The prison industry in the United States: big business or a new form of slavery?

Frankly, this is nothing new. I think it only seems new to those who are “HistIg” -Ignorant of History. It’s immaterial whether that ignorance is active or passive: the fact remains, that some - perhaps most - folks simply are not aware either of the facts reciten in the linked material or of the fact that it is nothing new (the authors don’t seem to be aware that it’s nothing new).

Most of you are familiar with songs like “Midnight Special” by Huddie Ledbetter (aka Leadbelly) - that song was is about the State Prison at Sugarland, Texas, just down the road a piece from Houston. Sugarland is (or was - maybe it still is - I don’t buy sugar, so I’m not sure if it’s still in the grocery stores under the same brand name) the home of (the ever-so aptly named) Imperial Sugar Company. The hot, humid coastal plains around Sugarland were planted solid with sugarcane. During the planting / growing / harvesting seasons, Imperial “hired” inmates from the prison, paying as I recall 11 cents a day (to the state - inmates weren’t paid) and at times when more help was required, the Houston police and Harris County Sheriff’s deputies would sweep through Niggertown, seining up the needed number of field hands, who were quickly tried, convicted, and sentenced to 30 or more days of labor and sent to Sugarland…

La plus ça change, la plus c’est la même chose… the more it changes, the more it’s the same thing…

The prison industry in the United States: big business or a new form of slavery? by Vicky Pelaez Global Research, March 10, 2008 El Diario-La Prensa, New York Email this article to a friend Print this article Human rights organizations, as well as political and social ones, are condemning what they are calling a new form of inhumane exploitation in the United States, where they say a prison population of up to 2 million - mostly Black and Hispanic - are working for various industries for a pittance. For the tycoons who have invested in the prison industry, it has been like finding a pot of gold. They don’t have to worry about strikes or paying unemployment insurance, vacations or comp time. All of their workers are full-time, and never arrive late or are absent because of family problems; moreover, if they don’t like the pay of 25 cents an hour and refuse to work, they are locked up in isolation cells. There are approximately 2 million inmates in state, federal and private prisons throughout the country. According to California Prison Focus, “no other society in human history has imprisoned so many of its own citizens.” The figures show that the United States has locked up more people than any other country: a half million more than China, which has a population five times greater than the U.S. Statistics reveal that the United States holds 25% of the world’s prison population, but only 5% of the world’s people. From less than 300,000 inmates in 1972, the jail population grew to 2 million by the year 2000. In 1990 it was one million. Ten years ago there were only five private prisons in the country, with a population of 2,000 inmates; now, there are 100, with 62,000 inmates. It is expected that by the coming decade, the number will hit 360,000, according to reports. What has happened over the last 10 years? Why are there so many prisoners? “The private contracting of prisoners for work fosters incentives to lock people up. Prisons depend on this income. Corporate stockholders who make money off prisoners’ work lobby for longer sentences, in order to expand their workforce. The system feeds itself,” says a study by the Progressive Labor Party, which accuses the prison industry of being “an imitation of Nazi Germany with respect to forced slave labor and concentration camps.” So…

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