NLBS #49: Louisiana is the Prison Capital of the US. Because; Money!

Today's NLBS was inspired by the ridiculously over-the-top reaction of Louisiana law enforcement to an eight-grader throwing Skittles on a school bus. It didn't take long to discover that Louisiana has the highest incarceration rate in the nation, at nearly double the national average, and five-times that of Iran (per capita). It wasn't always this way. In fact, the incarceration rate has doubled since the 1990's when the Prison Industrial Complex became involved in for-profit prisons. But that's not the only reason. You'll be dismayed, shocked, angered, and maybe not all that surprised when you discover who is profiting from keeping as many people behind bars as possible.



Hint: It's not the state, or corporations, who are profiting the most from high incarceration rates.


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Southern states have a incentive for prisons . They like to build them in areas where a town is dying to create a cottage industry .


Among other labor uses .


Florida for instance uses slave labor to clean the highways and roads .

a reply to: Greathouse

It's more than just that. Insidious, in fact.

a reply to: SkepticOverlord

What I learned about Florida I learned from someone who did time . Believe you me they are up on everything.

But the beginning of the problem falls under cottage industries. All you have to do is look at the location of most state prisons in the south. As a rule they are situated around small towns and almost everyone works there .

a reply to: theNLBS

If you are the state with the highest incarceration rate among all the states in a country with the highest incarceration rate in the world, there is a BIG problem.

The no tolerance in schools policy was repealed by Obama due to it negatively effecting minorities. However its not usually known by the school, county or state that they are following old laws.

Another issue is there should be no police in the schools. 'School Resource Officers' are simply a way to train children intothe next generation of confidential informants.

Once a slave state, always a slave state.

a reply to: theNLBS

Thats good work Joe.

From the initiating story about the child who was incarcerated after a Skittle throwing incident, to the facts and figures pertaining to incarceration rates in general, every point made impacted me very deeply.

The obvious connection between the privately owned prisons, and the rate of incarceration is stark in its blatancy, in the extreme. However, the connection between what happened to the child featured in the opening story of this episode, and the incarceration rate for adults going forward, is one which needs reiterating in terms of its importance.

This young person has been locked up for six days, without access to a lawyer, without seeing a judge. That experience will not have passed him by with no effect, and I think that it is fair to say, that it may affect him long term. There is significant statistical evidence to support the idea that young offenders institutions, by and large, can be just as bad for a child as getting away with whatever they might have done, because it puts those who are genuinely on the road to a bad life, amongst those who might otherwise move on to normalcy later in life, in tight confines.

Those who seem to establish themselves as top dogs in that environment, have influence over those who are considered less of a threat, and this places those who might otherwise have moved on with their lives, at a significant risk of being turned to a life of criminal behaviour, almost as a defence mechanism to deal with their incarceration, and to survive contact with the genuinely dangerous and criminal youth that they are forced to live beside.

This obviously benefits anyone who is running prisons, because this inserts at an early age, an influence on themfuture behaviour of children, into adolescence and adult hood, without which they might never become offenders. In the case of the boy who spent six days in jail, I have met children who WERE genuinely dangerous. When I was a child, there were some actual, serious nutcases in my life, and most of them were children. We are talking about torturers, narcissistic, sadistic bastards that liked to hurt people. They did not throw skittles to make their presence known. They would make you bleed, throw you down, try and dominate you with pain on your part, and laughter on theirs.

How many kids in Louisianas juvenile offenders facilities are more like the child in the opening story, than the psychotic scum that I describe? Which percentage do you suppose is larger?

I wonder how it can be allowed to continue, because to me, the connection between the prison for profit schemes, who owns them, and the over zealous policing strategy, and the presence of that corrupt authority within the school system operating there is so glaringly obvious, that it scarcely seems probable that anyone could allow it to carry on!

originally posted by: Iamthatbish
Another issue is there should be no police in the schools.

Having police in schools just turns them into a pre-school for the 'prison industrial complex'.

This isn't real news though is it? We have known about it for a long time, but I appreciate that this will be shared on social media, so hopefully it will enlighten a lot of folk.

The most painful thing is that the land of the free, has become the land of the slave industry. And that's coming from someone who doesn't live there.

I remember looking at the U.S shows of the seventies and feeling that the U.S was the best place in the World. Everybody seemed happy most of the time and there were an awful lot of good detectives rounding up the bad guys.

I would never had dreamt that those bad guys would end up, propping up, your economy. It's scandalous, but seems to have been accepted in most quarters, otherwise it would have been ended years ago.

I'm not surprised the least bit. First of all, the police in Louisiana are practically a mafia. It's been like that decades. Secondly, as mentioned before, their entire prison system runs on a hard labor environment. All that, combined with a nasty history of racism, gentrification, and overall oppression, Louisiana is a powder keg waiting to blow. What we saw in Baltimore won't even come close to being as violent and disastrous. Gangs in Louisiana are highly organized, motivated, and generally don't give much thought to executing a cop, or anyone else for that matter. Their prison industrial complex is only a small part of the problem, albeit a noteworthy one.

Great video. A little long though. Take a lesson from Vice, and keep it under 5 minutes when it's purely commentary. Just a thought.

I'm just surprised that the prison industry hasn't been outsourced yet. The Russians could keep our prisoners on ice for pennies on the dollar compared to US prisons. It would satisfy the NIMBYs and the taxpayers.

They wouldn't even have to build walls. Just spruce up an old gulag in Siberia with some new cabins. Even if a prisoner tried to escape, they'd still be thousands of miles away from civilization in a land where they didn't speak the language.

It might also be an actual deterrent. I wouldn't want to go there.

a reply to: theNLBS

I remember discussing on ATS, more than once, all these stupid little laws and how they target kids and minorities disproportionately and using arguments ad absurdum to make points. So what happens when the absurd becomes reality?

When will people get that slavery never truly ended?

Great show.

originally posted by: Blue Shift
I'm just surprised that the prison industry hasn't been outsourced yet.

I guess you didn't watch the video. Because, in the case of Louisiana, outsourcing incarceration is the problem.

In fact, in Louisiana, the sherifs profit from keeping the prisons full.

a reply to: theNLBS

Sounds like a recipe for corruption. Remind me never to go there.

Another great episode, Joe.
From SkepticOverlord

I guess you didn't watch the video. Because, in the case of Louisiana, outsourcing incarceration is the problem.

Your Overlordness - I took away from BlueShift outsourcing as in "overseas", as he reference the Not In My Back Yard types, but that's just my take.
Anyway, Joe, ATS, SO, thanks for everything from a long time lurker, then member, & infrequent poster.
Also,
TrueBrit,
you're a very intelligent & eloquent individual, and I always enjoy the insights you bring to the boards here.


Now:
I lived in Alabama for a short while in the early/mid nineties, and institutionalized racism is definitely a "thing" in the south, and the solutions as complex, or even moreso, than fixing the problems in the US in general. (Insert your list here; some ideas - Fed res. - Corp. citizenship, lobbying, education, social sec., etc...).
Sorry, now I'm just rambling, but great Episode -
very glad this NLBS has caught on & didn't go the way of, what was it, Conspiracy Chicks?

There is a lot of wisdom behind separation of powers, sounds like Louisiana does have a few education issues going on. Unfortunately the conflict of interest for the sheriff is all too common with money making the decision.

For profit incarceration does make for a very motivated police force, too motivated and trying too hard from the sounds of it.

If the judiciary also has other economic considerations when trying to be impartial, then the wheel of justice are bouncing all over the place. Will be a shaky ride which ever way it goes.

Good video, I don't know if you ever watched the Last Week Tonight segment on private prisons but they did one about a year ago.

www.youtube.com...

Our incarceration rate is so high that we've thrown more people in prison than Russia under Stalin or North Korea. In the 70's our prison rate per capita was 1/8 what it is today. We have more people in prison, than the country of Jamaica has in total population.

And do you know what the greatest tragedy is in our prison population? 97% of all people in prison are there as a result of a plea bargain rather than having been found guilty in a court of law, look it up for yourself if you don't believe me. Out of our nearly 2.3 million inmates 2.2 million of them were never found guilty, instead they were coerced into pleading guilty before it ever got to a court room.

To go back to the video and the mention of CCA, did you know that CCA as part of it's investor pitch is that they intentionally close down options to prisoners in order to increase recidivism and ensure the prison stays full? That's coming directly from the company itself.

Great stuff as always Joe, don't know if you remembered the 80ts flick Escape From New York, where the government turned NYC into a giant prison, well I guess the script writers and producers got it wrong it should have been titled Escape From Louisiana , and every time I raise the issue of race I am met with howls of angry disapproval and shrill denials, but "race" is connected to poverty and poverty to expectations of criminality then you will have those in power looking to criminalizing the poor who are often blacks in states like Louisiana who make great targets because of their limited ability to fight back.

Recommend viewing the the vid in it's entirety.
The idea of the prison industrial complex is not as new as many think, the dates may have changed but the actors and the script remains the same.

originally posted by: Kali74
a reply to: theNLBS
all these stupid little laws and how they target kids and minorities disproportionately and using arguments ad absurdum to make points.

Black and white. Not in the sense of race, but if they CAN charge you for a crime, they will. Whether or not they SHOULD doesn't enter into the equation. As far as district attorneys are concerned, it's all about conviction rates. Even if you take a plea bargain, it's still a guilty verdict, and the more they get the more their careers are furthered. Then they go on to be judges and do even more damage.

From the perspective of the police and why they charge people for these silly "crimes" in the first place; I've always seen it as a matter of personal insecurity, control issues, and perhaps a bit of small penis syndrome. That's not to say there's not good police out there. I've seen more good ones than bad, and I've been in and out of the system A LOT. However, in situations like these, good cops don't act like this. Good cops don't manipulate the law for personal gain. Whether that gain be power or whatever else.


Shout out to all the cops that ACTUALLY protect and serve. Keep leading by example. Hopefully good will prevail eventually.