Time: Sat Mar 22 07:09:26 1997
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Date: Sat, 22 Mar 1997 07:06:56 -0800
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From: Paul Andrew Mitchell [address in tool bar]
Subject: SLS: [jus-dare] American Gulag
>*Jus Dare*
>Dicken's Gulag
>
>From: Harold Thomas <harold@halcyon.com>
>Subject: "Gulag" is a Soviet Concept, Right?
>
>
>Given the fact that a HUGE percentage of Americans in prison are
>"guilty" of victimless "crimes" committed against the social
>engineering agenda and public policy of government which is itself the
>very MODEL OF HYPOCRISY, CORRUPTION AND EVIL, this article should
>provide yet another reason to feel a sense of STAGGERING REVULSION
>every time you voluntarily hand so much as a penny to the "United
>States Government" or to your corporate "State of" Government! A
>Christian nation, indeed!
>
>Harold Thomas
>
>
>Copied from; TECH NOTES
>Editor: Steve Doll
>333 Tropical Lane,
>Ormond Beach Fl 32174
>Ph/Fax 904-667-1594
>
>"ARE THERE NO PRISONS...'
>
>...Are there no workhouses?" In such fashion did the ghost of
>Christmas Present mock Ebeneezer Scrooge's rather insensitive
>response to the question of what would become of the poor and
>disenfranchised in Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol.
> Now according to a special report in the D.C.-based
>Counterpunch newsletter (Jan 1-15, 1997), the prisons and workhouses
>are booming, not in Dickensian England, but right here and now in
>the good old U.S.A. and while the numbers in stir (1.6 million
>Americans were in prison at the end of 1995) might appoll some, the
>clanging of the cell doors means sweet music to the growing
>privately-owned prison industry.
> Thanks to tight government budgets, stricter repeat-offender
>sentences, the potential of a cheap labor market, and a more vigorous
>prosecution of the "drug war", the kingpin of jailing for dollars,
>the Corrections Corporations of America, has seen its stock value
>soar from $8 per share in 1992 to $30 in 1996, with an 81% increase
>in revenue in 1995 alone. Other-prison-for-profit outfits have seen
>similar increases, including Wackenhut, which is now listed among
>Forbes' top 200 small businesses. All told, private prisons have seen
>their "market share" (some market) grow from five prisons in 1987 to
>over 100 as of this issue.
> Numbers may mean strength, but in the prison racket, numbers mean
>survival, and profits. Private prisons have resorted to imposing
>tougher disciplinary standards (like making it harder to get time off
>for good behavior') and mishandling or losing parole papers and
>forcing inmates to stay beyond their release dates in order to
>maintain the requisite 90-95% occupancy rate to avoid, as Prudential
>Securities has said, "low occupancy... a drag on profits."
> Prisons have proven such a good source of cheap labor,
>corporations are flocking to the jailhouse to maximize profits. Where
>prisoners used to hammer out license tags for the state, now they
>saw, sew, and solder such items as car parts, clothing, furniture and
>computer circuit boards for major U.S. companies. The tactic has
>proven so lucrative that the a U.S. company operating in Mexico
>closed down its operations and moved them to San Quentin, while
>another firm dumped 150 workers in Texas and set up shop in a private
>prison in Lockhart, where prisoners now assemble circuit boards for
>such outfits as IBM and Compaq. State legislator Kevin Mannix of
>Oregon has issued an invitation to Nike to shift its operations from
>Indonesia to his state. "We could offer competitive prison labor",
>says Mannix.
> How competitive? Pay scales, which may run as high as $400 per
>month "take home" in government prisons, are as low as 17 cents per
>hour in private prisons. Pay rates at the CCA prisons max out at 50
>cents per hour for "highly-skilled labor."
> Such financial rewards don't go far in the private canteens,
>where the buy-low, sell high axiom of the fee market abounds. Inmates
>in a CCA-run facility in Florida complain of $2.50 charges for phone
>calls, and exorbitant prices for necessities such as soap,
>toothpaste, toothbrushes, and clothing, which are provided to inmates
>at government-run prisons.
> Of course, the operators of for profit prisons aren't the only
>ones on the chow wagon. Large-scale investors too, capitalizing on
>hard times, are buying in big. Among ther celebrated names backing
>the prison business are American Express, General Electric, Goldman
>Sachs & Co., and Merrill Lynch, Smith & Barney. High-tech firms are
>scrambling to move items like monitoring systems which bar code
>prisoners, while AT&T hustles to get a lock on the prison
>communication business.
> The social cost? Former correction officer Jerome Miller
>estimates that the "American gulag" system will house between three
>and five million inmates in the next 15 years, composed mostly of
>African-American men.COMMENT: The price system is resilient. While we
>acknowledge that technological change is at the heart of our economic
>woes, corporate America losses no opportunity to exploit the trend.
>Grind a portion of the population down to the point at which crime is
>their only out. Then imprison these people (at taxpayers' expense)
>and use them to turn out products at wages amounting to a fraction of
>those on the outside, displacing higher-paid workers, many of whom
>will also be forced into illegal or violent acts to survive or as a
>reaction to the stress of economic insecurity (especially as
>government support programs are cut to the bone)-thus creating a
>constant supply of low-wage inmate workers.
> What kind of motivation is there to reduce crime when investors'
>profits depend on full prisons? Not only do the chief beneficiaries
>of the Price System enrich themselves by promoting the existence of
>crime, they will no doubt be congratulated by a population seeking
>protection from the victims of the very system that is responsible
>for most of the crime -and gleefully pour into stores and snatch up
>those cheap goods that once again proudly say "Made in U.S.A."
>
>Distrubute freely
>
>
>
>
>
>----------------------------------------------------------------------
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