The Prison Industrial Complex

"Mass incarceration on a scale almost unexampled in human history is a fundamental fact of our country today -- perhaps the fundamental fact, as slavery was the fundamental fact of 1850. In truth, there are more black men in the grip of the criminal-justice system -- in prison, on probation, or on parole -- than were in slavery then. Over all, there are now more people under 'correctional supervision' in America -- more than six million -- than were in the Gulag Archipelago under Stalin at its height." -- Adam Gopnik, "The Caging of America"

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Many people know that US corporations make use of cheap sweatshop labor abroad. But how many know that REAL SLAVERY is ongoing today…within our borders?

The site of this slavery? PRISONS.

Sweatshop labor is back with a vengeance. It can be found across broad stretches of the American economy and around the world. Penitentiaries have become a niche market for such work. The privatization of prisons in recent years has meant the creation of a small army of workers too coerced and right-less to complain.
Prisoners, whose ranks increasingly consist of those for whom the legitimate economy has found no use, now make up a virtual brigade within the reserve army of the unemployed whose ranks have ballooned along with the U.S. incarceration rate. The Corrections Corporation of America and G4S (formerly Wackenhut), two prison privatizers, sell inmate labor at subminimum wages to Fortune 500 corporations like Chevron, Bank of America, AT&T, and IBM.
These companies can, in most states, lease factories in prisons or prisoners to work on the outside. All told, nearly a million prisoners are now making office furniture, working in call centers, fabricating body armor, taking hotel reservations, working in slaughterhouses, or manufacturing textiles, shoes, and clothing, while getting paid somewhere between 93 cents and $4.73 per day.
Rarely can you find workers so pliable, easy to control, stripped of political rights, and subject to martial discipline at the first sign of recalcitrance...

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Prison labor is big business, and the skyrocketing number of prisoners makes for big profits!

On the supply side, the U.S. holds captive 25% of all the prisoners on the planet: 2.3 million people. It has the highest incarceration rate in the world as well, a figure that began skyrocketing in 1980 as Ronald Reagan became president.

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Prison slavery benefits nobody. In addition to the harm it does to the prisioners themselves, it undercuts “legitimate” labor on the outside, making it hard for US workers to compete with such cheap workforces. Meanwhile, the profits that companies reap create incentives to put more people in prison…whether they belong there or not. And when they get out, a lack of opportunity often means ex-convicts have to live a life of crime to survive. The only ex-convicts I’ve ever heard of who were able to find any kind of real success in life are the tiny handful who have managed to escape abroad and re-invent themselves away from the “land of the free.”

In many places, as other business opportunities dry up, the prison itself becomes the only game in town, and people who in an earlier age would have been farmers or factory workers instead become prison guards to make a living. I don’t blame the guards and others who work for prisons – often its their only choice of honest work. But when one becomes a guard and enforces inhuman conditions day in and day out, one’s personality changes, leading to psychological desensitization and dehumanization.

The system destroys everyone it touches, both police and guards on one side and prisoners on the other. Wake up America!

it's a massive problem today. i found it quite alarming that for 100 years the rate remained relatively steady at 200 per 100k citizens, then in 1980 it began to skyrocket and in 30 years all but quadrupled.

i'm trying to look back at what the heck happened in 1980 to begin this transition. i realize it's hard to say, but i'm willing to bet it had more to do with money and less to do with justice.

reply to post by LittleBlackEagle

I bet the "War on Drugs" has at least something to do with it. It's a bit like Prohibition, it didn't help much but caused much unnecessary suffering.

reply to post by LightSpeedDriver



absolutely it does and anyone who doesn't realize how much money is being made by that war is brainwashed to say the least. they keep them illegal, thus keeping profits high, then they make money on the backside when they arrest and incarcerate those who sell and use them, it's a win-win for the corrupt govt. and their bankster cronies.

The really funny part is that these companies will not hire felons on the outside. They are "dangerous" or "unreliable" when free but "fantastic" employees as inmates.

So much has changed in my lifetime in this country it is terrifying.

When I was younger I truly believed America was the land of the free, home of the brave. Nowadays it seems more like the land of the enslaved, home of the asleep.

Every time one looks at what has happened ever since JFK's assassination it appears to be a slippery slope that has turned into a veritable avalanche.

Breaks my heart. It truly does.

I wonder is it the laws in the U.S, such as minor pot possession, or is all the crazy media, reality TV and violence on TV that is making people more susceptible to crime?

reply to post by LittleBlackEagle

I can't remember what I watched but either a docu or a youtube clip and "they" said it costs $30,000 a year to keep someone incarcerated. Obviously they like to run things as efficiently as possible so they have these facilities where thousands can be secured and the corporation that owns those prisons racks up the profits.

I think that is one of the major problem causers. I daresay there are other countries that nave privatised their prison system too but I can't name one off the top of my head.

Originally posted by CALGARIAN
I wonder is it the laws in the U.S, such as minor pot possession, or is all the crazy media, reality TV and violence on TV that is making people more susceptible to crime?

well there is a couple points to ponder in this puzzle. victimless crime is a large part of the incarcerated population, mainly drug use. drug use should be a health issue and not a criminal issue for one thing and on top of that most govt organizations have come to find that laws are there to make revenue with and have little to do with protecting or serving the public.

when's the last time you heard of a law or a cop, which prevented a crime, not many i assure you but they all make money right down the line.

it's really just a symptom of a much bigger problem, the number of self serving public servants is on the rise.

Originally posted by CALGARIAN
I wonder is it the laws in the U.S, such as minor pot possession, or is all the crazy media, reality TV and violence on TV that is making people more susceptible to crime?

Neither.

Without the drug laws, there would still be loads of laws on the books to arrest damn near anyone at some point in time.

There is more LEO and more pressure to arrest.

There are so many things about prisons in America that need to be reformed, I don't even know where to begin.

One thing that would go a long way to helping things is if people who had been incarcerated at some point for whatever reason could look forward to a life on the outside that is somehing other than A) minimum wage jobs and B) crime. The way a prison record follows people around means that their entire future is crushed if they spend even a short time behind bars. After that all possibilities of getting good work or joining "normal" society are crushed forver. When you back ambitious people into a corner like that and leave them no legal way to exercise their ambition, they will turn to a life of crime almost every time, even if they weren't serious cons beforehand.

talking about Prison/prisoners & their maintenance...

look at the 1:44 video on this page

www.disinfo.com... MPh+%28Disinformation%29

Is Imprisonment By Robot Jailers Coming Soon?

Posted by JacobSloan on April 25, 2012

With jails fuller than ever and government budgets being slashed, is the future of prisoner management the robo-correctional officer? ................................

its not 1984 its the millenium!

reply to post by Leftist


Well looky there, the prison population exploded in the early 80s. Right about the time the BS war on drugs was started by Reagan.

This book gave so much insight into this subject and so much more. I highly recommend it!

"Did you really think we want those laws observed?" said Dr. Ferris. "We want them to be broken. You'd better get it straight that it's not a bunch of boy scouts you're up against... We're after power and we mean it... There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced or objectively interpreted – and you create a nation of law-breakers – and then you cash in on guilt. Now that's the system, Mr. Reardon, that's the game, and once you understand it, you'll be much easier to deal with." ('Atlas Shrugged' 1957) www.working-minds.com...

More laws = more prisoners.

and boy do we have laws here in the U.S.!!!!

This is all by design and will soon be a worldwide phenomenon if we don't stop the NWO.
Imagine a tenth of the worlds population in prison making useless crap for the remaining 90% of us who are also prisoners to the PTB, only we don't know we are prisoners because there are no physical bars.

I have spent some time in jail and can tell you first hand that there are many MANY people in there who are good people. People I would have no problem hanging out with or having over for a BBQ. and that is saying alot for me being a rabid introvert who is very picky about who I associate with.

Most of the people I was locked up with were there because they enjoyed inhaling something that the government decided they shouldn't inhale.

and then there were the guys that were there because they were late on their child support payments.

ohhh and the people who failed to register their motor vehicle.

ohhh and the DWI offenders.

and the failure to appears.

and the people who posessed periphenalia which the government says they are not allowed to posess.

and then there were the guys who were in there because they had a crazy ass wife who calls the police
and makes up stories everytime they pissed her off. I believed those guys the most due to personal experience.
Three of those and you are a felon and WILL go to big boy prison where they would be more than happy to have you.

If you want to know why drugs will never be legal he is one your answers.
There is a high demand for prisoners and there are too many corporations making way too much money
off of these prisoners. The majority of the prison population are drug offenders.

Do the math.

They're trying to build a prison,
For you and me,
Oh baby, you and me.

More prisoners getting locked up = more money for prison companies

This means the companies will lobby Washington to pass laws that will result in more people getting sent to prison. Over decades of this continual process there end up being a multitude of ways one can be incarcerated for seemingly trivial matters. The prison companies get richer and therefore gain even more ability to lobby and so on in a viscous cycle. Nobody is lobbying in the opposite direction and so it just gets even worse.

I'm fearing an Orwellian situation where they farm our labor for corporate profit in prisons, and you get 10 years for dropping a piece of trash on the ground. Unless we do something to change it, this is the direction it is heading.

So when they implement the "Energy Harvesting" they are introducing in the 2012 Olympics then TPTB can just have their prisoners run round in this hamster wheel to power everything.

Originally posted by LittleBlackEagle
it's a massive problem today. i found it quite alarming that for 100 years the rate remained relatively steady at 200 per 100k citizens, then in 1980 it began to skyrocket and in 30 years all but quadrupled.

i'm trying to look back at what the heck happened in 1980 to begin this transition. i realize it's hard to say, but i'm willing to bet it had more to do with money and less to do with justice.

Easy. Reagan got elected and we started the "war on drugs".

Originally posted by silent thunder
There are so many things about prisons in America that need to be reformed, I don't even know where to begin.

One thing that would go a long way to helping things is if people who had been incarcerated at some point for whatever reason could look forward to a life on the outside that is somehing other than A) minimum wage jobs and B) crime. The way a prison record follows people around means that their entire future is crushed if they spend even a short time behind bars. After that all possibilities of getting good work or joining "normal" society are crushed forver. When you back ambitious people into a corner like that and leave them no legal way to exercise their ambition, they will turn to a life of crime almost every time, even if they weren't serious cons beforehand.

EXACTLY!!!!!!