For-Profit Prisons: The Postmodern Plantation?

June 1, 2007

For-Profit Prisons: The Postmodern Plantation?
By Nicole D. Sconiers

Prisons thus perform a feat of magic … 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. -- Angela Davis, "Reflections on the Prison Industrial Complex"

Braving rush hour traffic and an overly friendly homeless man on the Sidewalk, I finally arrived at the small storefront in South Los Angeles. Critical Resistance, a grassroots organization committed to Abolishing the prison industrial complex (PIC), was in the midst of Their No New Jails meeting. I tiptoed into the room, feeling like a Narc in my Ann Taylor outfit and Coach bag. The issue being debated By this motley gathering of black, white and Latino activists was AB900, a $7.8 billion reform plan Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger recently Signed into law. The program would create 53,000 new beds in state Prisons and county jails, and some 8,000 inmates would be shipped to Private facilities out of state.

Prior to attending the No New Jails meeting, I compiled my own Dummies Guide to the Prison Industrial Complex. I had a few cousins Behind bars, but my knowledge of the penal system was embarrassingly Limited to 'hood movies and rhetoric spouted by radical intellectuals At open mics. I had to remove my Valley Girl blinders. I needed to Understand why the PIC was branded by many as a postmodern Plantation, and why minorities are viewed as its cash crop.

The prison industrial complex is a group of organizations that act as subcontractors for prisons, such as construction companies, prison Guard unions and surveillance technology vendors. According to The Sentencing Project, the '80s ushered in a new era of prison Privatization. The War on Drugs and tough sentencing laws, like Mandatory minimums and "Three Strikes," saw prison growth skyrocket, Making it difficult to maintain on the local, state and federal Levels. In response to this overcrowding, private investors hopped on The expansion bandwagon with a fervor that would make Starbucks Proud. Private-sector involvement moved from food prep and inmate Transportation to contracts for the management and operation of Entire prisons.

Opponents of the PIC argue that it criminalizes poor and minority Communities and emphasizes profits over rehabilitation. They feel That blacks and Latinos are overly policed to comply with tough-on-Crime legislation, therefore providing "raw material" for already Bulging prisons. Once in the Big House, inmates become a source of Cheap labor, doing data entry, garment and furniture manufacturing,
Contract packaging and telemarketing.

"In order to justify something like this, you have to dehumanize Populations," says Austin Delgadillo, lead organizer for the Los Angeles chapter of Critical Resistance. "A lot of the harms that Happen, or the different ways that people struggle to survive that Might not always be legal, push people into the PIC. The PIC is not Really doing anything to help people deal with these issues. It's not
Addressing the root problems of poverty and racism, so it just Becomes this cycle of dehumanization."

It's hard to ignore the racial dimension of the prison populace. By Year-end 2005, there were 2,193,798 people in U.S. Prisons and jails, According to Bureau Justice Statistics, and California currently Houses 173,000 inmates. Blacks have the highest incarceration rates Of any other group. In the Sunshine State alone, African-American men Were jailed at a rate of 5,125 per 100,000 in 2005, compared to 1,142 For Latinos, 770 for whites, and 474 for men of other races. Although Black women have much lower incarceration rates, they are four times As likely to be on lockdown as white women and Latinas. Among African-American women, 346 per 100,000 were behind bars in 2005, whereas Fewer than 80 women per 100,000 are incarcerated among whites, Latinas and other groups.

"It's a modern-day slavery system," says Kemba Smith, an activist, Aspiring lawyer, and former inmate #26370-083. "It's a system that's Against us, that's specifically targeted toward us, starting with Enforcement. Basically, we're the ones who are disproportionately Impacted."

Kemba doesn't fit the profile of most women behind the walls. The Daughter of an accountant and a schoolteacher, she led a sheltered Life nestled in the suburbs of Richmond, Va. Her days consisted of Choir practice, curfews and playing flute in her high school marching Band. As a shy sophomore at Hampton University, Kemba became Romantically involved with Peter Michael Hall, a man eight years her Senior whom she later learned was dealing drugs. Peter used her and Other college students as "mules" – people who carried his money or Weapons. Police say that he ran a $4 million cocaine circuit between New York and Virginia. He was also physically and emotionally abusive.

As authorities started closing in, Peter went on the lam and Kemba became a fugitive with him. In September 1994, broke, six months pregnant, and tired of living on the run, Kemba turned herself in to federal authorities. She pleaded guilty to conspiracy in a cocaine ring, even though she never sold or used drugs. The next month, Peter was discovered in a Seattle apartment, dead of a gunshot wound to the head. The following April, 23 year-old Kemba, a first time, non-violent offender, was sentenced to 24 and a half years in prison with no chance of parole. That's about four years longer than the average state sentence for murder or voluntary manslaughter.

"I was in a jail cell, six months pregnant, and a U.S. Marshall told me to my face that he knew if I were white, that I probably wouldn't be there," she recalls.

Emerge magazine publicized Kemba's plight, and she became a cause celebre, a walking cautionary tale for the fastest growing segment of the U.S. prison system: African-American women. In 2000, she was granted executive clemency by President Clinton after serving six and a half years. Some may dismiss the former inmate as a casualty of the War on Drugs and mandatory minimum sentencing. Yet, critics speculate that there is a definite link between racial profiling and harsh law enforcement practices. Are minorities given stricter sentences because they are profitable as prisoners?

This doesn't mean evil white men are clustered in boardrooms plotting the destruction of communities of color to increase their profit margins, but even the average unbiased Jill can't deny that incarceration is big business. Two publicly traded firms, Wackenhut Corrections Corporation (now the GEO Group) and Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), dominate the private market. The GEO Group (NYSE:GEO) had approximately 54,000 beds under management as of December 31, 2006 and revenue of $861 million. CCA (NYSE: CXW) boasted $1.3 billion in revenue last year, and it leads the industry with 72,500 beds in 65 facilities. On the CCA Web site, its 2006 annual report predicts a rosy future. "We expect that growth in the projected inmate population and limited development of new prison beds by the public sector will be favorable to the private corrections industry," CCA stated in a letter to its shareholders. "As the industry leader, we believe we are uniquely positioned to capitalize on these trends …"

"Growth in the projected inmate population" will be through the roof by 2011, according to a February report from the Pew Charitable Trusts. The Philly-based nonprofit research foundation foresees a 13% increase in the American inmate population by 2011. They estimate that $27.5 billion will be spent in new prison construction and operation. Often, as in the case of AB900, that means more dollars will go toward incarcerating inmates than to public universities, not to mention health care and other social services. And does jailing more of its citizens than any other country in the world mean that the U.S. can now enjoy safer streets and reduced crime rates? "It's a tempting leap of logic to assume the more people behind bars, the less crime there will be," said the Pew study. "But despite public expectations to the contrary, there is no clear cause and effect."

If the prison industrial complex is a postmodern plantation, is over-reliance on the Big House unavoidable? Are there viable alternatives to prison overcrowding besides building more beds?

"I think the solution is putting more money into treatment centers, community programs, and free health care and clinics," says Critical Resistance's Delgadillo. Eradicating the PIC doesn't mean letting folks off the hook for their actions, but he believes that a cultural shift needs to happen in the way prisoners are viewed. "I think, definitely, it's important to be out there doing legislative work and doing activist work, but I also think it's important to begin building the kind of world that we want, that we envision, right now in our communities."

Building that world will be a challenge, to say the least. The goal of business is to continually expand, and for-profit prisons aren't going to allow billions to slip through their fingers without a fight. But grassroots organizations like Critical Resistance, and activists like Kemba Smith, have created their own underground railroads, mentally emancipating the masses, reminding us of private prison's human cost. "When people hear about the War on Drugs and prison, they pretty much feel, 'Well, if you did the crime, you deserve the time,'" says Kemba, who speaks to high school and college students throughout the country, warning them about the perils of following in her footsteps. "But when you talk about women and broken families, and the injustices, and the [sentences] given out, that brings in a little bit more humanity and compassion."

http://www.getunderground.com/underground/features/article.cfm?Article_ID=2222