Prison Industrial Complex (PIC)“A Re-Constitution of Slavery”

Prison Industrial Complex (PIC)
“A Re-Constitution of Slavery”
“JUST THE FACTS RBG”
Presentation compiled and designed by RBG Street Scholar using data from the Critical Resistance
website and additional resources that are listed and hot-linked at the end.
criticalresistance.org

Prison Industrial Complex (PIC)
“A Re-Constitution of Slavery”
► "Building more prisons to address crime is like building more
graveyards to address a fatal disease." -- Robert Gangi, Executive
Director of the Correctional Association of New York

► “We've been referring to the 'War on Drugs' the last few years as
'America's new Jim Crow” –Deborah Small”

2
RBG Street Scholar, 2008-Last Updated 2012

Prison Population
► 500% increase in prison population, 1970 (200,000) to
2000 (2 million) vs. total population growth of approx.
45% (between 1-2% annually) over same period

► Nearly 1.2 million were incarcerated during the 1990s
alone

► As of 2000, the total men and women behind bars, on
parole, and on probation has reached 6.3 million, more
than three percent of adult population

3

Super Power
► US imprisons more raw numbers (2 million) and per
capita (700 per 100,000 or 1 in 140) than any other
country.

► Six times more than the nearest western competitor
(UK). Holds the most known political prisoners of all
Western democracies (nearly 200)

► US (280 million) accounts for 4.7% of world population
(6.2 billion) and over 25% of world’s 8 million prisoners
(a 500%+ disproportion)
4

Why– Short History Lesson
Counterinsurgency for Political Dissidents
Shifts were justified and took place within a
context of political upheaval:
► Politicians played on white fears, blurring lines
between “criminals,” “gangs” and political
organization (those not obedient)
► Played on longstanding “police science” in
terms of arrest records as evident of crime and
justification for increased police
5

Economic Shifts –
De-industrialization
► Duringthis period of political/policy
change, in terms of police repression,
America also faced increasing
deindustrialization:
► NO JOBS; DISPLACEMENT;
► UNEMPLOYMENT
(NEVER LISTEN TO % or White Stats)
6

Results / Consequences
► Plant Closures
► Erosion of Social Services
► Increased Profit for Rich
► Increased Part-Time Labor
► Recession
► Unemployment
► Increased Poverty
► Declining Social Services
7

“What to do with Surplus Population”
► ERASE THE SPECTACLE; CONTROL BODIES THROUGH
SURVEILLANCE, CREATION OF DOCILE BODIES AND OTHER FORMS
OF CONTROL / FORCED OBEDIENCE (Joy James)

► Politicians launched contemporary War on Crime/Drugs

► A coordinated effort to expand the police state and the prison
industrial complex

► Ronald Reagan laid the foundations, George Bush continued the
project, and Bill Clinton accelerated and polished the machine in ways
the other two could only hope to

► George W. has taken things to an entirely new level (discuss later).

8

A Geographic Solution for a
Social- Economic Problem
► Capitalism needs the poor and creates poverty, intentionally through
policy and organically through crisis.

► Yet capitalism is also directly and indirectly threatened by the poor.

► Capitalism always creates surplus populations, needs surplus
populations, yet faces the threat of political, aesthetic, or cultural
disruption from those populations.

► Prison and criminal justice are about managing these irreconcilable
contradictions

► Prisons serve as geographical solution to socioeconomic problem.

► “Prisons do not disappear problems, they disappear human beings.”
9

Summary of Affects
► Structural adjustment requires cuts in social
services, privatization of state-run industry,
repeal of agreements with labor about working
conditions and the minimum wage, conversion
of multi use farm lands into single cash crop
agriculture for export (rural communities seek
out prisons to replace farm economy), and the
dismantling of trade laws which protect local
economies.
► It means more prison, police and military
10

Prison Construction
► Between 1971 and 1992, government spending on
prisons increased from 2.3 billion dollars to 31.2 billion.
► In 1995 alone, money allocated for university
construction dropped by $954 million, while
expenditures for prison construction jumped by $926
million dollars.
► Since 1984, 20 new prisons have been built in California,
compared to a single university; 1996-97: 8.7% of the
state’s budget went to higher education, compared to
almost 10% for corrections. In 1996 alone, construction
began on twenty-six federal prisons and ninety-six state
prisons throughout the U.S.
11

Fill those Beds
► TWO MILLION PEOPLE IN PRISON
► Additional 5 or 6 million on probation or parole
bringing the number of those tied into the system,
under some form of official state surveillance to 1 in 56
(7 to 8 million). 3% of the U.S. adult population -- 1 in
every 34 adults.
► “There are currently more than 50 million criminal
records on file in the US, with at least 4 to 5 million
‘new’ adults acquiring such a record annually. This
record sticks with a person, whether or not charges
are dropped or there is a subsequent conviction”
(Jerome Miller).
12

Incarceration Race
► Inthe United States, in 2000, the rate of
incarceration for white women was 34 per
100,000, for Latinas was 60 per 100,000and for
African-American women was 205 per 100,000.
► The rate of incarceration for white men the rate
was 449 per 100,000, for Latino the rate was
1,220 per 100,000, and for African-American
men 3,457 per 100,000

13

Who’s in Prison
► Over 93% men, 7% women. But women are the fastest
growing prison population in the country.

► At present, people of color over 70%, nearly 20%
Latino; black people alone over 50%

► Over 1 million black people (out of 35 million total), 1
out of 35; split it in half, 1 out of 17 men, remove the
very old and very young, the number drops to 1 in 10;
including those on parole or probation the number is 1
in 4; for those in their 20s its 1 in 3; black males have
30%+ chance of doing time at some point in their lives
or 1 in 3. Latinos around 16% (1 in 6) and whites
around 4% (1 in 24) 14

Who’s in Prison (2)
► NativeAmericans account for 1-2% of those in
prison, but are incarcerated at rates just below
blacks with a rate of 709 per 100,000 (largest
group per capita)

► Bothblack men and women are incarcerated at
8 times the rate of whites, twice the rate of
Latinos

► Black women fast growing group of prisoners
15

More Prison Facts
► In 1994, one in three black men between the
age of 20-29 were in prison, on probation or on
parole
► In 1995, 47% of state and federal inmates were
black
► B/t 1985-1995, Latinos jumped from 10% of all
state and federal inmates to 18%
► B/t 1970 and 1996, women in federal and state
prisons grew from 5,000 to 75,000; 60% of that
population are black and Latina
16

Prison Population
► African Americans and Latinos account for 65 percent
of those incarcerated in federal prisons (68% of all
people in prison and jail are people of color)

► Almost 600,000 black men between ages of 20 and 39
are currently in prison; four percent of Latino men b/t
ages of 25 and 29 are in jail (only 1.6% of white men in
this category are in jail)

► Black women are nearly 2.5 times more likely than
Latina women and over 4.5 times more likely than
white women to be imprisoned 17

Myth-breaking
► Vast majority (over 2/3) sentenced for non-violent drug offenses
or property crimes
► Violence occurs in less than 14% of all reported crime, and
injuries occur in just 3%
► Almost all prisoners are poor or working class people
► Most have not finished high school. Many are functionally
illiterate.
► Nearly 1/3 were unemployed at the time of their arrest, of those
that were employed, most had jobs paying at or below the
minimum wage
► Nearly 2/3 were under the influence of alcohol or drugs during the
time of arrest
► Statistics indicate that anywhere from 40 to 88 percent of
incarcerated women have been victims of domestic violence and
sexual or physical abuse prior to incarceration, either as children
or adults RBG Street Scholar, 2008-Last Updated 2012
18

More myth Busting:
Beyond Ossification of Prisons
► 21 percent of inmates in seven Midwestern prisons had experienced at
least one episode of pressured or forced sex since being incarcerated,
and at least 7 percent had been raped in their facility.

► And an internal departmental survey of corrections officers in one
southern state found that line officers — those charged with the direct
supervision of inmates — estimated that roughly one-fifth of all
prisoners were being coerced into participation in inmate-on-inmate sex.

► At least one in six prisoners in the United States is mentally ill – well
over 300,000 men and women. There are three times as many mentally ill
in U.S. prisons as in the country's mental health hospitals, suffering from
schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and major depression, among other
illnesses
19

More myth Busting:
Beyond Ossification of Prisons (2)
► In the U.S., in 1994, rates of AIDS were nearly six times
the incidence found in the general adult population.

► The level of TB in prisons has been reported to be up to
100 times higher than that of the civilian population.

► Cases of TB in prisons may account for up to 25% of a
country's burden of TB.

20

Prison Abuse
► Human Rights Watch documents the unnecessary and
abusive use of physical force at the prison.

► Staff have fired at inmates with shotguns for
misconduct that should have been handled by
unarmed staff.

► They have also shocked inmates with electronic stun
devices.

► Georgia, a senior prison official watched while guards
brutally beat handcuffed inmates.
21

Prison Abuse (2)
► Correctional officers in California encouraged combat
between prisoners by placing rival gang members together
in the prison yard and then shot inmates when they fought.

► The practice of overcrowding cells and subjecting
prisoners to unsafe and unsanitary living conditions also
continues to exist.

► The Constitution protects prisoners from cruel and
unusual punishment; it is essential that their rights be
protected and that inhumane treatment be prevented.

► Sexual Violence and Harassment against women
22

Crime Rates
► Though crime index rose steadily during the 1970s and
1980s (due largely to drug-related arrests, the
introduction of heroin and crack), it leveled off and fell
slightly during the 1990s, during the time of the most
intensive prison and police build-up.

► Thus, the crime index does not correspond in any
direct way to the rates of arrest and incarceration
(though they generally correspond to rates of poverty
and unemployment).

23

Crime Rates (2)
► While crime rates among youth of color have
dropped faster than the general population
(despite worsening youth poverty), rates of
arrest and incarceration continue to rise.

► Imprisonment, therefore, has semi-autonomous
a political and economic logic (of life) of its
own.

24

Arrests and Profiling
► Blacks are five times more likely than whites to be stopped on the
New Jersey Turnpike
► The Colorado Sheriff in Eagle County ordered its deputies to stop
all black and Latino motorists with CA license plates driving
through the state
► On Interstate 95 in Maryland, African Americans reflected 17% of
drivers, but accounted for 56% of those stopped and searched by
the police
► Black women are 20 times more likely than white women to be
searched by U.S. Customs and even forced to take laxatives, even
though white and Latina women are just as likely to be carrying
drugs
► For every white arrest, there are 3 African American arrests; for
every white prisoner there are 7 African American prisoners

25

Racial Differences during every step
► Blackand Latino Defendants pay twice bail as
white defendants

► Whites have a greater chance at getting
charges dropped, getting cases dismissed,
avoiding harsher punishments, avoiding extra
charges, and having their criminal records
reduced – drug cases in CA, whites are twice
as likely to get rehab than Latinos and African
Americans
26

Sentencing
► Afrikans in American are:
1. Five times more likely to be arrested for
felonies
2. Seven times more likely to be sent to prison
3. 13 times more likely to be sentenced under
the State's "Three Strikes" law (44% of those
convicted under three strikes)
4. Women of color are 64% of the female prison
population and serve longer sentences for the
same crime as do white women or men of
27
color RBG Street Scholar, 2008-Last Updated 2012

War on Drugs
► More generally, while African Americans constitute 13%
of all monthly drug users, they represent 35% of arrests
for drug possession, 55% of convictions and 74% of
prison sentences.
► The number of black women incarcerated for drug
offenses in state prisons increased by 828% from 1986 to
1991, first five years of Reagan’s War on Drugs

► Racial Minorities account for 79% of all state prison drug
offenders

► In Texas, only one out of 25 people arrested for drugs
have access to drug courts: special court that pushes
rehab 28

War on Drugs (2)
► Since the 1980s, older (over age 30) white adults have
suffered rising rates of drug abuse while drug abuse
declined sharply among younger (under age 30) people
and among people of color.

► However, increases in imprisonment for drug offenses
have been two to three times greater for people of color
than for Whites over the period (as measured by absolute
increases in drug imprisonments adjusted for population
growth by age and race, the most accurate measure).

29

Crack v. Cocaine
► Crack to powder cocaine sentencing 100:1 ratio (500
grams to 5 grams for same 5-year sentence)
► Crack is racialized black and poor, powder as white and
rich
► Moreover, most crack users are whites between 16 and
36 (nearly 2/3), but they are not policed in the places
that they use it (racial profiling and targeted patrols).
When they are arrested, they are rarely prosecuted.
When they are prosecuted they are less likely to be
convicted.

30

Crack v. Cocaine
► When convicted, they are sentenced to less time in lower
security prisons or sent to rehab. Defendants convicted
of crack possession in 1994, for example, were 84.5%
black, 10.3% white, and 5.2% Hispanic.

► Trafficking offenders were 4.1% white, 88.3% black, and
7.1% Hispanic

31

Legal Aids and Other Factors
► Law
 Illinois –Selling or possessing controlled substance within 1000
feet of public housing is felony; but sale or possession within
suburbs is charged as juvenile (different options

 Minnesota Drug Law: Four years for first time crack offense and
probation for first time cocaine offense (eventually overturned)
 Sagging pants in Virginia

► Media/political misinformation: Fear – NYC: Giuliani released
report that was knowingly false concerning Crips and Bloods in
NYC, prompting mass arrest of black, Latino and Asian youth

32

War against youth of color
► A black youth is six times more likely to be locked up than a white
peer, even when charged with a similar crime and when neither has a
prior record

► Blacks also account for 40 percent of the youths sent to adult courts
and 58 percent of the youths sent to adult prison

► In 1993, incarceration rates for juveniles was 221 per 100,000; for
Latino youth it was 481 per 100,000; and for black youth it was 810
per 100,000

► Among youth with no prior record arrested for violent crimes,
including murder, rape and robbery, 137 out of every 100,000 blacks
were incarcerated, compared with 15 out of every 100,000 whites.
33

Impact of prison industry
► All but two states (ME and VT) deny prisoners right to vote while
doing time, many deny that right to parolees and probationers, 7
deny that right to anyone convicted of a felony for life

► As a result, 4 million Americans have lost right to vote, 1 in 50

► 1.5 million black men or 13% have lost the vote, 7 times the
national average; in 7 worst states, 1 in 4 or 25% of voting age
black men are disenfranchised; nationally 1/3 of the coming
generation of black men can expected to lose their vote; in the
worst states between 40-50% can expect it

► In Florida alone, at least 200,000 former prisoners were denied the
vote in the past election 2000.

► In all, US has greater rates of felony voter disenfranchisement
than any other country.
34

Impact of prison industry (2)
► Those with felonies convictions are restricted as to what they can do
upon leaving prisons: no student loans, no federal housing, no welfare,
and many states limit what jobs felons can work (NEW YORK– 40)

► Since the 1980s, older (over age 30) white adults have suffered rising
rates of drug abuse while drug abuse declined sharply among younger
(under age 30) people and among people of color.

► However, increases in imprisonment for drug offenses have been two
to three times greater for people of color than for Whites over the
period (as measured by absolute increases in drug imprisonments
adjusted for population growth by age and race, the most accurate
measure).

35

Economic Cost
► The U.S. spends roughly forty billion dollars annually on maintaining
its prisons and close to one hundred billion each year to support the
entire criminal justice system.
► Between 1971 and 1992, government spending on prisons increased
from 2.3 billion dollars to 31.2 billion.
► In 1995 alone, money allocated for university construction dropped
by $954 million, while expenditures for prison construction jumped
by $926 million dollars
► Since 1984, 20 new prisons in CA, compared to a single university;
1996-97: 8.7% of state’s budget went to higher education, compared
to almost 10% for corrections
► In 2001 state correctional expenditures increased by 145% (b/t 1982-
2001, corrections spending increased by 529%; for police, 281%, for
courts, 383%)

36

New Slavery
► “For private businesses, 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 date entry for Chevron, make telephone reservations
for TWA, raise hogs, shovel mature, and make circuit boards,
limousines, waterbeds, and lingerie for Victoria’s Secret, all at a
fraction of the cost of ‘free labor.’
►
From: Linda Evans and Eve Goldberg, Globalization and the Prison
Industrial Complex
37

Profit
► Prison Industry Generates 40 billion dollars in profit each year
► At & T, Sprint and MCI charge Inmates and their families as much
as 6 times the normal cost for long distance
► Companies like TWA, MCI and Victoria Secret use prison labor –
Victoria Secret pays its “workers” 23 cents an hour
► B/t 1996-97, *CCA profits increased by 58 percent, from $293
million to $462 million
► Other companies using prison labor or reaping prison profits
include: Boeing, IBM, American Express, Compaq, Microsoft,
Honeywell Motorola, WSU, Revlon, Pierre Cardin, G.E., NIKE,
(note the such companies also impact numerous other
industries), etc.
► Extrark offers a sizable cheap labor source, providing prisoners to
Microsoft, Starbucks, JanSport, and US West for packaging and
“literature assembly.”
*Corrections Corporation of America (CCA)
38

CCA
*Corrections Corporation of America (CCA)

► UNICOR pays its prison workers $40/month for 40
hours per week
► It employs” 18,000 prisoners, offering different
products to state agencies.
► It provides everything from safety goggles, to
university furniture, to body armor for the Border
Patrol, and road signs for the Park Service.
► In 1998 alone, UNICOR produced 512 million dollars in
goods and services
39

Private Prisons
► Corrections Corporation of America controls over half
of the private prisons in the United States, having
amassed 63,000 prison beds.
► Globally, CCA runs almost eighty prisons in 25 states,
Puerto Rico, Australia and the United Kingdom.
► Financially, CCA has proven to be a stable and
successful company.
► In 1995, CCA went public at $8 per share. By the end
of that year, its stocks soared 462.5 percent to $37 per
share.
► In 1996-1997, CCA's profits increased by 58 percent,
from $293 million to $462 million. 40

Prison Industrial Complex
► Christian Parenti centers political and economic
interests within his definition of the prison industrial
complex as “a government-backed juggernaut of
mutually reinforcing corporate interests."

► Angela Davis agrees, offering a similar definition that
repositions race and globalization in its rightful place
at the core: “The notion of a prison industrial complex
insists on understandings of the punishment process
that take into account economic and political
structures and ideologies rather than focusing
myopically on individual criminal conduct to “curb
crime.”
41

Prison Industrial Complex (2)
► The fact, for example, that many corporations with global
markets now rely on prisons as an important source of
profits helps us understand the rapidity with which prisons
began to proliferate precisely at a time when official studies
indicated that the crime rare was falling.

► The notion of a prison industrial complex also insists that
the racialization of prison populations – and this is not only
true of the United States, but of Europe, South America,
and Australia as well – is not an incidental feature.

42

State Violence as Crime
► Blacks and Latinos make up nearly half of all those in
poverty
► Unemployment for some groups is upwards of 25-50%.
► 1 out of 5 kids is born into poverty in the US, 1 out of 2
black kids and American Indian children; 1 out of 3
Latinos.
► As many as 10 million people are homeless or near
homeless, most are women and children and half are
black; 1 out of 4 Americans does not have basic health
care. For all of these statistics people of color are, of
course, disproportionately represented.
43

State Violence as Crime
► In California alone, during the first five years of the Drug War
(1986-1991), nearly 70,000 black people were incarcerated, a rate of
1000 per month or 1 every half an hour (for 5 years!).
► 30,000 Chicano/Latinos were put away and 15,000 whites over the
same period.
► In all, nearly 120,000 people were subtracted from the public
sphere in the State of California, the equivalent of the carnage
produced by the atomic bomb at Hiroshima.
► 40% of women in prison for felonies are there because they killed
an abusive partner/spouse
► In the 1970s, it is estimated that 30% of all Puerto Rican women,
and 25-40% of American Indian women were sterilized without
their informed consent
► In 1997 & 1998, NYPD stopped 45,000 people on gun suspicion of
guns, yet arrested less than 10,000
44

Nuff Said
► 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
conversations. 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
conservatives marks a new historical moment, whose
dangers are unprecedented (Davis, Colorlines)
45

Reference Resources Link Outs:
The Prison Industrial Complex and the Global Economy
And the prison industrial complex is rapidly becoming an essential
component of ... The prison industrial complex can grow only if
more and more people are ...
www.prisonactivist.org/crisis/evans-goldberg

THE PRISON INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX
The prison industrial complex is not a conspiracy, guiding the nation's
... The inner workings of the prison industrial complex can be observed
in the state ...
www.thetalkingdrum.com/prison

What Is the Prison Industrial Complex?
The prison industrial complex (PIC) is a complicated system situated at the
intersection of governmental and private interests that uses prisons as a ...
www.criticalresistance.org/index.php?name=what_is_pic
46

Prison Industrial Complex (PIC)“A Re-Constitution of Slavery”

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