Slammed: Welcome to the Age of Incarceration

[flashl]

by Jennifer Gonnerman
July 26, 2008 by Mother Jones

The number first appeared in headlines earlier this year: Nearly one in four of all prisoners worldwide is incarcerated in America. It was just the latest such statistic. Today, one in nine African American men between the ages of 20 and 34 is locked up. In 1970, our prisons held fewer than 200,000 people; now that number exceeds 1.5 million, and when you add in local jails, it’s 2.3 million-1 in 100 American adults. Since the 1980s, we’ve sat by as the numbers inched higher and our prison system ballooned, swallowing up an ever-larger portion of the citizenry. But do statistics like these, no matter how disturbing, really mean anything anymore? What does it take to get us to sit up and notice?

Apparently, it takes a looming financial crisis. For there is another round of bad news, the logical extension of the first: The more money a state spends on building and running prisons, the less there is for everything else, from roads and bridges to health care and public schools. At the pace our inmate population has been expanding, America’s prison system is becoming, quite simply, too expensive to sustain. That is why Kansas, Texas, and at least 11 other states have been trying out new strategies to curb the cost-reevaluating their parole policies, for instance, so that not every parolee who runs afoul of an administrative rule is shipped straight back to prison. And yet our infatuation with incarceration continues.

...

America is expert at turning citizens into convicts, but we’ve forgotten how to transform convicts back into citizens. In 1994, Congress eliminated Pell grants for prisoners, a move that effectively abolished virtually all of the 350 prison college programs across the country. That might not seem like a catastrophe, until you consider that education has been proven to help reduce recidivism.

...

Just look at our felony disenfranchisement laws, which prohibit 5.3 million people from voting-including 13 percent of African American men. These numbers actually underestimate the scope of the problem, as many ex-prisoners believe they cannot vote even if they can. And so the legacy of our prison boom continues: We’ve become a two-tier society in which millions of ostensibly free people are prohibited from enjoying the rights and privileges accorded to everyone else-and we continue to be defined by our desire for punishment and revenge, rather than by our belief in the power of redemption.

[Tab]

1. Out of sight, out of mind

that's the way we like it.

There's valid incarceration cases, but a lot of stupid stuff too, but we take the position of tossing 'em in jail and thats the end of that.

Some surely can't be rehabilitated, but I'll guess the marjority got the message on their first day in jail. We're not helping anyone with this approach, other than "cleaning up crime".

[flashl]

2. Prisons/jails costs will be key in the transformation rethinking rehabilitation. nt

[DCKit]

3. "War on Drugs Cancelled Due to Lack of Funds"

The reduced cost of personnel and materials from the ATF, FBI, DOJ and local/state law enforcement would save us another few tens of billions.

The direct costs of "Teh War on Drugs" are fairly easy to quantify, but the indirect costs - both monetary and societal - are immeasurable.

[grasswire]

6. it's really the "war on SOME drugs"

Other drugs carry no penalty.

[undergroundpanther]

4. Privatization and free labor is why such incarceration rates..

Free/low cost labor.For captive slaves greedy business Ceo's.
Imagine a large American company that generated over $500 million in sales but paid its workers as little as 12 cents an hour, that ignored federal health and safety standards, that did not have to provide its employees with vacation time or retirement packages, and thus which was able consistently to outbid its competitors (no, I am not talking about Wal-Mart). The federal government would shut down such a company before it had a chance to manufacture a single additional product, right? Wrong. In fact, not only is the federal government the company's number one customer, the company is government owned. The corporation's name is UNICOR, and all of its workers are prisoners.


http://www.dmiblog.com/archives/2006/04/the_proliferation_of_prison_la.html
http://www.etoxics.org/site/PageServer?JServSessionIdr009=dmk28ikh73.app1b&pagename=svtc_prison_labor
http://www.prisonpolicy.org/prisonindex/prisonlabor.html
http://www.prisonpolicy.org/prisonindex/prisonindustry.html
http://www.dcdave.com/article1/080997.html

Soon if this lockup rate continues,we will in effect be a SLAVE nation.all the prisoners captive labor owned by companies exploiting them.

[flashl]

5. Rural economies are completely reliant on their 'farms'

Communities Rally to Save Their Way of Life


Prison Closings Trouble Upstate New York

In upstate New York, the rural counties that crowd the Canadian border have been known as "Little Siberia" for decades — because of the harsh winters there and because prisons are a big part of the local economy.

On a recent frigid morning, Saranac Lake's Winter Carnival parade winds down Main Street. There are dancing clowns and fire trucks and National Guardsmen home from Iraq.

And there in the middle of the parade is a float carrying a giant banner that reads "Save Camp Gabriels."

...

"We can't lose this — this is more than just dollars! This is life. This is our heritage," she said.

It turns out that declining inmate populations are terrible news in northern New York, where prisons are viewed with roughly the same loyalty and fondness as factories or farms.

I strongly suspect that the PIC is now the U.S. #1 employer. A few years ago, the PIC bragged and asserted that it was U.S. #2 employer compared to GM. Well, we know where GM stands today, it certainly can not be #1 now.

[grasswire]

7. this is all true, but follow the dollar

The prison industrial complex has made billions of dollars off the misery of poor people -- people with little education or resources. I've been to the trade show of the American Correctional Association. The vendors have been profiteering while lobbying for "get-tough" measures. Many of the corporations making fortunes are names we all know. Frito-Lay and other food purveyors, telecoms, etc. It's a dark and dirty business.

[flashl]

8. You are right, there so many players, like ALEC, Smith Barney, AT&T, Sprint, and Univ Endowments.