Before I get into this deep shiite I need to acknowledge everybody that has put this site in their bookmark toolbar. You folks are the reason I am sleep deprived and losing my mind. I thank you though because I have never been more alive either. You challenge me to be a better person than I would be on my own. If time is money you people are helping me get out of debt. As an aside, REGINA from Sweden, your candygram is on its way.
Now let’s get down to business. Literally. I’m sure that most of you have seen mention of the term ‘prison industrial complex’. It’s a term that I’ve heard from activists for many years and I assumed that meant that prisons were using their inmates to produce items that benefitted the administration of the state. Things like license plates and highway signage seemed like a smart idea to me as a way to procure some type of labor from people who were incarcerated anyhoo. We’ve all seen the image of the chain gang that digs trenches and canals for statewide infrastructure projects. In that framework I had no problem with the fact that these people were paid a slave wage for their labor since it was part and parcel of being locked up.
The wormhole goes way deeper than just that bucolic view of prison labor. If you think that HBO’s ‘The Wire’ is the most gangsta shiite evar then please peep the link here to the Maryland Correctional Enterprises Prison Enhancement Program. The Federal government passed legislation during the Carter adminstration that allowed states to form PRIVATE corporations to manage their penitentiary labor forces. These private companies could now charge the state for producing the things they had always created like license plates and highway signage, but even bigger than that is the fact these private corporations could invest in the equipment and facilities to diversify the items that were being made. There is a direct correlation to the disappearance of factories and industrial hubs within the United States. We were led to believe that manufacturing had been outsourced overseas to China. The truth is that manufacturing is still in America, except it is no longer done by unionized workers. It’s done by prison inmates.
The privatization of Americas prisons is fucked the fuck up on a trillion levels. Firstly, as a private sector company it’s first concern must be it’s bottomline and that of the shareholders. The focus of any corporation is to maximize profits and for the prison industrial complex to do this it needs an endless supply of fresh bodies. The more bodies means the more items may be generated for sale. Rehabilitating prisoners, or even releasing them is actually bad for business.
The second reason that this arrangement in anti-American is because it shatters the manufacturing industry that provided real jobs at living wages for real people. By paying people a slave wage for tangible labor these prison industry corporations are creating a permanent underclass. When an inmate is released from the penitentiary he has skills that are only applicable to work inside the penitentiary. It should be no surprise to any fair-minded person why the rates of recidivism have skyrocketed.
I have researched several states that have created these private prison industrial corporations and each one sells their products to public and private entities. It used to be that these corporations only made items for use in the public sector. From furniture and fixtures to state agencies and public schools and other public use facilities. These corporations have begun to craft items that are being sold to private businesses on the internets. At the cost these prison companies are fabricating items you can expect other industries to close shop due to cost overruns and diminshing profit margins.
All I’m saying is that the next time I see a ‘Made In America’ tag you can believe my ass is gonna take pause (no DAME DASH).
