And now:Ish <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: >Date: Sat, 6 Feb 1999 17:44:54 -0600 (CST) >From: "Progressive Resource/Action Coop." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >Subject: Masked Racism >To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > >Masked Racism: Reflections On The Prison Industrial Complex > >By Angela Y. Davis > >(This article appears in the Fall 1998 issue of ColorLines, a new >quarterly magazine devoted to Race, Culture & Action. Subscriptions >are $15 for six issues and are available at >http://www.arc.org/Pages/ArcColorLines.html) > > Imprisonment has become the response of first resort to far too many >of the social problems that burden people who are ensconced in poverty. >These problems often are veiled by being conveniently grouped together >under the category "crime" and by the automatic attribution of criminal >behavior to people of color. Homelessness, unemployment, drug addiction, >mental illness, and illiteracy are only a few of the problems that >disappear from public view when the human beings contending with them are >relegated to cages. > > Prisons thus perform a feat of magic. Or rather the people who >continually vote in new prison bonds and tacitly assent to a proliferating >network of prisons and jails have been tricked into believing in the magic >of imprisonment. But prisons do not disappear problems, they disappear >human beings. And the practice of disappearing vast numbers of people from >poor, immigrant, and racially marginalized communities has literally >become big business. > > The seeming effortlessness of magic always conceals an enormous >amount of behind-the-scenes work. When prisons disappear human beings in >order to convey the illusion of solving social problems, penal >infrastructures must be created to accommodate a rapidly swelling >population of caged people. Goods and services must be provided to keep >imprisoned populations alive. Sometimes these populations must be kept >busy and at other times - particularly in repressive super-maximum prisons >and in INS detention centers - they must be deprived of virtually all >meaningful activity. Vast numbers of handcuffed and shackled people are >moved across state borders as they are transferred from one state or >federal prison to another. > > All this work, which used to be the primary province of government, >is now also performed by private corporations, whose links to government >in the field of what is euphemistically called "corrections" resonate >dangerously with the military industrial complex. The dividends that >accrue from investment in the punishment industry, like those that accrue >from investment in weapons production, only amount to social destruction. >Taking into account the structural similarities and profitability of >business-government linkages in the realms of military production and >public punishment, the expanding penal system can now be characterized as >a "prison industrial complex". > > >The Color Of Imprisonment > > Almost two million people are currently locked up in the immense >network of U.S. prisons and jails. More than 70 percent of the imprisoned >population are people of color. It is rarely acknowledged that the fastest >growing group of prisoners are black women and that Native American >prisoners are the largest group per capita. Approximately five million >people - including those on probation and parole - are directly under the >surveillance of the criminal justice system. > > Three decades ago, the imprisoned population was approximately >one-eighth its current size. While women still constitute a relatively >small percentage of people behind bars, today the number of incarcerated >women in California alone is almost twice what the nationwide women's >prison population was in 1970. According to Elliott Currie, "[t]he prison >has become a looming presence in our society to an extent unparalleled in >our history - or that of any other industrial democracy. Short of major >wars, mass incarceration has been the most thoroughly implemented >government social program of our time." > > To deliver up bodies destined for profitable punishment, the >political economy of prisons relies on racialized assumptions of >criminality - such as images of black welfare mothers reproducing criminal >children - and on racist practices in arrest, conviction, and sentencing >patterns. Colored bodies constitute the main human raw material in this >vast experiment to disappear the major social problems of our time. Once >the aura of magic is stripped away from the imprisonment solution, what is >revealed is racism, class bias, and the parasitic seduction of capitalist >profit. The prison industrial system materially and morally impoverishes >its inhabitants and devours the social wealth needed to address the very >problems that have led to spiraling numbers of prisoners. > > As prisons take up more and more space on the social landscape, other >government programs that have previously sought to respond to social needs >- such as Temporary Assistance to Needy Families - are being squeezed out >of existence. The deterioration of public education, including >prioritizing discipline and security over learning in public schools >located in poor communities, is directly related to the prison "solution". > > >Profiting From Prisoners > > As prisons proliferate in U.S. society, private capital has become >enmeshed in the punishment industry. And precisely because of their profit >potential, prisons are becoming increasingly important to the U.S. >economy. If the notion of punishment as a source of potentially stupendous >profits is disturbing by itself, then the strategic dependence on racist >structures and ideologies to render mass punishment palatable and >profitable is even more troubling. > > Prison privatization is the most obvious instance of capital's >current movement toward the prison industry. While government-run prisons >are often in gross violation of international human rights standards, >private prisons are even less accountable. In March of this year, the >Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), the largest U.S. private prison >company, claimed 54,944 beds in 68 facilities under contract or >development in the U.S., Puerto Rico, the United Kingdom, and Australia. >Following the global trend of subjecting more women to public punishment, >CCA recently opened a women's prison outside Melbourne. The company >recently identified California as its "new frontier". > > Wackenhut Corrections Corporation (WCC), the second largest U.S. >prison company, claimed contracts and awards to manage 46 facilities in >North America, U.K., and Australia. It boasts a total of 30,424 beds as >well as contracts for prisoner health care services, transportation, and >security. > > Currently, the stocks of both CCA and WCC are doing extremely well. >Between 1996 and 1997, CCA's revenues increased by 58 percent, from $293 >million to $462 million. Its net profit grew from $30.9 million to $53.9 >million. WCC raised its revenues from $138 million in 1996 to $210 million >in 1997. Unlike public correctional facilities, the vast profits of these >private facilities rely on the employment of non-union labor. > > >The Prison Industrial Complex > > But private prison companies are only the most visible component of >the increasing corporatization of punishment. Government contracts to >build prisons have bolstered the construction industry. The architectural >community has identified prison design as a major new niche. Technology >developed for the military by companies like Westinghouse are being >marketed for use in law enforcement and punishment. > > Moreover, corporations that appear to be far removed from the >business of punishment are intimately involved in the expansion of the >prison industrial complex. Prison construction bonds are one of the many >sources of profitable investment for leading financiers such as Merrill >Lynch. MCI charges prisoners and their families outrageous prices for the >precious telephone calls which are often the only contact prisoners have >with the free world. > > Many corporations whose products we consume on a daily basis have >learned that prison labor power can be as profitable as third world labor >power exploited by U.S.-based global corporations. Both relegate formerly >unionized workers to joblessness and many even wind up in prison. Some of >the companies that use prison labor are IBM, Motorola, Compaq, Texas >Instruments, Honeywell, Microsoft, and Boeing. But it is not only the >hi-tech industries that reap the profits of prison labor. Nordstrom >department stores sell jeans that are marketed as "Prison Blues," as well >as t-shirts and jackets made in Oregon prisons. The advertising slogan for >these clothes is "made on the inside to be worn on the outside." Maryland >prisoners inspect glass bottles and jars used by Revlon and Pierre Cardin, >and schools throughout the world buy graduation caps and gowns made by >South Carolina prisoners. > > "For private business," write Eve Goldberg and Linda Evans (a >political prisoner inside the Federal Correctional Institution at Dublin, >California) "prison labor is like a pot of gold. No strikes. No union >organizing. No health benefits, unemployment insurance, or workers' >compensation to pay. No language barriers, as in foreign countries. New >leviathan prisons are being built on thousands of eerie acres of factories >inside the walls. Prisoners do data entry for Chevron, make telephone >reservations for TWA, raise hogs, shovel manure, make circuit boards, >limousines, waterbeds, and lingerie for Victoria's Secret - all at a >fraction of the cost of 'free labor.'" > > >Devouring The Social Wealth > > Although prison labor - which ultimately is compensated at a rate far >below the minimum wage - is hugely profitable for the private companies >that use it, the penal system as a whole does not produce wealth. It >devours the social wealth that could be used to subsidize housing for the >homeless, to ameliorate public education for poor and racially >marginalized communities, to open free drug rehabilitation programs for >people who wish to kick their habits, to create a national health care >system, to expand programs to combat HIV, to eradicate domestic abuse - >and, in the process, to create well-paying jobs for the unemployed. > > Since 1984 more than twenty new prisons have opened in California, >while only one new campus was added to the California State University >system and none to the University of California system. In 1996-97, higher >education received only 8.7 percent of the State's General Fund while >corrections received 9.6 percent. Now that affirmative action has been >declared illegal in California, it is obvious that education is >increasingly reserved for certain people, while prisons are reserved for >others. Five times as many black men are presently in prison as in four >year colleges and universities. This new segregation has dangerous >implications for the entire country. > > By segregating people labeled as criminals, prison simultaneously >fortifies and conceals the structural racism of the U.S. economy. Claims >of low unemployment rates - even in black communities - make sense only if >one assumes that the vast numbers of people in prison have really >disappeared and thus have no legitimate claims to jobs. The numbers of >black and Latino men currently incarcerated amount to two percent of the >male labor force. According to criminologist David Downes, "[t]reating >incarceration as a type of hidden unemployment may raise the jobless rate >for men by about one-third, to 8 percent. The effect on the black labor >force is greater still, raising the [black] male unemployment rate from 11 >percent to 19 percent." > > >Hidden Agenda > > Mass incarceration is not a solution to unemployment, nor is it a >solution to the vast array of social problems that are hidden away in a >rapidly growing network of prisons and jails. However, the great majority >of people have been tricked into believing in the efficacy of >imprisonment, even though the historical record clearly demonstrates that >prisons do not work. Racism has undermined our ability to create a popular >critical discourse to contest the ideological trickery that posits >imprisonment as key to public safety. The focus of state policy is rapidly >shifting from social welfare to social control. > > Black, Latino, Native American, and many Asian youth are portrayed as >the purveyors of violence, traffickers of drugs, and as envious of >commodities that they have no right to possess. Young black and Latina >women are represented as sexually promiscuous and as indiscriminately >propagating babies and poverty. Criminality and deviance are racialized. >Surveillance is thus focused on communities of color, immigrants, the >unemployed, the undereducated, the homeless, and in general on those who >have a diminishing claim to social resources. Their claim to social >resources continues to diminish in large part because law enforcement and >penal measures increasingly devour these resources. The prison industrial >complex has thus created a vicious cycle of punishment which only further >impoverishes those whose impoverishment is supposedly "solved" by >imprisonment. > > Therefore, as the emphasis of government policy shifts from social >welfare to crime control, racism sinks more deeply into the economic and >ideological structures of U.S. society. Meanwhile, conservative crusaders >against affirmative action and bilingual education proclaim the end of >racism, while their opponents suggest that racism's remnants can be >dispelled through dialogue and conversation. But conversations about "race >relations" will hardly dismantle a prison industrial complex that thrives >on and nourishes the racism hidden within the deep structures of our >society. > > The emergence of a U.S. prison industrial complex within a context of >cascading conservatism marks a new historical moment, whose dangers are >unprecedented. But so are its opportunities. Considering the impressive >number of grassroots projects that continue to resist the expansion of the >punishment industry, it ought to be possible to bring these efforts >together to create radical and nationally visible movements that can >legitimize anti-capitalist critiques of the prison industrial complex. It >ought to be possible to build movements in defense of prisoners' human >rights and movements that persuasively argue that what we need is not new >prisons, but new health care, housing, education, drug programs, jobs, and >education. To safeguard a democratic future, it is possible and necessary >to weave together the many and increasing strands of resistance to the >prison industrial complex into a powerful movement for social >transformation. > >----------------------------------------------------------------- > &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&& Tsonkwadiyonrat (We are ONE Spirit) Unenh onhwa' Awayaton http://www.tdi.net/ishgooda/ &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
