Everyday Slaves

"Education and incarceration are connected. As a society we can choose either to emphasize a proactive investment in the stability of families and education of children, or to emphasize a reactive investment in incarceration and forms of carceral punishment. In short we can both build and invest in schools and equality of opportunity in education or we can invest in prisons." Michael Glennon

 

Today mass incarceration is a fundamental practice in American society. The United States has placed more blacks in the criminal justice system in the forms of prison terms, parole, and/or probation than were in slavery. More blacks are under supervision than in any time in America’s elongated history. We are in America were freedom is only a privilege for some of it’s citizen, but for others they are treated like walking felons. Prisons were first formed to put up Americas most dangerous criminals, but now these same prisons have been sold to private entities that profit off of these “criminals.” We have since gone from an inconsistent justice system to a power structure that uses mass punishment as an incentive to incarcerate citizens.

Prison was formed as a social means to deter members of society from going to prisons which would in turn keep the number of inmates low, but private institutions have incentives to keep numbers high so that they can maximize profit. Under The 13^th Amendment it is constituted in language that, “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” Since 1980 crime rates in America have steadily decreased, but incarceration has rapidly increased partially due to The Reagan Era.

I know it seems heaven sent, but we aint ready to see a black president, it’s not enough to conceal the facts that the penitentiary packed and it’s filled with blacks...Instead of War on Poverty they got a War on Drugs so the police can bother me. Tupac

In 1971 Richard Nixon was the first to coin the term “The War on Drugs,” but President Reagan made it a race to incarcerate. In 1982 he announced that the nation was going to combat the Crack Epidemic. He promised drug free zones in school, workplaces, and increased drug treatment facilities. Another thing he promised was stiffer drug penalties. Many critics may argue whether his plan was implemented to effectiveness, but all won’t deny about Reagan carrying through his plan with stiffer penalties. In 1986 he did just that, in that year he signed a bill that used 1.7 billion dollars to fund his plan. Even though cocaine was more widely used, more costly, and the foundation of crack he kept those sentences levels stable for that drug, but raised mandatory minimum sentences for crack-cocaine. Many people looked at this as an attack on poverty stricken communities and low income areas. These new laws had mammoth effects on blacks. These policies did very little to diminish the amount of drugs on the streets, but increased the prison population to large proportions.

Even after leaving office Reagan passed the baton to President Bush who picked where Reagan left off. Even though many criminal justice scholars claimed that these policies would not reduce drugs use or the availability of drugs, but it would increase the prison population those claims went ignored. Instead the Bush Administration went ahead with a study that stated that mass incarceration would save tax payers 405,000 for every offender. Even though many economist showed that the data didn’t add up our government fed this propaganda to the masses and they ate it up. While they were digesting this, adolescents in lower income communities suffered.

Between 1980-1993 education, employment, and training programs were cut in half, but spending on correctional facilities went up 521%. In 2006 the State of California spent 8,000 dollars on average for a child in their school district, but invested 216,000 dollars for one juvenile inmate. So we must ask, what’s more important, educating our children to be productive, free thinking citizens, or investing them into a system that turns them into slaves?  75% of those in these juvenile inmates are illiterate by the 12^thgrade and less than 20% will have their high school diploma. This isn’t cause and effect, but a direct correlation. This is the science of criminology, and what sociologist study. When you cut education and invest in correction you are directly sending messages that the people you are sending out of school will be pushed right into a system of slavery. Many of these children will be many of the 13 million that are introduced to American prisons yearly. Many will visit these prisons for marijuana offenses. As of today 1 of every American is serving time behind bars where they are working for as much as .15 cents a day. Even though they are getting this minimal amount of income most will never see a single dime of it, or the .15 cents because most inmates checks go to pay legal, court, and restitution fees. So in a sense they are working for free and turned into modern day slaves while private cooperation’s make billions off of them. Only in America can a prison be put on Wall Street. How can a system that is stated to be for rehabilitation be on Wall Street, this seems like economical elevation?

Housing, feeding , and providing standard medical treatment to over six million people may seem like a financial burden, but to companies like CCA & GEO it’s a 70 billion dollar industry that they have invested in. These two cooperation’s only agreed to take over these states prisons only if they could get a guarantee from the state that they will stay 90% occupied. The problem is that even though the states would get pay-outs they would also be pressured to promote laws that would keep incarceration laws high.

No matter how fiscally responsible it may seem to pass over the prison industries to private companies it goes against what the justice system is suppose to stand for. Justice is fairness, not a monetary incentive for criminals, suspected criminals, and non-criminals to be handed over to cooperation’s whose sole concern isn’t rehabilitation, but concern is free labor. This system does not help those lost in the world to find avenues to better themselves or deter others on the street from deviant behavior instead it turns millions every year into modern day slaves. We have a justice system that had displaced minorities at an alarming rate in prisons with number identifications away from having their government names read in graduation lines.