware of the reasons and details behind their corrupt government. I personally even paid off an argentine policeman with one hundred pesos. I’m not saying that this is right but it is better when the public is aware of the corruption rather than ignorant like we are. 

Argentina also does not have a very high prison population. There were periods in time under different military rule when the incarceration rate climbed but it was not for the purpose of stimulating the economy through prison labor. We are one of the only countries that enslaves our prison population and in my opinion this is not by accident. I think that other countries have not adopted this aspect of systematic oppression because they know that it is wrong and because their people are well educated they will not stand for such injustices. 

article review

Link: http://apha.confex.com/apha/136am/techprogram/paper_181097.htm

            This article came from the “Public Health with No Borders” and looks at incarceration in a new light. This author views incarceration as a disease that affects many people and therefore the people around them as well are susceptible to “catching” this disease as well. They argue that because of the host (people already incarcerated that they are close to), environment (area in which they live) and agents (the Prison Industrial Complex) certain people are more likely to become victims of incarceration as well.

            The problem with this is that it does not place very much, if any blame on the Prison Industrial Complex. They are more concerned with individual persons and the environment rather than why these things occur. They do not discuss why people of color and women specifically (in this article) are targeted and victims of an oppressive governmental system that is more concerned with punishment than rehabilitation. In the article they discuss options for change at the individual level and although it is important to create change on every level surrounding this issue it is not addressing the larger picture.

            In a world that is continually concerned with the individual, we need to shift our focus to the collective. No progress or real change can happen when we look purely at the individual level. When this happens it is too easy to say “but they are an exception that is not what most people have to deal with.” This is not true, often times if one person experiences something many people have also had the same hardship or feeling of oppression. Therefore, it is important to realize these things when making plans for change and education.  

awareness

Who is aware of the prison oppression in our country?

Most communities of color know that they are targeted by the police and justice systems. Most lower class people of color know what their fate in this country is and have little to no hope for breaking out of this cycle.

            If it is true that our government spends more money on incarcerating individuals than it does on higher education, something is wrong. How can this government justify this distribution of spending? It is because incarceration, especially in private prisons is often times more profitable because of the businesses that they are using prison labor to make or sell their product. These businesses that solicit prison slave labor then often times donate extremely large amounts of money to our elected officials who make budget decisions regarding prison expansion.

            This is not very well known information. It is often kept very ‘hush hush’ and for understandable reasons. Most members of congress do not want this information known. Therefore, the people who are aware of this information are the people it affects the most who often are the lower class people of color who do not have any power to change this.

             Because our national community is so stratified and through time civic engagement has become less important people have a difficult time organizing to create change. If you are not the group with the power you need many individuals in order to create any kind of change or even be heard. Therefore in order to create change especially on this issue, we need to work together to make our voices heard. 

More problems with the PIC

            The mass exodus of the middle and working class has added to the growth of the prison industrial complex because it forced the poor lower class, generally people of color, into the inner cities creating a smaller and easier place for the police to patrol. Also, with the war on drugs this centralization of lower socio-economic population made it easier to arrest these people under the “war on drugs” created by the Nixon administration.

            “Reganomics increased class and racial polarization, destroyed inner cities, sacked public education and public health services, created epidemic homelessness, increased exploitation of workers and caused the intensified spatial concentration of a permanently unemployed class.” Finally, the mass exodus of manufacturing jobs outside the U.S. contributed to the prison industrial complex because businesses realized that they could profit more if they exported their jobs to third world nations where they could pay the workers much less then they would in the U.S. Along with third world nations, institutions also realized they could bring their businesses to correctional facilities where they could pay workers (slave laborers) even less.

            I believe prisons are a space for state-sponsored terrorism. I believe that prisons are a breeding ground for gang violence including but not limited to, violence, rape and other crimes. If the goal of prisons is to punish people for the crimes they have committed so they will become a “better person” when they get out, as a society we are not doing a successful job. If the majority of people in prisons are there for non-violent property and drug crimes, how is putting these people in an environment that breeds this kind of behavior helping anyone? Well, forcing these prisoners into this “prison culture” causes them to continue this behavior when they get out and then get caught again getting wrapped up in the cycle of the system which some including myself believe this is intentional. 

"Slam"

In the movie “Slam” written by Saul Williams, a young Black man named Raymond Joshua is subjected to the oppressive prison industrial complex. He is growing up in urban America and has he struggles to survive in this world he resorts to selling weed. One night while he was buying marijuana, his counterpart is shot in the head. Ray gets caught by the police and told by his district attorney that he can plea guilty and get two or three years, or if he chooses to take the case to trial he will most likely get up to ten years for possession of a quarter pound of marijuana.

The significance of this first few moments of the movie is that it shows how our justice system is designed to fail. At the time of its creation, our justice system worked wonderfully. However over time, and with the incorporation of corporate America into our correctional facilities it has failed. Or has it? Perhaps this is exactly what our government wanted. Perhaps they needed to harness the slave labor of incarcerated persons in order to advance our economy and so they began to target our low socioeconomic status communities because they have the least power and therefore are the least likely to fight back. One of the core ideologies of this country is that money is power and perhaps our government has used this statement in the reverse intention in order to advance their own interests and goals of the elite.

“Slam” does a wonderful job laying out the paradox of why a poor black man growing up in a low socioeconomic area is 30% more likely to be incarcerated at some point in his life than the rest of the male population. These reasons themselves do not make sense however, that it is why it is important to explain them to the public and address these issues as well as ask questions. People do not often realize the system is like this and the general population often assumes that people in prison did something wrong and got caught. They don’t look further into why this is and that is why this movie is so good, because it raises many of these questions. 

Introduction to the PIC

The Prison Industrial Complex (PIC) refers to the fairly recent phenomenon of using incarcerated persons as cheep and almost slave labor.  There are many problems associated with this complex that correlate to issues of class, gender, sexuality but mainly racial inequalities. The private and governmental organizations that thrive off of incarcerated labor argue that they are using this “resource” to solve social and economic problems. However, in actuality, they are feeding off of the powerless in order to advance their own agendas.

            An interesting statistic I found on prisonsucks.com was that during South African apartheid (1993), 851 of ever 100,000 black people were incarcerated. While in 2006 under president George W. Bush, 4,789 of ever 100,000 black people were incarcerated in the United States. So, how do we get a 5.8 times higher rate than the most openly racist country in the world? I believe the hidden agendas of government officials along with the for-profit companies such as AT&T (largest employer) that make this sort of statistic happen. In order for our economy to run the way it does, we need this extremely large population to use, sometimes paying as low as $0.17 an hour.

            Does all of this evidence mean that prisons are obsolete? I will discuss a lot of Angela Y. Davis’s ideas from her book, “Are Prisons Obsolete?” where she discusses the issues of the PIC along with explaining the Prison Abolition movement. Some of her main points include the idea that prison labor and prisons in general are mirrors of slavery, that the prison system along with the criminal justice system is designed to incarcerate as many people of color as possible and that there is nothing being done in order to reform this organization. Here are some statistics to support this point:

• “Almost two million people are behind prison and jail bars in the United States. 70% of those incarcerated/locked down/made to disappear are people of color. 

• The fastest growing group of prisoners is black women. Per capita the most numerous group are Native Americans.

• In 1994, one in three black men between the ages of 20-29 were in prison, jail, on probation or on parole. In 1995, 47% of state and federal inmates were black, the largest group behind bars

• Black men were 7 times more likely than white men to be in prison. In 1993, Asians, Pacific Islanders, American Indians, and Alaskan natives made up 2% of prison population. Native Americans are 10 times more likely than whites to be imprisoned. Latinos are the fastest growing group behind bars.

• Between 1985 and 1995 Latinos jumped from 10% of all state and federal inmates to 18%. In 1993, whites made up 74% of the general population, but only 36% of federal and state prison inmates. In 1970, there were 5,600 women in federal and state prisons.

• By 1996 there were 75,000. 60% of that population are black and Latina. In 1993, the overall incarceration rate for juveniles was 221 per 1000,000; for Latino youth it was 481 per 100,000; and for black youth it was 810 per 100,000.”

 

Sources:

Davis, Angela Y. Are Prisons Obsolete? Steven Stories Press, New York. 2003.

Lenord, David CES 494 Syllabus http://www.libarts.wsu.edu/ces/FL07course&syl%20adobe/494leonard.pdf

Prison Policy Initiative. Prisonsucks.com, Northampton, MA September 10, 2008