NOVANEWS
by Stephen Lendman
At yearend 2010, America’s prison population topped 2.4 million, including federal and state facilities, local jails, Indian, juvenile, and military ones, US territories, and numbers held by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
In addition, over seven million more are under correctional supervision, and over 13 million pass through US prisons and jails annually. About 70% are for nonviolent offenses. Nearly half of those are drug-related. In 1980, 40,000 drug offenders were imprisoned. It’s now over 500,000, victimized by unfair “war on drugs” laws.
Since 1970, America’s prison population grew eightfold. It hasn’t been for more crime. It’s because of:
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– racism;
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– police state toughness;
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– judicial unfairness;
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– political persecution;
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– get tough on crime policies;
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– three strikes and you’re out;
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– truth-in-sentencing;
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– mandatory minimums;
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– a guilty unless proved innocent mentality; and
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– being undocumented.
Most vulnerable are poor Blacks, Latinos, and Native Indians (people of color) for America’s insatiable prison-industrial complex appetite, commoditizing human beings for profit in both public and privately run prisons.
Corrections Project.com says:
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– America’s prison population is by far the world’s largest;
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– one-fourth of Black men are in prison, on parole or probation;
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– 10% of them lost their right to vote;
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– unprecedented numbers of children are incarcerated, many into adulthood;
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– Native Americans have the highest percent of their population imprisoned;
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– Latinos and women are the fastest growing prison populations;
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– rural communities are being force-fed prisons to stimulate economic growth; and
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– incarceration in America is a growth industry – an alleged solution to high unemployment, crumbled schools, societal neglect, low wages, and an eroding social contract, trafficking human beings for profit in all penal facilities because private suppliers service them.
They include a growing private gulag, prisons for profit with nearly a score of corporations running dozens of facilities with tens of thousands of prisoners. In fact, privatized prisons are expected to increase sharply over the next decade, given America’s addiction to incarcerate and let corporate prisons do more.
Outlawed a century ago, they’re back and booming, a solution to budget-strapped states. Today, nearly 10% of US prisons and jails are private, dominated by two major firms – Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) and GEO Group (formerly Wackenhut).
They also play a growing role in warehousing undocumented immigrants and resident aliens, including in locations outside America. More on that below.
On June 22, Justice Policy Institute writer Paul Ashton headlined, “Gaming the System: How the Political Strategies of Private Prison Companies Promote Ineffective Incarceration Policies,” saying:
In the past decade, they’ve “worked hard….to create markets for their product,” using financial muscle to buy political influence “to promote policies that lead to higher rates of incarceration” three ways:
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– lobbying;
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– campaign contributions; and
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– relationships with current and former elected and appointed officials.