Money Making Machine of the Private Prison Industry (and how corporate America is using prisoners as Slave Labor)

Interesting factoid...did you know that private prisons are the biggest business in the prison industry complex? About 18 corporations guard 10,000 prisoners in 27 states. This privatization of prisons began with Ronald Reagan when he made it his life's work to cut the federal work force. It was further developed during Bush, Sr's years and then really took off with Bill Clinton. According to http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-prison-industry-in-the-united-states-big-business-or-a-new-form-of-slavery/8289 "Private prisons receive a guaranteed amount of money for each prisoner, independent of what it costs to maintain each one." They increase their profits by cutting down on staff. For example, a company called CCA has a beautiful new facility in Lawrenceville, Virginia where there are only five guards during the day and two at night to watch over 750 inmates. Further, "inmates may get their sentences reduced for 'good behavior,' but for any infraction, they get 30 days added - which means more profits for CCA. According to a study of New Mexico prisons, it was found that CCA inmates lost 'good behavior time' at a rate eight times higher than those in state prisons."

It gets better. It has become exceedingly profitable to import inmates with long sentences, which means the worst offenders are being moved around in a crazy game of chess...a very profitable game of chess. Mixed with these often violent offenders are those convicted of non-violent crimes. Worse, it is believed that more than half of the 623,000 inmates in municipal or county jails are innocent of the crimes they are accused of and the majority are awaiting trial.

Contributing to the tremendous increase in prisoners is the hefty sentences for rather minor offenses brought about by mandatory minimum sentencing. Drug offenses, first meant to target high level distributors, have worked to incarcerate all that are arrested with the "intent to distribute." Nearly 50% of the incarcerated are in for drug charges. In 2012 alone, almost 7,000 people were convicted in federal courts for marijuana offenses, more than any other type of drug. Ironically, more and more states are legalizing marijuana, yet the people incarcerated for possession of it will remain imprisoned until they complete the minimal 85% of their sentences. This contributes to the fact that the US has more people imprisoned than any other country in the the world.

The cost of keeping these prisoners is $29,000 per year per prisoner. The average sentence is nearly ten years. As a result we taxpayers pay over $50 billion annually for state prisons. The bottom line is, if we continue to make imprisonment profitable then rehabilitation is not an option. The companies that are running private prisons have a vested interest in recidivism and minimum sentencing. Meanwhile the safety of the general public is compromised while families are torn apart by lengthy jail sentences. Of course, do the crime, do the time is a given. However, we must rethink sentencing of non violent criminals and we need to stop making privatization profitable.

Contributing to the profitability of prisoners is the idea of prison labor. According to http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-prison-industry-in-the-united-states-big-business-or-a-new-form-of-slavery/8289 "At least 37 states have legalized the contracting of prison labor by private corporations that mount their operations inside state prisons." There is a laundry list of corporations that are using prison labor to cut costs including IBM, Boeing, Motorola, Microsoft, AT&T, Texas Instrument, Dell, Compaq, Honeywell, Hewlett-Packard, Nortel, Lucent Technologies, 3Com, Intel, Northern Telecom, TWA, Nordstrom's, Revlon, Macy's, Pierre Cardin, Target Stores and several others. Why is it so profitable? Because inmates get paid very little. In Colorado they get $2.00 per hour. In privately run prisons they receive as little as 17 cents per hour for a maximum of 6 hours. Some prisons do indeed pay their prisoners minimum wage, but that is still a huge cost savings for many corporations. It is so profitable that a company that operated an assembly plant in Mexico near the border closed down the operations there and relocated to San Quentin State Prison in California. In Texas, meanwhile, a factory fired its 150 workers and contracted the services of prisoner-workers from the private Lockhart Texas prison, where circuit boards are assembled for companies like IBM and Compaq.

Reform is necessary, but there's just no money in it!

Teenagers and Bowling

My teen aged son and seven of his friends went bowling tonight. They graduated from 8th grade and this is how they chose to celebrate, a group of them got together at Tonawanda Lanes and "bowled." I made the mistake of thinking they were there to Bowl. I mean, we were at a bowling alley, they had the shoes, they chose the balls. Pretty sure that means someone's going to bowl. Alas, I was wrong. They did roll the balls down the lanes and some managed to knock a few pins down. I tried giving advice. Where does my expertise come from? College. Yes, I took a course in bowling. I needed a PhysEd credit and I certainly didn't want to get physical so I took bowling. So I know technique, I know how to hold the ball, I learned how to adjust for spin and all that. I tried. Good God, I tried. It was about half way through the first game that I realized they didn't really want to learn to bowl. They wanted to take selfies with each other and socialize. They wanted to feel like big kids, I mean they're technically in high school now, right? So, they did just that. They laughed, they joked, they shared food, they danced around and in between they bowled. I enjoyed every minute of it, all the silliness, all the noise, the giggles and guffaws. It was awesome to see kids out being kids. I'm not so old I don't remember what it was like to be a kid. I'm glad I decided to be the chaperon. And I'm now the cool mom. That's quite an honor. Glad I had the opportunity to glimpse into the life of teens and remember.

Welcome to Rattled My Cage

Welcome. I was always taught if you are going to threaten consequences you'd better be prepared to follow through. So here I am, following through. I threatened to start a blog and here it is. I spent a good full half hour considering the title and it dawned on me when I was on Facebook. I saw an article, and I started to comment and thought better of it. I thought, man this really rattles my cage. EUREKA! A title! And that is the story of my blog title.

So what was the article? BBC World News posted an article that had this catchy status, "It's time we took seriously the issue of paternal age and its effect on the next generation of children." Then check out the headline, "Freeze Sperm at 18 Bioethicists Urges Men". Hmmm....really?  Wait, they're blaming old dads for an increase in autism? FINALLY IT'S NOT THE MOMS FAULT! I thought that we were to blame for everything. When I was having my son I heard the words every women dreads. "Advanced Maternal Age." Look, I didn't take LSD or smoke crack, I merely celebrated a birthday or two more than the other tart in the waiting room. I can't help it if I wasn't "catching" pregnant until 8 years after my daughter was born! So get this...if you think I was old, upon hearing that I was expecting our son my husband said, "You gotta be kidding me, I'll have to get a day pass from the nursing home to play with my kid!" Not once, though, did my doctor mention "Advanced Paternal Age" in that soft, accusatory tone. NOT ONCE! He saved, that all for me. He was also the guy that didn't come into the delivery room until the last minute because he heard me "sounding like you were in pain." You're in the wrong business, pal. Anyway, back to the article. Here's what  my comment was going to be. "STOP. Just stop and let people make babies the way we always made babies when we wanted to make said babies." Truth be told, there will be some nice teen aged boys making babies at prime sperm time...but that certainly doesn't make the good daddies, just boys with good sperm. So I suggest we continue as we have for all of time and make our babies, raise our babies and send them off in the world to continue this time honored tradition...advanced in age or not!