The Law The Prison State of America: 5% of World’s Population but 25% of World’s Prison Population

[CountryRace]

land of the free ...

http://benswann.com/the-prison-stat...opulation-but-25-of-worlds-prison-population/

washington D.C.- Few Americans understand our prison system.

Even fewer realize that within the walls of prisons across American an entire workforce has been developed. One that works for third world wages and actually accrues massive amounts of debt forced upon it by the privatization of prisons. That debt can actually sent people back to prison after they have served their time.

Author and journalist Chris Hedges has recently completed an eye opening investigation into America’s prison system. Ben Swann interviews Hedges about his report and what people need to know about an increasingly cruel system that has become less about justice and more about the exploitation of people.

 

[CountryRace]

http://investmentwatchblog.com/ther...a-and-more-are-disenfranchised-than-the-year/


There Are More Blacks Under Correctional Control Today Than In 1850 Slaveholding America … More Are In Jail Than In Apartheid South Africa … And More Are Disenfranchised Than The Year The Constitutional Amendment Giving Blacks the Right To Vote Was Ratified
Submitted by IWB, on January 17th, 2015
WashingtonsBlog
Blacks Possess Drugs Less Frequently Than Whites, But Are Put In Prison Much More Frequently – And For Much Longer – Than Whites
The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world … higher than Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, North Korea or Iran.

While the United States represents about 5 percent of the world’s population, it houses around 25 percent of the world’s prisoners.

But all people aren’t treated equally .. African-Americans are treated especially poorly.

Michelle Alexander – a law school professor who directed Stanford Law School’s Civil Rights Clinic and served as law clerk for Justice Harry Blackmun at the U. S. Supreme Court – notes:

• The United States incarcerates a higher percentage of black men than South Africa did at the height of apartheid

• Primarily because of these significant incarceration rates, the level of black youth poverty is higher today than it was in 1968

• An African-American male is sentenced an average of a 20 to 50 times longer prison term then a white male convicted of the same drug crime.

• Over 2.3 million men in America are in prison — about half for drug crimes. Seventy percent of all men imprisoned are black or Hispanic. Thirty years ago, before the “War on Drugs” was implemented, there were only 300,000 people in the American prison system.

• There are 2.7 million children whose fathers or mothers are in prison, on probation, or on parole.

• There are 7 million Americans either in prison, on probation, or on parole — mostly for selling or using drugs. In many inner cities, eighty percent of young men have prison records. These convictions will remain on their records permanently, limiting their voting rights and their ability to find employment. Currently, in all but two states, citizens with felony convictions are permanently or temporarily prohibited from voting. The United States is the only country that permits permanent disenfranchisement of felons even after completion of their sentences.

Indeed:

- Since 1971, there have been more than 40 million arrests for drug-related offenses.

– Even though blacks and whites have similar levels of drug use, blacks are ten times as likely to be incarcerated for drug crimes.

– “There are more blacks under correctional control today — in prison or jail, on probation or parole — than were enslaved in 1850, a decade before the Civil War began.”

– “As of 2004, more African American men were disenfranchised (due to felon disenfranchisement laws) than in 1870, the year the Fifteenth Amendment was ratified prohibiting laws that explicitly deny the right to vote on the basis of race.”

– In 2005, 4 out of 5 drug arrests were for possession not trafficking, and 80% of the increase in drug arrests in the 1990s was for marijuana.

– There are 50,000 arrests for low-level pot possession a year in New York City, representing one out of every seven cases that turn up in criminal courts. Most of these arrested are black and hispanic men.

A report released last year by the National Research Council – an arm of the National Academy of Sciences – found:

The U.S. prison population is largely drawn from the most disadvantaged part of the nation’s population: mostly men under age 40, disproportionately minority, and poorly educated.

***

Prisons are part of a poverty trap, with many paths leading in, but few leading out.

Today, a new study published by Robynn J.A. Cox – assistant professor of economics at Spelman College – finds:

The United States has a dual criminal justice system that has helped to maintain the economic and social hierarchy in America, based on the subjugation of blacks, within the United States. Public policy, criminal justice actors, society and the media, and criminal behavior have all played roles in creating what sociologist Loic Wacquant calls the hyperincarceration of black men.

***

Although the right for blacks to vote has been enforced since the Voting Rights Act of 1965, mass incarceration policies have effectively taken this entitlement away from numerous African Americans.

Chart’s from Cox’s study tell the tale:




Postscript: The prison-industrial complex is part of the problem. Indeed, private prison corporations obtain quotas from the government, where the government guarantees a certain number of prisoners at any given time.

And some really big corporations use prisoners to provide cheap labor. Indeed, some call it a new form of slavery. (As if we didn’t have enough of the traditional kind).


Read more at http://investmentwatchblog.com/ther...franchised-than-the-year/#Rpqm1GVioYYe8oRy.99

 

[tesseract]

I wrote a comment before reading through all the material and realized you already had it covered. Interesting topic. Slavery, indeed, hasn't been abolished in the western world. Alimony, too, can count among that.

 

[Werewolf]

The USA is a first world country in terms of technology and miltary capability, but their society is that of a second world country

A good explanation provided here... Ron Paul: reality now setting in for America

 

[CountryRace]

The Prison Industry in the United States: Big Business or a New Form of Slavery?
By Vicky Pelaez
Global Research, March 31, 2014
El Diario-La Prensa, New York and Global Research 10 March 2008
Region: USA
Theme: Global Economy, Law and Justice
38.8K
2996 1456

229K

Human rights organizations, as well as political and social ones, are condemning what they are calling a new form of inhumane exploitation in the United States, where they say a prison population of up to 2 million – mostly Black and Hispanic – are working for various industries for a pittance. For the tycoons who have invested in the prison industry, it has been like finding a pot of gold. They don’t have to worry about strikes or paying unemployment insurance, vacations or comp time. All of their workers are full-time, and never arrive late or are absent because of family problems; moreover, if they don’t like the pay of 25 cents an hour and refuse to work, they are locked up in isolation cells.

There are approximately 2 million inmates in state, federal and private prisons throughout the country. According to California Prison Focus, “no other society in human history has imprisoned so many of its own citizens.” The figures show that the United States has locked up more people than any other country: a half million more than China, which has a population five times greater than the U.S. Statistics reveal that the United States holds 25% of the world’s prison population, but only 5% of the world’s people. From less than 300,000 inmates in 1972, the jail population grew to 2 million by the year 2000. In 1990 it was one million. Ten years ago there were only five private prisons in the country, with a population of 2,000 inmates; now, there are 100, with 62,000 inmates. It is expected that by the coming decade, the number will hit 360,000, according to reports.

What has happened over the last 10 years? Why are there so many prisoners?

“The private contracting of prisoners for work fosters incentives to lock people up. Prisons depend on this income. Corporate stockholders who make money off prisoners’ work lobby for longer sentences, in order to expand their workforce. The system feeds itself,” says a study by the Progressive Labor Party, which accuses the prison industry of being “an imitation of Nazi Germany with respect to forced slave labor and concentration camps.”

The prison industry complex is one of the fastest-growing industries in the United States and its investors are on Wall Street. “This multimillion-dollar industry has its own trade exhibitions, conventions, websites, and mail-order/Internet catalogs. It also has direct advertising campaigns, architecture companies, construction companies, investment houses on Wall Street, plumbing supply companies, food supply companies, armed security, and padded cells in a large variety of colors.”

According to the Left Business Observer, the federal prison industry produces 100% of all military helmets, ammunition belts, bullet-proof vests, ID tags, shirts, pants, tents, bags, and canteens. Along with war supplies, prison workers supply 98% of the entire market for equipment assembly services; 93% of paints and paintbrushes; 92% of stove assembly; 46% of body armor; 36% of home appliances; 30% of headphones/microphones/speakers; and 21% of office furniture. Airplane parts, medical supplies, and much more: prisoners are even raising seeing-eye dogs for blind people.

CRIME GOES DOWN, JAIL POPULATION GOES UP

According to reports by human rights organizations, these are the factors that increase the profit potential for those who invest in the prison industry complex:

. Jailing persons convicted of non-violent crimes, and long prison sentences for possession of microscopic quantities of illegal drugs. Federal law stipulates five years’ imprisonment without possibility of parole for possession of 5 grams of crack or 3.5 ounces of heroin, and 10 years for possession of less than 2 ounces of rock-cocaine or crack. A sentence of 5 years for cocaine powder requires possession of 500 grams – 100 times more than the quantity of rock cocaine for the same sentence. Most of those who use cocaine powder are white, middle-class or rich people, while mostly Blacks and Latinos use rock cocaine. In Texas, a person may be sentenced for up to two years’ imprisonment for possessing 4 ounces of marijuana. Here in New York, the 1973 Nelson Rockefeller anti-drug law provides for a mandatory prison sentence of 15 years to life for possession of 4 ounces of any illegal drug.

. The passage in 13 states of the “three strikes” laws (life in prison after being convicted of three felonies), made it necessary to build 20 new federal prisons. One of the most disturbing cases resulting from this measure was that of a prisoner who for stealing a car and two bicycles received three 25-year sentences.

. Longer sentences.

. The passage of laws that require minimum sentencing, without regard for circumstances.

. A large expansion of work by prisoners creating profits that motivate the incarceration of more people for longer periods of time.

. More punishment of prisoners, so as to lengthen their sentences.

HISTORY OF PRISON LABOR IN THE UNITED STATES

Prison labor has its roots in slavery. After the 1861-1865 Civil War, a system of “hiring out prisoners” was introduced in order to continue the slavery tradition. Freed slaves were charged with not carrying out their sharecropping commitments (cultivating someone else’s land in exchange for part of the harvest) or petty thievery – which were almost never proven – and were then “hired out” for cotton picking, working in mines and building railroads. From 1870 until 1910 in the state of Georgia, 88% of hired-out convicts were Black. In Alabama, 93% of “hired-out” miners were Black. In Mississippi, a huge prison farm similar to the old slave plantations replaced the system of hiring out convicts. The notorious Parchman plantation existed until 1972.

During the post-Civil War period, Jim Crow racial segregation laws were imposed on every state, with legal segregation in schools, housing, marriages and many other aspects of daily life. “Today, a new set of markedly racist laws is imposing slave labor and sweatshops on the criminal justice system, now known as the prison industry complex,” comments the Left Business Observer.

Who is investing? At least 37 states have legalized the contracting of prison labor by private corporations that mount their operations inside state prisons. The list of such companies contains the cream of U.S. corporate society: IBM, Boeing, Motorola, Microsoft, AT&T, Wireless, Texas Instrument, Dell, Compaq, Honeywell, Hewlett-Packard, Nortel, Lucent Technologies, 3Com, Intel, Northern Telecom, TWA, Nordstrom’s, Revlon, Macy’s, Pierre Cardin, Target Stores, and many more. All of these businesses are excited about the economic boom generation by prison labor. Just between 1980 and 1994, profits went up from $392 million to $1.31 billion. Inmates in state penitentiaries generally receive the minimum wage for their work, but not all; in Colorado, they get about $2 per hour, well under the minimum. And in privately-run prisons, they receive as little as 17 cents per hour for a maximum of six hours a day, the equivalent of $20 per month. The highest-paying private prison is CCA in Tennessee, where prisoners receive 50 cents per hour for what they call “highly skilled positions.” At those rates, it is no surprise that inmates find the pay in federal prisons to be very generous. There, they can earn $1.25 an hour and work eight hours a day, and sometimes overtime. They can send home $200-$300 per month.

Thanks to prison labor, the United States is once again an attractive location for investment in work that was designed for Third World labor markets. A company that operated a maquiladora (assembly plant in Mexico near the border) closed down its operations there and relocated to San Quentin State Prison in California. In Texas, a factory fired its 150 workers and contracted the services of prisoner-workers from the private Lockhart Texas prison, where circuit boards are assembled for companies like IBM and Compaq.

[Former] Oregon State Representative Kevin Mannix recently urged Nike to cut its production in Indonesia and bring it to his state, telling the shoe manufacturer that “there won’t be any transportation costs; we’re offering you competitive prison labor (here).”

PRIVATE PRISONS

The prison privatization boom began in the 1980s, under the governments of Ronald Reagan and Bush Sr., but reached its height in 1990 under William Clinton, when Wall Street stocks were selling like hotcakes. Clinton’s program for cutting the federal workforce resulted in the Justice Departments contracting of private prison corporations for the incarceration of undocumented workers and high-security inmates.

Private prisons are the biggest business in the prison industry complex. About 18 corporations guard 10,000 prisoners in 27 states. The two largest are Correctional Corporation of America (CCA) and Wackenhut, which together control 75%. Private prisons receive a guaranteed amount of money for each prisoner, independent of what it costs to maintain each one. According to Russell Boraas, a private prison administrator in Virginia, “the secret to low operating costs is having a minimal number of guards for the maximum number of prisoners.” The CCA has an ultra-modern prison in Lawrenceville, Virginia, where five guards on dayshift and two at night watch over 750 prisoners. In these prisons, inmates may get their sentences reduced for “good behavior,” but for any infraction, they get 30 days added – which means more profits for CCA. According to a study of New Mexico prisons, it was found that CCA inmates lost “good behavior time” at a rate eight times higher than those in state prisons.

IMPORTING AND EXPORTING INMATES

Profits are so good that now there is a new business: importing inmates with long sentences, meaning the worst criminals. When a federal judge ruled that overcrowding in Texas prisons was cruel and unusual punishment, the CCA signed contracts with sheriffs in poor counties to build and run new jails and share the profits. According to a December 1998 Atlantic Monthly magazine article, this program was backed by investors from Merrill-Lynch, Shearson-Lehman, American Express and Allstate, and the operation was scattered all over rural Texas. That state’s governor, Ann Richards, followed the example of Mario Cuomo in New York and built so many state prisons that the market became flooded, cutting into private prison profits.

After a law signed by Clinton in 1996 – ending court supervision and decisions – caused overcrowding and violent, unsafe conditions in federal prisons, private prison corporations in Texas began to contact other states whose prisons were overcrowded, offering “rent-a-cell” services in the CCA prisons located in small towns in Texas. The commission for a rent-a-cell salesman is $2.50 to $5.50 per day per bed. The county gets $1.50 for each prisoner.

STATISTICS

Ninety-seven percent of 125,000 federal inmates have been convicted of non-violent crimes. It is believed that more than half of the 623,000 inmates in municipal or county jails are innocent of the crimes they are accused of. Of these, the majority are awaiting trial. Two-thirds of the one million state prisoners have committed non-violent offenses. Sixteen percent of the country’s 2 million prisoners suffer from mental illness.

 

[Play by Numbers]

Have you read the book The Divide.

There is literally two interpretations of justice in the US.

One for an underclass, often exploited to support a corrupt industry that robs taxpayers and runs modern slave farms and the other where white collar crime does not exist if the company you work for is large enough

 

[Bomberboyokay]

They went overboard in the '80s with "Tough on petty s**t crime and taking drugs" and have yet to course correct.

 

[Pessimistic]

And some people will tell you trade unions are ruining soceity.

In some ways we need them more today than at other times in history. The current direction of soceity is depressing

Of course unions can sometimes be complicit in these obscenities

 

[telsor]

And some people will tell you trade unions are ruining soceity.

In some ways we need them more today than at other times in history. The current direction of soceity is depressing

Of course unions can sometimes be complicit in these obscenities

Unions jumped the shark a while back.

4 things they need to do to fix it and become relevant again (but wont because it'd be against the union admins best interests).

1) All union admin need to have spent longer on the shop floor than as union employees. (most people working for unions these days have never done the jobs they 'represent' ).

2) Reverse the amalgamation of unions that happened in the 80s. (they're too big to care about the individual workers).

3) Sever the connection with the union super funds. (firstly it's a conflict, them running investment/capitalist business, but also, their income should come solely from those they represent to ensure they're dependent on the workers).

4) Split with the ALP. (again, it's a conflict, and too many union officials are just looking for the ride into parliament - I think this would also be good for the ALP).

 

[telsor]

On topic...

While I agree that the US has a problem with too many in prison (and them being virtual slave labor while there) but the headline 5% of the worlds population, 25% of the prison population is a bit misleading.

A large part of the worlds population lives in countries with either very poor law enforcement or lacks the resources/will to put people in prison for extended periods and so use *cough* 'alternative' punishments.

 

[CountryRace]

^

Lol

 

[telsor]

^

Lol

So you don't think Africans bribing their way out cuts their imprisonment rates?
Or Muslim countries giving lashes rather than prison sentences?
Or China...well, 'redefining' people (they're not prisoners, they're being reeducated...In ways that would make them beg to be 'slaves' in a US prison).

 

[CountryRace]

So you don't think Africans bribing their way out cuts their imprisonment rates?
Or Muslim countries giving lashes rather than prison sentences?
Or China...well, 'redefining' people (they're not prisoners, they're being reeducated...In ways that would make them beg to be 'slaves' in a US prison).

you dont think rich western people bribe there way out of jail? or get lawyers good enough to not go which is essentially the same?

you dont think Muslim countries have prisons?

china has 1,548,498 118 prisoners of there own. no doubt political concentration camps or sorts too

 

[telsor]

you dont think rich western people bribe there way out of jail? or get lawyers good enough to not go which is essentially the same?

you dont think Muslim countries have prisons?

china has 1,548,498 118 prisoners of there own. no doubt political concentration camps or sorts too

Rich western people are the exception, over there, it's the rule.

Sure they do, but if 1 in 5 gets lashes rather than a prison sentence, that's 20% fewer prisoners.

 

[Lebbo73]

The USA is a first world country in terms of technology and miltary capability, but their society is that of a second world country

A good explanation provided here... Ron Paul: reality now setting in for America

Great article. Here is a man who knows his s**t.

 

[Long Live HFC]

Here is a man who knows his s**t.

rofl. paul is a senile old crank.

 

[mellowyellow]

For profit prisons + the buying off of judges and officials also adds to the high rates of incarcerations

 

[Lebbo73]

rofl. paul is a senile old crank.

He is as sharp as a tac and would of been The greatest US president if he was elected. Either that or assassinated.

 

[Long Live HFC]

He is as sharp as a tac and would of been The greatest US president if he was elected. Either that or assassinated.

hahahaahahahaahahahahahaha.

 

[Werewolf]

rofl. paul is a senile old crank.

That would still make him an improvement on the last few cretins to occupy the White House

 

[Long Live HFC]

That would still make him an improvement on the last few cretins to occupy the White House

yeah, nah. if ron had taken over in 2008, and stayed true to his principles (and been allowed to do so), the result would've been an unmitigated disaster. the guy is living in the 19th century.

 

[CountryRace]

rofl. paul is a senile old crank.

Ron Paul is a top bloke

 

[Long Live HFC]

Ron Paul is a top bloke

well of course you would think so. he's the "go to" guy for every petulant idiot on the internet.

 

[mellowyellow]

Ron Paul is a top bloke

And Im a top bloke. Elect me....

 

[telsor]

And Im a top bloke. Elect me....

Top blokes are the ones who stuffed everything up.

Elect me, I'm an arsehole.