MIM(Prisons) is a cell of revolutionaries serving the oppressed masses inside U.$. prisons, guided by the communist ideology of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism.
Under Lock & Key is a news service written by and for prisoners with a focus on what is going on behind bars throughout the United States. Under Lock & Key is available to U.S. prisoners for free through MIM(Prisons)'s Free Political Literature to Prisoners Program, by writing:
MIM(Prisons) PO Box 40799 San Francisco, CA 94140.
This is a statement of unity issued by Dead Man Incorporated(DMI) to
inform all concerned of our alignment to and full co-operation with the
United Front for Peace in Prisons.
After discussion we have come to the general consensus that a unity
amongst us and other oppressed peoples caught up in the struggle would
best suit all involved in the interest of our common goal of ending the
tyranny of the imperialist states.
The maintaining of the principles of the UFPP are critical and
imperative in our mission. We, as DMI, value Peace, Unity, Growth,
Internationalism and Independence. From henceforth each of us promise to
uphold those principles; mind, body and spirit.
Furthermore, let it be known that We as DMI stand in alliance with
the UNited Struggle from Within.
In early March [2020], at the beginning stages of the public
information campaign regarding the COVID-19 pandemic, I was informed of
preventative methods such as wearing a mask and hand washing by family
and friends on the outside. I began to educate the other prisoners at
Valley State Prison (VSP) of the pandemic and how the administration was
trying to down play the severity of the situation.
I decided to exercise my influence by leading by example, so my first
step was to create my own face mask, second step I wore it in public
every time I got the chance. At first I looked and felt rather silly
because I was the only one wearing a mask; not even medical
staff were wearing masks. People were calling me paranoid and
hypochondriac, they said it was not that serious and the virus would not
come into prison.
One day while going to A-yard dining hall a really rude officer named
Miss Avila stopped me and confiscated my mask and told me “Inmates are
not allowed to wear a mask.” I was also warned by another officer that
worked regularly in my building, that I was causing a hysteria among the
prisoners by wearing my mask. He also said he believed the pandemic was
just a hoax.
By the end of April, CDCR’s Prison Industry Authority(PIA) starts
creating and distributing masks to all of California’s imprisoned
population. Medical staff began to wear masks, but custody staff
officers still refused to wear any masks. Officers would harass any
prisoners not wearing masks, although it was hot and the masks were
uncomfortable we wore the masks as a symbol out of solidarity we want to
protect one another, in particular our elderly population and those with
high risk medical conditions. But the officers still refused to
participate with us by wearing a mask. On 24 April 2020 we united around
a common interest as imprisoned lumpen striving to build a healthy
environment and we filed a group Appeal L (602) Log# VSP-A-20-01089 with
12 prisoners and on 5 May 2020 a memorandum was issued ordering “All
Staff” Mandatory wearing of cloth barrier masks by warden R. Fisher
Jr. On 5 June 2020 our inmate appeal was partially granted and all staff
was mandated to wear “cloth barrier masks.” I want to thank MIM for
encouraging me to exercise my influence by creating a united front and
helping me to turn my knowledge into political organizing.
MIM(Prisons) adds: This is an example of real
leadership. Recognizing what the material needs of the people are, and
sticking your neck out to lead by example in how to meet those needs.
The people soon recognized this leadership and followed. This is just
one of many examples we have printed in recent weeks of prisoncrats
actively resisting safety measures to protect prisoners (and staff).
This is everyday treatment of those in U.$. prisons, it just has more
immediate relevance to the outside world because of the global pandemic.
Supporters of United Struggle from Within join these comrades in these
day-to-day struggles to say “Prisoner Lives Matter!”
On the subject of non-designated yards, the fact that the state’s
actors have sanctioned this social experiment where the labels that the
state themselves created are now being altered by their creators means
that the G.P./SNY dual system has run its course and failed
miserably.
It also means that prisoners have to be re-educated on the history of
prison labels in California, understanding that at one time all
prisoners went to any yard where there was space and they fit the
classification points criteria. The only prisoners who got sent to
special yards at that time were the wealthy, the law enforcement
convicted prisoners, and those media vilified infamous. These yards held
low numbers of prisoners and weren’t easy to get to, or gain reliable
information about. However, once the state actors came up with 50/50
yards, SNY yard, it created new problems that would not only affect
prisoner sub-culture in prison but an even huger problem on the streets
due to the criminals’ new option not to play by the old rules of the
GAME that is not a game.
It’s not a one-size-fits-all on the who’s who level, on the G.P. nor
SNY lines – there are snitches on both sides, rapists on both sides,
hustlers on both sides, politicians on both sides, killers on both
sides, thinkers on both sides, lumpen orgs on both sides. What needs to
be analyzed is why are we still judging one another based solely on
convictions when we have seen 13, White Like Me, we’ve
read The New Jim Crow, Blacked Out Through White Wash,
The Black Panthers Speak, Locked Up But Not Locked
Down, A Taste of Power, and Dark Alliance,
etc.
WE know that all the courts care about is convictions and not truth
or facts. We know that many people who go to trial get railroaded and
made an example of. We know that many of us were forced to make deals
based on the public defender’s inability to provide adequate defense and
we know many prisoners are wrongfully convicted and sentenced to decades
behind these walls. Yet we keep judging our fellow prisoners based upon
convictions from a corrupt system that works to justify its high
percentage of convictions and deals, plea bargains, bails, etc. As one
of the GODS that’s locked inside of this INJUSTICE system I refuse to
take our open enemy’s word about another oppressed prisoner, nor will I
act on behalf of the STATE and harm another prisoner based on what
happened as a result of the United Snakes Criminal Injustice system.
Where I judge is based on the individual’s personal conduct and
willingness to act when the time demands action or when I see them deal
with difficult situations – if they’re rational, measured, and are they
using reason-based decision making or not.
Comrades, we’ve got to think about what unity would bring us that is
impossible if we continue being separated based upon STATE TITLE and
LABELS. The question to all you self-styled revolutionaries is: can
people change? Does experience and education reform an otherwise broken
individual? Can we inspire the Blind, Deaf and Dumb to wake the fuck up
and unite on some active social dynamics that is mutually beneficial to
all commonly oppressed prisoners? Will we educate the next Revolutionary
that will make change a reality? Or are we just pen and paper
revolutionaries?
I wanna talk about an upcoming topic of “sex offenders” and their role
in the struggle. A primary question is, I think, do they have a role in
the struggle? It boils down to our moral outlook on sex offenders who
were convicted by the imperialist justice system. How many
wrongfully-convicted comrades are there in prison? I mean those who are
not sex offenders. Are we wrong when we say that the U.$. imperialist
justice system is broken and biased and oppressive and due to its
historical implementation is invalid? No. I think most agree that this
is the case.
And if that is the case, we cannot make exceptions to certain crimes and
convictions. Or can we?
That leaves us to draw on what we ourselves as communists consider
unlawful under socialism. Sex crimes, like all other physical assault,
are unlawful. But how do we filter the sex offenders convicted by
imperialists into the category with the rest of the convicted so-called
“criminals” who fight within our ranks?
We know on the prison yards that we rely on what we call “paperwork”
which is any police report or transcripts from the preliminary hearing
or trial transcripts or even just mention or allegation that indicates
someone’s involvement of the crime or “snitching” for a dude to be
blacklisted as “no good” on the yard. But that goes back to relying on
an imperialist’s rule of thumb when determining guilt.
Under our own law we would need to measure someone’s guilt by our own
standards and come up with ways of determining how to do so.
But what about the sex offenders who actually are guilty of sex crimes?
Are they banned for life? Is there no “get-back” for them ever? Becuz of
their crime can they provide no contribution to revolution or to society
under a socialist state?
I think they can make a contribution to revolution. And under a
socialist state, after being appropriately punished (not oppressed) and
taught the lesson to be learned against crimes of humanity
rehabilitation can be achieved.
Note that I’m not an advocate for sex offenders, so if I must set aside
emotion and personal disgust for correct political analysis and
conclusion to further the movement on this question, then we all must.
MIM(Prisons) responds: We want to use this contributor’s
perspective as an opportunity to go deeper into looking at the current
balance of forces and our weakness relative to the imperialists. Our
difficulties in measuring guilt, and helping rehabilitate people who
want to recover from their patriarchal conditioning, are extremely
cumbersome.(1)
The imperialists are currently the principal aspect in the contradiction
between capitalism and communism. The imperialists have plenty of
resources to set social standards (i.e. laws), conduct and fabricate
“investigations,” hold trial to “determine guilt,” mete out punishment
to those convicted, and even often find those who attempt to evade the
process.
We hope by now our readers have accepted this contributor’s perspective
that we can’t let the state tell us who has committed sex-crimes by our
standards. The next step would be for us to figure out how to deal with
people who are accused of anti-people sex-crimes in the interim, while
we are working to gain state power. We can set our own social standards,
attempt to conduct investigations to a degree, establish tribunals to
determine guilt, and in our socialist morality, either mete punishment,
or, even more importantly assist rehabilitation when we have power and
resources to do so.
How much of this we can do in our present conditions is open for debate.
How much someone can actually be rehabilitated by our limited resources
while living under patriarchal capitalism is debatable. How relevant it
is to put resources into this type of activity depends on how important
it is to the people involved in the organization or movement.(1) How
much resources we put into any one of these “investigations” depends on
conducting a serious cost-benefit analysis.
For example, if someone contributes a lot to our work, and is accused of
a behavior that is very offensive and irreconcilable to others who work
with em, then that makes developing this process sooner than later a
higher priority. At this stage in our struggle, low-level offenses
should only be addressed by our movement to the degree that they build
an internal culture that combats chauvinism and prevents other
higher-level offenses from arising. Of course there is a ton of middle
ground between these two examples. But what we might be able to address
when we have state power (or even dual power) at this time may just need
to be dealt with using expulsions and distance.
The challenges I faced upon release was money and housing. These two
were primarily the most significant factors. I have a big family, so one
may think that at least temporary housing wouldn’t be a factor. Yet for
me, and maybe for many others, it is. There’s a family member that I
have that loves me dearly, I believe, but just won’t (or just can’t)
allow me to live with them, becuz of either past run-ins or past
lifestyle choices I’ve made.
I mean let’s face it – no matter what changes I’ve made recently
(i.e. politically, morally), most of my family members just don’t trust
me to live with them or in their homes for more than a few days before
they feel it’s time for me to go. And it’s not becuz, I feel, they
believe I’m difficult to deal with, but becuz their not 100% faithful
that I’ll come thru on moral promises.
Then I find myself reaching out to parole to be placed in a program for
parolees, but with programs comes parole restrictions. The only problem
with this is the parolee begins to feel like he’s been sent back to
prison again. Upon arriving at the program, due to the CDCR regulations
that most CDCR parolee programs operate under, this gives anyone
thoughts of wanting to leave the program prematurely before securing a
job or housing.
And even if one completes the program and/or secures job or housing or
both, then there’s the cost of living and spousal-family problems that
comes into play. It did for me. These are some of the factors that makes
it difficult for comrades to stay connected with our MIM homebase and
involved in our political work.
There are also other factors that comes into play in addition to the
above: Some of the biggest challenges are past gang ties and drugs. For
me these are the most crucial and can greatly affect effective
communication with the comrades.
I personally understand that communication is vital and efforts needs to
be directed at communication, becuz had I stayed connected immediately
upon release, my comrades could’ve walked me thru my obstacles by
instruction. Without instruction, comrades being release may get lost.
And without communication there can be no instruction.
MIM(Prisons) responds: This writer poses an important
question, “What can MIM(Prisons) do to support our released comrades
while they get their lives set up?” If you’re reading this newsletter,
you probably have already read our Release Letter and Release Challenges
letters, both focused on the details of our Re-Lease on Live Program. In
those letters we lay out the need for weekly communication with
MIM(Prisons).
We advise that comrades write to us via snail mail at first, so we can
set up secure communication lines. We can set up phone appointments and
try to help you get e-mail running on a secure machine. Like our
prisoner organizing, if we can’t get on e-mail or phone, we are happy to
support via snail mail indefinitely.
Our question to this writer, and everyone in a similar situation, is
whether this system we’ve set up is viable. The writer above talks about
the need for communication, instruction, support, between eirself and
MIM(Prisons). With our current Re-Lease on Life structure, are we set up
to be successful at this? What do we need to modify about it to be
successful?
19 August 2017 – Hundreds rallied outside the White House today for the
“Millions for Prisoners’ Human Rights March.” The event was organized by
U.$. prisoners and outside groups to focus on the issue of the 13th
Amendment, which allows for the slavery of convicted felons in the
United $tates. During the march to the White House, the most common
signs were: “Abolish Mass Incarceration”, “End Racist Prison Slavery”
and Industrial Workers of the World membership cards. The latter were
hard to read for the casual observer and did not reinforce the message
of the march. There was one red, black and green flag, and
representatives of the Republic of New Afrika in attendance.
While more than half of the participants were local, people from many
states were in attendance, including New York, Pennsylvania, Florida,
South Carolina, Louisiana, Alabama, California and even Alaska. The
crowd was a mix of movement elders, formerly incarcerated people,
self-described “socialist” organizations and many youth for whom this
was their first participation in the prison movement.
Last weekend’s neo-nazi march, and murder of a young womyn, in nearby
Charlottesville, Virginia was a motivator for a number of people to come
out today. Some were there because of prisoners who had told them about
the rally and asked them to participate. On the one hand this
demonstrates the ability of prisoners to provide leadership to people on
the outside. But these people were reachable by prisoners because they
were involved in the movement already and the misnamed “Millions” for
Prisoners rally proved the goals of the organizers to be a bit loftier
than what was achieved.
In contrast to the hundreds in D.C., the so-called “Free Speech” rally
in Boston today brought out tens of thousands of counter-demonstrators.
Of course, they had the benefit of free advertising from all of the
corporate news networks. The sight of hundreds of torch-wielding white
men marching, chanting Nazi slogans, last weekend was rightfully jarring
to many. Yet, innocent Black and Brown men are much more likely to die
at the hands of the police or prison guards at this time than at the
hands of a neo-nazi (that isn’t employed by the state).
“Prisoner Lives Matter!” was one chant that rang true in D.C. For if
there is any group whose lives are at risk, and whose unnecessary deaths
receive little attention, in this country more than New Afrikan people
in general, it is prisoners.
People at the march reported that some prisons had visiting shut down or
were on lockdown today to prevent any group demonstrations on the
inside. This is another example of why MIM(Prisons) thinks the First
Amendment is a more important battle front than the Thirteenth. Just the
idea that prisoners might organize a protest is enough to trigger state
repression. Organized prisoners are the lynch-pin to a meaningful prison
movement, so the right to organize must be at the forefront.
When this correspondent asked participants what the most important issue
in the prison movement was, many weren’t sure because they were new to
it. Many had a hard time picking just one issue because there are so
many things wrong with the U.$. injustice system. But the one response
that was more popular than ending slavery in prisons, was the
disproportionate arrest, sentencing, imprisonment and mistreatment of
oppressed nations. While almost always phrased as “race” or “people of
color”, it does seem that the national contradiction is at the heart of
what people see as wrong with prisons in the United $tates. Even the
focus on the 13th Amendment was regularly tied to the history of slavery
of New Afrikans by speakers. One speaker called prisons the “new
plantation”, which is true in that they were both institutions to
control the New Afrikan semi-colony. But one was an economic powerhouse
fueling global imperialism, while the other is a money pit that the
prison movement aims to make a liability to the imperialists.
Perhaps an even bigger distinction was in the answers given by recently
imprisoned people. Their focus was on their struggles upon release and
the needs of those recently released. One New Afrikan man talked about
his mother dying while he was in prison and him not even knowing at
first. He got the news in such a callous way he didn’t even believe it
at first. To this day he has not figured out where his mother’s body is.
Yet he has been out of prison for two years and is already working for
the mayor’s office providing release support and doing motivational
speaking.
It is a good thing that the state is doing more to provide services to
recently-released prisoners. But we still need programs for those who
dedicate themselves to changing the system. The state can’t provide
that. And it can’t serve self-determination for the oppressed. There is
much work to be done to build bridges to revolutionary political
organizing for comrades being released all over the country. And
ultimately, as the state knows and demonstrates, the only successful
release programs are those that are led and run by releasees themselves.
by a comrade July 2017 permalink [Sorry
this video was temporarily unavailable at the youtube link, we’re now
hosting it on our server.]
A supporter assembled the above video, adding some visuals to an
interview conducted with one of the prisoners in the MIM(Prisons) study
group that put together the book
Chican@ Power
and the Struggle for Aztlán. We hope that supporters on the outside
will find this video useful in events and discussion or study groups
around the book. We are encouraging the organizing of such events as
part of the
campaign
to Commemorate the Plan de San Diego this August, initiated by
Chican@ prisoners.
Californian Correctional Officers’ beginning career wages are the
highest in the U.S. at a whooping $48,000, with the prospect of earning
nearly $80,000 annually when reaching the top pay grade.(1) They receive
640 hours of training, and an 8-month probationary period for each and
every new recruit. I don’t believe the average citizen who pays taxes
would approve of how they don’t run the daily prison program on a
regular basis. In essence getting paid well for clocking into work just
to sit in office areas and do nothing until it’s time to clock out.
I’m writing this specifically in relation to practices at California
Correctional Institution (CCI). Today is 18 April 2017 and a part of our
program has been taken for no given reason 71 times just this
year since January, not including a 9-day facility lockdown for the
misplacement of one set of tweezers. The tweezers were lost in PIA [job
site], which disrupted college courses and furthered this lockdown
culture. I’ve spent 7 years on Level 4s where violence was a regular
occurrence and those yards received less lockdown and program
cancellations than this peaceful low-to-no violence yard. With a month
plus of complete lockdown if one calculates partial lockdown, plus 9
building lockdowns where the rest of the yard is programming yet
Building #1 Correctional Officers have decided not to run program
without a given explanation. I feel tax payers would like to know
how their money is being spent, many of them making far less than these
Correctional Officers to do much more.
One has only to think about the mental and physical effects that are
rooted in being locked in a 6 by 8 by 9 feet cell with another human for
over 16 hours a day for months, even years, at a time under the pretense
that the Department of Corrections is using the rehabilitation model,
which was initiated in the 1930s and states that it is a model of
corrections that emphasizes the need to restore a convicted offender to
a constructive place in society through some form of vocational or
educational training or therapy. (Cole, Smith & De Jong, “Criminal
Justice in America 8th Edition.” 2015, pp 328, 362) This is one of my
college courses this semester and all previous citing is from the
textbook.
Isolationistic practices are shown to have double negative effects on
captives in regard to their social skills and behavior. This is due to
the unnaturalness of long periods in isolation, captives become more
agitated when expecting program i.e. readying themselves to go out of
cell for yard, dayroom, school, and self help then without notice they
cancel program without saying nothing. This is unique to CCI because at
all other prisons the building COs let population know there will be no
program. I write this even after talking to Sara L. Smith, Ombudsman, in
person and 2nd Watch Sgt. Bart about this ongoing issue. Both responded
it would be dealt with, yet two days in a row partial program has been
cut with three in-house COs i.e. 2 on the floor plus one in control
booth.
MIM(Prisons) responds: Under capitalism, the criminal injustice
system is primarily concerned with enforcing the conditions that allow
for profit. For colonized nations, this means repression and
imprisonment to maintain the colonial relationship. Therefore, reforming
people is rarely the focus. And how could it be, when there are no
efforts made to address the causes of anti-social behavior in the first
place, which include the dog-eat-dog culture of capitalism?
Unfortunately, the settler nations (like Amerika) are so bought into
this system of oppression that they have little concern for the $80k a
year their tax money might be paying some CO to sit around. That is a
mere drop in the bucket compared to the bombs being dropped on Syrians
right now. One Tomahawk missile, made by Raytheon Co., costs $1.59
million.(2) In the U.$. attack on a Syrian air field a couple weeks ago
(6 April 2017), they used 59 Tomahawk missiles. Yet, according to
multiple polls, a majority of Amerikans supported that attack.(3) And
they have a long history of supporting huge military spending to kill
people around the world. We find it unlikely that they will be moved by
the money being spent to keep a large, idle lumpen population in
prisons. It is up to those affected by the criminal injustice system to
do something to stop this madness creating more madness.
This is an open letter to all you advocates and activists who are at war
with the prison system. The American Corrections Association (ACA) has
done their two-stage, once in a decade, onsite prison review beginning
in January 2017 ending in March 2017. They’ve posted memos to the effect
of talking to prisoners and performing audits to better use monies
towards treatment and rehabilitational programs. Well at California
Correctional Institution (CCI) this is a joke, especially of the level 3
yard where there is no accountability on safety issues.
There are no cameras on yard nor in buildings that would hold
Correctional Staff to a higher level of accountability on the lines of
brutality waged against prisoners. This brutality is covered up too
often by collusion between Correctional Officers in reporting of
incidents which comes down to their words against prisoners’ with no
physical evidence to support because there are no surveillance cameras.
This is a black site operation, period. There exists no accountability
when it comes to enforcement practices. Correctional employees are given
full discretion and are supported fully by a Gestapo Culture with no
checks and balances from outside authorities. This is including the ACA,
who only talked to 2% of the prison population, and those were selected
by this administration, i.e. Correctional Staff.
There is no accountability on the running of programs, which means
anything from dayroom, yard, school, vacations, or even jobs. At the
same time there is no program and no movement, prisoners walk to medical
lines, walk to chow, go to self help groups, etc. No matter what the
weather is they are required to walk to and from just to lock themselves
back into their living quarters, i.e. cells. The ACA didn’t assist
prisoners to get assignment cards for going to college classes onsite
nor through mail even though they know these participants miss at least
9 hours a week from yard and dayroom, at the same time providing
assignment cards to prisoners in GED courses. Though the institution is
making money from these new college onsite classes of which I myself am
in, earning 6 credits for 2 classes this semester and enrolled in both
summer and winter courses. Yet, I am not able to go outside on the
weekend to get fresh air so I now get outside rec and fresh air less
than my brothers and sisters in the SHU. The American Correctional
Association is there for a waste of tax payers’ money.
Blame is put on the prisoners for most that continues to occur here to
be absolutely honest, because most of them fail to study the rules, are
rule breakers and have terrible conduct creating negative attention.
Once more I must state in complete truth, that all levels of staff have
treated me with respect, I haven’t gotten any write up, never assaulted
on any level by any level of Correctional Staff. Quite the opposite has
happened to me. I’ve initiated my own services, I’ve signed up and am
currently going to college, I had constructive conversations with all
levels of Correctional Staff. At the same time I’ve read the Title 15
and re-read it several times complying with every law and rule. I’ve
communicated with complete respect at all times with prisoners and
prison staff of all levels and walks of life.
This is written for the purpose of exciting advocates to get involved
with pro-social programs in person, to let them know that the ACA and
many other organizations are rip-offs and monies would effect more
positive change if and when it goes directly to the prison and prisoners
who are willing to take advantage of all pro-social programming. That
those who are doing the work to create better futures by learning in
college or vocational skill learning should receive beneficial treatment
and be allowed to go to yard on weekends and holidays even days that
they are off. We need advocates to sound the bell for us ensuring that
we are treated with favorable treatment, so that we are not being
punished for attempting to get ahead.
A Socialist and Conscious Comrade
MIM(Prisons) responds: We’ve been watching the great progress of
organizers at CCI with interest and excitement over the last year. But
playing by the rules does not generally pan out so well for prisoners
across the United $tates engaged in postive organizing along the lines
of the United Front for Peace in Prisons (UFPP). In one recent example,
the United Kage Brothers have been denied the ability to form an
official organization by the CDCR at Pelican Bay State Prison. And this
is why the UFPP stresses INDEPENDENCE as one of the 5 principles. If
local staff are supportive of your efforts that is great. And there is
plenty reason for them to be supportive of a safer work environment. But
we also must not build or organizing in a way that is dependent on the
whims of the state, which has a general principle of opposing the
organizing of the oppressed.
In analyzing the system of social control in the United $tates, it is
imperative that we follow the correct line. The position of many today
is to argue that the injustice system is based on a “Prison-Industrial
Complex” [which we at MIM(Prisons) reject]. A new report,
“Following the
Money of Mass Incarceration” by Peter Wagner and Bernadette Rabuy,
provides additional evidence to back up our position.
Prisons are generally a complex web of concentration camps for oppressed
semi-colonies, rather than an economically profitable industry. Indeed,
there are some profits to be made (and capitalists/imperialists are good
at finding their niches), but overall, the purpose of the injustice
system today is population control.
As Wagner and Rabuy point out in their article: “In this
first-of-its-kind report, we find that the system of mass incarceration
costs the government and families of justice-involved people at least
$182 billion every year.”(1) This $182 billion includes the $374 million
in profits received by the private prison industry. The profits to these
numerically few stakeholders hardly represent a systematic
profit-generating enterprise. In fact, in the graph summing up their
research, the authors had to make an exception to the cut off for
significant portions of the U.$. prison budget in order to even include
private prisons on it!
“This industry is dominated by two large publicly traded companies –
CoreCivic (which until recently was called Corrections Corporation of
America (CCA)) and The GEO Group — as well as one small private company,
Management & Training Corp (MTC). We relied on the public annual
reports of the two large companies, and estimated MTC’s figures using
records from a decade-old public record request.”(1)
Private prison corporations have very little to gain in the prison
business, which is why the vast majority (up to 95%) are still public
prisons.(2) The Amerikkkan government (i.e. taxpayers) fronts the bill
for the $182 billion. The few economic beneficiaries of the prison
industry are commissary vendors, bail bond companies, and specialized
telephone companies. As Wagner and Rabuy demonstrate, these are the
multi-billion dollar industries. And they, of course, benefit, whether
the prisons are private or not!
Why would the imperialist system be willing to spend almost $200 billion
a year at the loss of widespread economic labor and consumers? For, as
is shown: “Many people confined in jails don’t work, and four state
prison systems don’t pay at all.”(1)
As Wagner points out in an article from 7 October 2015:
“Now, of course, the influence of private prisons will vary from state
to state and they have in fact lobbied to keep mass incarceration going;
but far more influential are political benefits that elected officials
of both political parties harvested over the decades by being tough on
crime as well as the billions of dollars earned by government-run
prisons’ employees and private contractors and vendors.
“The beneficiaries of public prison largess love it when private prisons
get all of the attention. The more the public stays focused on the
owners of private prisons, the less the public is questioning what would
happen if the government nationalized the private prisons and ran every
facility itself: Either way, we’d still have the largest prison system
in the world.”(3)
The capitalists don’t economically gain from the supposed
“Prison-Industrial Complex”, but the politicians gain from the white
Amerikkkan obsession with “crime”. Taking this into account, we find the
truth hiding behind Wagner and Rabuy’s cryptic phrase: “To be sure,
there are ideological as well as economic reasons for mass incarceration
and over-criminalization.”(1)
We’ve already looked at the economic reasons – power groups like the
bail bond companies and commissary vendors are obviously looking to make
a profit. So what are the ideological reasons?
When we look at prison populations (whether private or public), we can
see where mass incarceration gets its impetus. The vast majority of
prisoners are New Afrikans, Chican@s, and peoples of the First Nations
(even though euro-Amerikkkans are the majority of the U.$. population).
The prison is not a revenue racket, but an instrument of social control.
The motivating factor is domination, not exploitation.
If we’re following the money though, then we need look at how spending
breaks down. Wagner and Rabuy present the division of costs as: the
judicial and legal costs, policing expenditures, civil asset forfeiture,
bail fees, commissary expenditures, telephone call charges, “public
correction agencies” (like public employees and health care),
construction costs, interest payments, and food and utility costs.
The authors outline their methodology for arriving at their statistics
and admit that “[t]here are many items for which there are no national
statistics available and no straightforward way to develop a national
figure from the limited state and local data.”(1) Despite these obvious
weaknesses in obtaining concrete reliable data, the overwhelming
analysis stands.
Wagner and Rabuy discuss the private prison industry at the end of the
article. Here, they write:
“To illustrate both the scale of the private prison industry and the
critical fact that this industry works under contract for government
agencies — rather than arresting, prosecuting, convicting and
incarcerating people on its own — we displayed these companies as a
subset of the public corrections system.”(1)
As was argued in
“MIM(Prisons)
on U.S. Prison Economy”, “[i]f prison labor was a gold mine for
private profiteers, then we would see corporations of all sorts leading
the drive for more prisons.”(2)
In light of this, the injustice system in the United $tates and the
prisons (both private and public) are used by the government to oppress
national minorities. And the government is rewarded with enthusiasm and
renewed vigor by white Amerikkkans, who goose-step into formation with
ecstasy when racist politicians like Donald Trump go on about being
“tough on crime”.
MIM Thought stresses the focus on imperialism both inside and outside
the United $nakes. The network of prisons is no exception – imperialism
here functions as a method of control by Amerikkkans of oppressed
nations. As the statistics presented by Wagner and Rabuy clearly
demonstrate, there is no “Prison Industrial Complex.” There is a
systematic attempt to destroy individuals, communities, and nations.(4)