Slavery, the Prison/Industrial Complex, and American Hypocrisy
August 20, 2007
The United States has less than 5% of the world’s population, but we incarcerate 25% of all the prisoners in the world. We leave China, Russia, North Korea, Iran, and all the other nations we like to look down our noses at far in the dust. We not only lockup more of our citizens than all totalitarian nations, we even lockup more people than China which has more than 4 times the number of Americans, and India which has almost 4 times the number of Americans, and Iran COMBINED. The US not only leads in the numbers of prisoners but far outpace China when measured per capita. We rank 1st among all nations with 715 prisoners per 100,000 people. China ranks 71st with 119 prisoners per 100,000 people.
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_pri-crime-prisoners
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_pri_per_cap-crime-prisoners-per-capita
US leaders love to point out China as a violator of human rights and their penchant for slave and prison labor. While it’s principled to point out abuses by the Chinese, Americans should also recognize that slavery is not only legal in the US, it’s also practiced. The 13th Amendment authorizes it, “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” The key word here is “except” and being convicted of a crime in the United States is that exception.
In today’s America, drug laws have become the new Jim Crow laws, the prison/industrial complex has become the new plantation, and the warden has become the new overseer. America’s newest slaves aren’t picking cotton. They’re assembling computers, making women’s lingerie, booking airline flights over the phone, telemarketing for major corporations, and doing all kinds of tasks that free Americans used to be employed at doing. What appeared to be a normal plant closing by U.S. Technologies when it sold its electronics plant in Austin, was actually the company relocating its operations to a nearby Austin prison. One hundred and fifty “free” employees lost their jobs to the new slaves.
If you book a flight on TWA over the phone, a prisoner may be taking your order. If you buy yourself or your loved one something from Victoria Secret, it may have come from a prison in South Carolina. Corporations like Chevron, Boeing, IBM, Motorola, Honda, Toys R Us, Compaq, Dell, Texas Instruments, Honeywell, Hewett-Packard, Microsoft, Nordstrom’s, Revlon, Macy's, Pierre Cardin, Target Stores, and AT&T are a few of the ever-growing list of companies that are, or have at one time, used this kind of slave labor. Federal prisons operate under the trade name Unicor and use their prisoners to make everything from lawn furniture to congressional desks. Federal safety and health standards do not protect prison labor, nor do the National Labor Relations Board policies nor does the minimum wage apply. Corporations that use slave labor don’t pay overtime, sick days, pensions, and don’t have to deal with unions for this work. Prison/slaves are paid about 25 cents an hour.
Who are these new slaves?
The vast majority of illegal drug users, importers, and distributors in America are white. Whites make up 72% of illegal drug users, but, the greatest percentage of those who are incarcerated for drugs are black. While whites are getting probation, blacks and Hispanics are being sentenced to prison, sometimes for the exact same crime whites got probation for. Disparities in sentencing is well-known and documented and can be confirmed by the Department of Justice, DEA, FBI, Human Rights Watch, the Sentencing Project, Amnesty International, and a host of academic and social organization studies and research. The injustice of the Justice System is devastating communities and families all across America.
African-Americans have been cast as the icon for illegal drug use in America even though they comprise between 12% – 14% of illegal drug users, about proportional to their percentage of the population. The “war on drugs” appears to be a war on African-Americans.
It appears that the new slaves look a lot like the old ones.
African-Americans are the most loyal constituency the Democratic Party has by far, but the Democratic Party will not adequately address this critical issue for fear of being seen as “soft on crime.” Thus, the Democratic Party itself perpetuates the stereotype. The biggest explosion of Americans going to prison happened under Bill Clinton. Under Clinton, more people went to federal and state prisons than under any president in American history. Clinton also signed a bill that prevented U.S. Sentencing Commission amendments to equalize the penalties for crack and powder cocaine from taking effect.
The disparities in sentencing and probation are well-known and were certainly known to Bill Clinton. Then Attorney General Janet Reno said the sentencing disparity is unfair. "Clearly I think [penalties] should be equalized with respect to possession offenses," she said. "And equally clearly, I don't think the 100-to-1 ratio is fair." She also said that people who provide powder cocaine to those who cook it into crack should get "the more appropriately stiff sentence than the person who distributes the crack.” Under Clinton, the federal 3 strikes law was enacted and many states soon followed with similar legislation of their own.
Eighty-five percent of those sentenced under the “three strikes you’re out” law in California faced prison for a nonviolent offense. The law requires a mandatory 25 years to life sentence. Two years after the law went into effect, there were twice as many people imprisoned under the three-strikes law for possession of marijuana as for murder, rape and kidnapping combined. More than 80 percent of those sentenced under the “three strikes” law are African-American and Latino. It was supposed to be meant to protect society from violent and dangerous criminals, but is fueling the prison/industrial complex with those caught for non-violent crimes. Up to 75% of American prisoners are locked-up for non-violent crimes.
Here In Georgia, it was the democratic candidate for Governor in the last election, Mark Taylor, who used his capacity as then Lt. Governor to sponsor SB 400, a draconian piece of legislation from the dark ages that treats children as adults in criminal courts. Children convicted under this law usually serve their time in adult prisons and SB 440 allows children to be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Ninety percent (90%) of children sentenced under SB 440 and its companion legislation, SB 441, are African American. I'm sure he was real shocked when blacks did not go to the polls to support his run for Governor. After all, he's a democrat.
During the past two decades roughly a thousand new prisons and jails have been built in the United States. Nevertheless, America's prisons are more overcrowded now than when the building spree began, and the inmate population continues to increase by 50,000 to 80,000 people a year In 1977 the inmate population of California was 19,600. Today it’s over 170,000, which amounts to more inmates in its jails and prisons than do France, Great Britain, Germany, Japan, Singapore, and the Netherlands combined. After spending $5.2 billion on prison construction over the past fifteen years, California now has not only the largest but also the most overcrowded prison system in the United States, and for the first time among large states, California will spend more on its prisons than on its public universities.
Profiting from slavery
Prisons are rising all over America. It’s a fast rising growth industry with investors on Wall Street and corporations we all know are paying peanuts to prisoner/slaves so they don’t have to employ those who buy their products. Even when crime goes down, jail population still goes up. Prison labor has its roots in slavery. After the Civil War ended, blacks were imprisoned on a variety of trumped up reasons and were then loaned or hired out to plantations and farms and all would share in the profit, except the prisoner/slave of course. That same “hiring out” of prisoners is still practiced in the United States today.
The prison/industrial complex is a multi-billion dollar industry complete with lobbyists, trade shows, and conventions. It profits from an evil in the US that neither democrats nor republicans will seek to remedy.
Money is the hole in the concept of democracy. Inject enough money into the system and that system will morph into a plutocracy, such as exists in America today. The corporate will has replaced the will and conscience of the people. Democrats, even more than republicans, have abdicated their responsibility to their most loyal constituency.
As I was growing up and learning the history of slavery in America, I used to wonder how slavery could exist here for more than 250 years. How was that possible? Where were the good people? The answer to that is obvious in America today. The good people simply do nothing. They pretend the evil doesn’t exist. Slavery exists today in America, and again, the good people do nothing.
