Slave labor is alive and well in American prisons. Why aren't people enraged by this???

[Danger Mouse]

Imprison the lower classes with the drug war.
Destroy the middle class.
Give the power to the corporation.
All that remains: the rich, the poor, and the slaves.
This is their plan, and has been for years.
:puke:
Yet people don't seem to notice. Or care.
Why is that?
EDIT: With enhanced choices!

[fizzgig]

1. i think people care

but feel helpless to change it. it's a movement that's been growing for decades but i don't know that anyone knows where to start in reversing it. i know i don't.

[Danger Mouse]

4. it starts in the white house with a president who isn't owned by corporations...

and a solid dem majority to help that president begin the dismantling of the corporate empire.

[fizzgig]

5. that sounds like such a pipe dream, tho

maybe i'm just cynical, but i just don't see that happening

[Danger Mouse]

if we don't have that, then what do we have?

if we have a defeatist attitude, then why struggle? they WANT us to give up.
it's tempting to give up.
we still have '08. pin your hopes on that.
pin your hopes on america finally being ready for a true change.

[fizzgig]

10. and as a separate thought

the system prefers punishment to rehabilitation. substance abuse and mental illness are rampant in our incarcerated populations because there are no preventative programs. some people can't afford their meds, self medicate with alcohol or drugs, wind up in the system, get on their meds, get released from jail/prison and then don't have access to the services and the cycle begins anew.

that cycle is damn hard to break, but if we put money into mental health and substance abuse treatment programs, i truly think it would make a huge dent in the problem. however, the slave labor is then lost and it is just not a profitable solution.

eta: these offenders, by and large, are non-violent, but a felony conviction is a felony conviction and that further strips them of their rights and livelihoods, further perpetuating the cycle.

[Danger Mouse]

19. when i lived in baltimore, they would release mental patients out onto the streets...

the inevitable result of that being that they either became homeless and hopeless, criminals, or dead.

[fizzgig]

24. that's how it is when you're released from jail

all you have is what you went in with. where you gonna go? back to where you were before.

[Danger Mouse]

26. but with a criminal record...so you have even less...

since getting a job with a criminal record ain't easy.

[fizzgig]

28. i know

that's why i edited the post above. it's a damn vicious cycle

[Danger Mouse]

29. i even heard a supposedly liberal guy on the radio saying he wouldn't hire a guy with a conviction..

regardless of what the person was convicted of

[Danger Mouse]

2. To the person who sees no problem with it...

i'd like to hear why.

[Hippo_Tron]

3. There's a perception that everyone in prison is a violent criminal

Because that's all that television ever focuses on. You know those investigative shows where they interview prisoners. They always interview the rapists and murderers but not once do you hear "I've never committed any violent crime in my life, I'm in here for possession of marijuana."

Then there's the vicious cycle of the fact that people who are most affected by the war on drugs won't vote because neither party will reach out to them. Of course the Democrats won't take a chance that they will vote if they do throw that constituency a bone and instead choose to pander to middle class parents who are under the impression that their kids are more likely to become addicts if drugs are decriminalized.

[Danger Mouse]

7. The war on drugs is an evil thing.

Too many nonviolent offenders and addicts locked up, thrown into the corporate slavery machine, and turned out as truly hardened felons, broken and with little chance of turning their life around.
The puritanical nature of american society is visible in our prisons: punish, break, crush, destroy.

[soothsayer]

20. Nah, just an excuse to suck money out of the hands of the taxpayers and

into the pockets of the connected corporatists. We're totally being sold down the river and we're just going right along with it.

[Danger Mouse]

21. i think people go along with it because of the puritanical roots...

i think corporatists are by not by any means religious...they might wear god's mantle to legitamize themselves, but i doubt any of them believe in any god...they are ruthless realists to the extreme...they see other people only as things to be exploited until their usefulness is exhausted and then tossed aside like a withered husk

[soothsayer]

23. Yes, and we thank them for 'protecting' us from 'criminals' while

they fleece us.

[Danger Mouse]

30. 'tough on crime' = more $$$$ for the corporations.

[Adsos Letter]

11. Didn't intend to copy your sentiment...

...but I agree with it.

:hi:

[lvx35]

6. They're just to effing dumb to see the conflict of interest...

Hmm, so if corporations make money of slave labor in prison, and people are put in prison for committing crimes, will the corporation:
1) work and support policies it knows will promote MORE crime
2) work and support policies it knows will promote LESS crime
Remember, corporations are LEGALLY BOUND to take the actions which will produce the most profit...

[Danger Mouse]

9. Corporations are increasingly controlling every aspect of our lives.

And people, by and large, do not see it.
It's a bizarre and unique form of facism, or something like that.

[lvx35]

35. Its unprecedented!

I mean we've always HAD these corporations, but the old free market ideal was like football, let em play against each other by the rules, and the best team will win. This requires the government as proverbial "refs". But now the players have killed the refs and each team is making up its own rules for itself as it plays.

You may call it fascism, all I know is that it sure as hell isn't football.

[Adsos Letter]

8. I think...

a couple things on this (admittedly shooting from the lip here):

1. Many people probably think in terms of only those who have committed heinous acts of violence, and think in terms of punishment as opposed to rehabilitation; they forget the broad range of criminal acts for which people are incarcerated, many of which are perfect candidates for rehabilitation and redemption to society. The current fixation with "documentaries" which focus on Supermax-type facilities probably feed these perceptions.

2. Out of sight, out of mind...

[Danger Mouse]

12. i agree on your analysis...

but would add that i think people genuinely desire retribution for criminals. keep in mind how often politicians pledge to be 'tough on crime'

[Adsos Letter]

13. I suspect you are correct as far as many are concerned...

...something in the heart of Man that likes to punish as opposed to redeem...

[Danger Mouse]

14. it's the prudish puritanical roots of our country, and the rise of fundamentalism...

god punishes instead of loves.
we are the same.
in their eyes.

[Adsos Letter]

15. And the "war on drugs", as well as the "three strikes"

...laws are so ill-considered. "Three strikes" was intended for violent crime (at least that is what I think they had in mind) and look at how poorly justice is served by the way it is carried out...

Drug laws...having been a user for about 1o years, I have mixed feelings on how they should be applied, and all center on the highest levels of supply; for the person who gets hooked on meth or something like that (people do things without thought to the long-term all of the time, in just about any situation)...redemption, not incarceration...

If * can get a pass for starting a war without seriously considering the consequences to hundreds of thousands of lives, then our kids certainly deserve at least as much compassion (not that * deserves any)

[Danger Mouse]

17. compassion and understanding would be too difficult. it requires thought.

retribution is much easier.

[soothsayer]

22. It's really much simpler than that: follow the money. Bodies in prison=$$

and the more bodies and the LONGER those bodies are there, the more $$$$$$. Prisons have been privatized, and guess who owns them? That's right, folks like Halliburton, via their Kellogg Root Brown subsidiary.

See my post below, or just cut right to the chase

http://www.dunwalke.com/9_Cornell_Corrections.htm

[flashl]

39. Agree. Those documentaries distracts attention from school-to-prison-pipeline

School to Prison Pipeline
By Bob Herbert

== snip ==

Far more disturbing (and much less entertaining) is the way school officials and the criminal justice system are criminalizing children and teenagers all over the country, arresting them and throwing them in jail for behavior that in years past would never have led to the intervention of law enforcement.

This is an aspect of the justice system that is seldom seen. But the consequences of ushering young people into the bowels of police precincts and jail cells without a good reason for doing so are profound.

Two months ago I wrote about a 6-year-old girl in Florida who was handcuffed by the police and taken off to the county jail after she threw a tantrum in her kindergarten class.

Police in Brooklyn recently arrested more than 30 young people, ages 13 to 22, as they walked toward a subway station, on their way to a wake for a teenage friend who had been murdered. No evidence has been presented that the grieving young people had misbehaved. No drugs or weapons were found. But they were accused by the police of gathering unlawfully and of disorderly conduct.

In March, police in Baltimore handcuffed a 7-year-old boy and took him into custody for riding a dirt bike on the sidewalk. The boy tearfully told The Baltimore Examiner, "They scared me." Mayor Sheila Dixon later apologized for the arrest.

Prison stocks, prisoner ranks seen rising-Barron's

Oct 7 (Reuters) - Prison stocks are expected to rise despite a recent U.S. Census report pointing to a lower than expected rise in prison population, Barron's reported in its Oct. 8 edition.

The Census report, which said U.S. prisons' population is growing at 4 percent annually, countered a February study by Pew Charitable Trusts that forecast prison population to rise 13 percent annually.

Barron's said Pew's report is likely a more accurate assessment of the prison population growth as the U.S. government's report polled 37 states, compared to Pew's data from 42 states and estimates from the other eight states.

"If you have reservations about owning a stake in a harsh institution like a prison, consider this: Some of our nation's most creative CEOs now reside in prisons," Barron's said. (Reporting by Kenneth Li)

[soothsayer]

16. Prisons are big business! Privatization is a lucrative industry, PLUS when

if you have prisoners in your state, suddenly you have a much larger population and more political sway (something about electoral votes). Whatever it is, it's flourished under bush/cheney and it's WRONG and SCARY.

On edit, Catherine Austin Fitts has some cool articles on this very subject. Here's a snippet:

Prison stocks also are valued on a “per bed” basis — which is based on the number of beds provided and the profit per bed. “Per bed” is really a euphemism for people who are sentenced to be housed in their prison.

For example, in 1996, when Cornell went public, based on the financial information provided in the offering document provided to investors, its stock was valued at $24,241 per bed. This means that for every contract Cornell got to house one prisoner, at that time, their stock went up in value by an average of $24,261. According to prevailing business school philosophy, this is the stock market’s current present value of the future flow of profit flows generated through the management of each prisoner. This, for example, is why longer mandatory sentences are worth so much to private prison stocks. A prisoner in jail for twenty years has a twenty-year cash flow associated with his incarceration, as opposed to one with a shorter sentence or one eligible for an early parole.<47> This means that we have created a significant number of private interests — investment firms, banks, attorneys, auditors, architects, construction firms, real estate developers, bankers, academics, investors among them— who have a vested interest in increasing the prison population and keeping people behind bars as long as possible.

There are two ways to make the stock go up. First, you can increase net income by increasing capacity — the number of “beds” — or profitability — “profits per bed.” Second, you can increase the multiple at which the stock trades by increasing the markets’ expectations of how many beds or what your profit per bed will be and by being very accessible to the widest group of investors. So, for example, passing laws regarding mandatory sentencing or other rules that will increase the needs for prison capacity can increase the value of private prison company stock without those companies getting additional contracts or business. The passage of — or anticipation of — a law that will increase the demand for private prisons is a “stock play” in and of itself.

http://www.dunwalke.com/9_Cornell_Corrections.htm

[Danger Mouse]

18. just one of the many facet of the current corporate takeover of our country...

they make money hand over fist, ratchet up the oppression, and one day we wake up and it ain't america anymore...

[TwilightGardener]

25. Do I pay for their food, clothing and medical care? Why, yes I do. A little

highway trash pickup ain't no big thing in return.

[Danger Mouse]

27. it goes beyond a little highway trash pickup.

[Lilith Velkor]

31. They don't know because all they hear is YOUR KIDS MIGHT BE ON DRUGS! BOOGA-BOOGA!!!1!

All they know about prison is that men get raped there, and they're pretty much OK with that. You think they give a fuck about slave labor?

[Danger Mouse]

33. yeah, prison rape is a big joke, even on DU

'haha, prison bitch, boy is that funny! haw haw!'

[dysfunctional press]

32. because we're not in prison...?

:shrug:

[Danger Mouse]

34. yeah, and american idol was on.

:P

[MedleyMisty]

36. Most people are cool with exploitation

And think that those in prison deserve anything they get. "As long as I've got mine, fuck you."

[elaineb]

37. There was an excellent article related to this topic in "The Nation" recently.

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070827/lazare

Thanks for bringing attention to this subject with your post!

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

38. It's awful and so are a thousand things that are happening now and it is all overwhelming. eom