Who's getting rich off of imprisonment as a service?

Some of the industries getting crazy rich from mass incarceration:

FOOD SUPPLIERS
Aramark is the biggest food supplier to prisons. It's failures are almost a joke. Reports of maggots it the food, their employees sneaking in contraband, having sex with inmates, and prisons erupting in protest or riot because of the food quality. And then there's the problem of food shortages. For this, they receive huge multi-year contracts for millions of dollars. See more at Eclectablog.

TELECOMMUNICATIONS
It may be best explained like this: Inmate phone calls are monopolized by providers with exclusive contracts. The providers pay the prisons a commission on calls, otherwise known as a "kickback". The provider who gives the biggest kickback is guaranteed all of the business for the entire inmate population, not the provider with best service, product, rates, or anything else. And then the company can charge whatever it wants for low-quality calls. Read more from prisonphonejustice.org.
I can attest to this one personally. I pay a lot to talk to my inmate penpals for a maximum of 15 minutes at a time at an undisclosed rate that I cannot obtain an itemized receipt for. And I can barely hear them.
I always feel like the conversation went like this: "Hi gArBle BlaH bLAh" "What?" "ScHrebLe" "I can't hear you." and then the automated lady:"You have thirty seconds remaining."

HEALTHCARE
Again, like other profiteers inside prisons, healthcare is provided without any competition or options. Medical abuse and neglect are rampant in prisons. One provider, Corizon makes an estimated $1.4 billion off sick prisoners every year. And they have some interesting policies, like not treating patients with Hepatitis C at all. Although Hep C is deadly and rampant in prisons, they just leave it be.



CALL CENTERS
There was once a strong trend for US call centers to move off-shore, and while that may still be financially appealing, at least a few companies have decided to move them into prisons instead. The despicable low pay and the competition with unskilled labor outside are issues of their own, but this seems to be the best slave labor situation inmates are facing. This USA Today article and this  NBC news article give more information about inmates working in call centers.

CLOTHING MANUFACTURING
Some prisoners are employed to make their own clothing, and prisoners have been known to make clothing for Victoria's Secret, JCPenney, K-mart, Fruit of the Loom, Sears, Roebuck & Company, and more. According to this Mother Jones article, a California prison even put two men in solitary for telling journalists they were ordered to replace "Made in Honduras" labels on garments with "Made in the USA." Clothing making is big business in prisons.

TECHNOLOGY
I read that this was a problem in a Salon article, and it's been quite a research project for me. Yes, the government and some telecom agencies and the occasional auto maker use incarcerated slaves, but it doesn't look like private tech companies are into it anymore. I found history of Microsoft using prison contracts, and a few others, but nothing related to tech industry work in the last ten years. This tells me that either this isn't a "thing" anymore, or it is now hushed-up way better than it used to be. I mention it because I don't really know what's going on there, which might be a bad sign?

BAIL BONDS
The bail bonds industry pulls in $2 billion in revenue every year, according to the ACLU. The bail bond model creates opportunity for those with money or willing to go into debt to be released from jail while awaiting trial, giving them a chance to keep their jobs, housing situations, and other responsibilities in order, and time to take initiative to show the courts that they are doing positive activities when trial day comes. Bonds that are set high make big dollars for this industry, and increase likelihood that the jailed suspect will go into debt or into prison because of their failure to pay.

FOOD PROCESSING
Prison labor is used to make lots of foods, these days. An article in Pacific Standard Magazine walks through a prison visit where they have a water-buffalo dairy operation. Sometimes in an effort not to compete with local businesses, prisons get into obscure businesses, like farming talapia fish for Whole Foods. Prison labor often raises more common foods, as well, and it's big business.

From Salon.com:

In 2008, Mother Jones’ Caroline Winter reported that in California alone, prisoners were processing “more than 680,000 pounds of beef, 400,000 pounds of chicken products, 450,000 gallons of milk, 280,000 loaves of bread, and 2.9 million eggs.”

My main concerns when looking at these things are: it it ethical, and best for everyone? My answer when it comes to prisoners learning to farm and ranch, is "probably not". I believe that if people in prisons were paid fairly, and not wrecking industries outside the prison, this would be a great plan. Of course, the businesses involved wouldn't hire inmates if they had to pay them fairly, I imagine. The workers raising this Whole Foods tilapia earn roughly 60 cents a day.

AGRICULTURE
The United States has relied on Mexican immigrants for approximately 70% of agricultural labor in the past, but now we have imprisoned many of those workers, and fewer Mexicans and other immigrants chose to come risk imprisonment as a result. There is now such a shortage of agricultural labor that states have been passing bills to legalize farmers hiring prison labor, according to TakeApart.com. Having driven out our immigrant labor (instead of allowing them to legally work), we've created another demand for slave labor in the fields. We've chosen, as a group, to condone slavery instead of pay workers so much that apples and other foods cost fair prices. As much as I realize that food is expensive, I feel sure that we could find better answers than that if we tried.

PRISONS
In case you're not familiar with what people mean when they say "The Prison Industrial Complex", I will explain the best I can. Prisons are now businesses. Private business or state or federally owned. They get a certain amount of tax money to provide for each prisoner. The cheaper they can keep that prisoner alive (but not healthy, recovering, growing, or otherwise happy) the more money they get to keep. In fact, if they happen to keep a prisoner for a very long time or release the person with little or no skills to survive outside prison, then that person will continue being an income source for them by staying in or coming back to prison. Besides just cutting costs, prisons can bring in money through minimum occupancy agreements that guaranteed them prisoners or payment to compensate for vacancies, or through selling the labor of prisoners that they have.

MILITARY
Labor done for the US military is contractual through a company called UNICOR. Prisoners make weapons, ammunition, night-vision goggles, body armor, uniforms, radio and communication devices, and lighting systems and components for anti-aircraft guns, along with land mine sweepers and electro-optical equipment for the BAE Systems Bradley Fighting Vehicle’s laser rangefinder. They overhaul military vehicles, make helmets, and more. ALL of this is at slave wages and without proper safety protections in place.

"Prisoners there worked covered in dust, without safety equipment, protective gear, air filtration or masks. The [law]suit explained that the toxic dust caused severe damage to nervous and reproductive systems, lung damage, bone disease, kidney failure, blood clots, cancers, anxiety, headaches, fatigue, memory lapses, skin lesions, and circulatory and respiratory problems. This is one of eight federal prison recycling facilities — employing 1,200 prisoners — run by UNICOR." -from Workers.org

All of these industries would lose big profits if our country stopped imprisoning HUGE amounts of our population. They have strong monetary incentives to enforce this status quo and prevent big change to this country's addiction to imprisonment. These eleven industries and their representatives have not only abundant "need" for prison labor, but abundant resources to influence politics and systems.

But we still outnumber them. And if we all stay aware, keep caring, vote carefully. and purchase from companies we know to be ethical, we can make changes. 

John Oliver is full of interesting facts

Prison population quotas

This infographic is a few years old, and there are now more prisons that have signed contracts with the government in which they are guaranteed high prisoner populations or the government must pay fines. According to April M. Short for Alternet, there are currently three prisons in Arizona that have been guaranteed 100% populations. This actually touches my life because one of my penpals is a prisoner of the State of Califorina, but has been leased out to Arizona to fill a bed there. Presumably Arizona was willing to pay more for him than California would lose for leasing him out.

This sounds bad enough even before you realize that this means the governments involved in these contracts can be held liable for high fines and even lawsuits if they fail to produce or they choose to reduce a prison population for any reason, including the prison being swept with a highly contagious disease, or found to be routinely torturing inmates. 

In 2013 a private prison in Arizona sued the state for $16 million for not meeting it's occupancy quotas. There had been a decision not to send the facility additional inmates after they were labeled "dysfunctional" following the 2010 escape of three inmates convicted of murder, two of which then went on a crime spree.  The state negotiated a 3 million dollar settlement.

When having people in prison makes money for a few private prison owners, and reducing prison populations costs local governments money, this system is not benefiting us. At the cost of our communities going bankrupt we could theoretically have our people back. But while people are incarcerated at wild rates our municipalities can keep some of the money they need to run while the owner of CCA or GEO Prisons amasses enough money to have as many corrupt and dangerous prisons as they may fancy.

I would love to use this paragraph to tell you how you can make it all go away. We all need to pay attention to what's going on in our government and vote or protest or petition or do whatever is needed before things like this happen, and research the people on the ballots before voting. What I do is I send books to inmates, be their penpal and take their phone calls. I also give speeches on the subject and write this blog. Admittedly, I chose this as a priority that you might not choose. But you can write an inmate. You can mindfully vote. You can read this blog and my sources and talk to people about it. Choose the way that makes sense for you to help and do it. Thank you.

Harvard study says donate money to my efforts.

http://harvardpolitics.com/harvard/stop-revolving-prison-doors-books/

A recent Harvard Political Review article makes is crystal clear: it is more than worth your money to send books to inmates. If you know some people in prison, please do send them a good dictionary and some thoughtful reading.

If you don't know anyone living in a cell, then you can make a donation to my book fund. That's how I'm able to send reading materials to the men in prison that I keep in touch with through letters and very expensive phone calls. These guys appreciate your donations more than you can imagine, partly because it suggests that their existence matters on earth. There is so little evidence that they matter where they are, and even less to suggest that bettering themselves is supported. When they get books from me, they feel acknowledged, hopeful, and motivated to continue working on who they are. Everyone deserves to feel real.

Alice Hu for Harvard Political Review focuses on higher education and recidivism in the article I linked to above. Its a good article, highly related to access to books. If you have any questions about the subject: "How educated are inmates before they go in? How many inmates have access to higher education? What effect does continued education have on their future?" then read what Alice has to say. Without putting any personal commentary, she just crunches the facts.

But seriously, have you donated to the book fund yet? I would really like it if you did. So would my penpals.

The business of prison.

Hoping for more books.

It's been a while since I sent any books out to my penpals.

Because prisons have strict regulations, I can't send any of my own books or used books. All I can do is send brand new books from the publisher, or directly from a mega-store warehouse, like Amazon.com or BarnesandNoble.com. That's meant to ensure that nothing "special" arrives with the book, like a spoon to dig their way out, a nail file for getting through bars, scribbled notes in the text that give instructions for building weapons from toilet paper. Or cocaine. There are lots of things not to send into a prison. I'm not even allowed to use white out when I write to them. So it makes perfect sense that used books are not allowed. But that makes sending books expensive.

This bloggy thing is not about me, it's about some real people that are being held captive by the state and need a damn book. But the thing about me that makes this blog needed is that I can't afford to send my friends books. I live a very sparse life and have no savings. My plan is that soon I'll be rolling in cash and my guys will have impressive personal libraries, but not today.

If you have any concerns about whether my pen-pals deserve to have books, then I ask you to question whether any person deserves to be kept captive and without intellectual stimulation for years or decades. We're all part perfect and part fuck-up. If you ever mess up real bad, or people think you do, you could end up imprisoned by the state or federal government too. And I'd send you books (if I could afford it). I think it's clear that NOT allowing folks to have books does not improve society, or the individuals involved.

Your helping me will help the men I write, and that will help their families, which will help their children not grow up to be where the daddies are.

Doing good spreads, help me spread it.