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I have written here several times that the overzealous prosecution and subsequent imprisonment with ridiculously long sentences of our young men and women is not likely to abate any time soon.
We have seen young men receive a 5, 10, or even 20 year sentence just for the mere possession of child pornography. This is just one example of many in which the punishment outweighs the actual crime. There are other examples.
It is not the prosecution of these crimes that bothers me, but the fact that the punishment does not fit the crime.
One reason these prosecutions will not stop is that there are too many people or groups of people monetarily benefiting from putting our men in prison, so there is no incentive to end this nonsense. The private prison corporations are making a killing off keeping their prisons full at all times and one method they use to accomplish this goal is to lobby our politicians for more "tough on crime" laws which will keep the prison occupancy rate close to 100%.
I previously listed groups of people such as law enforcement, parole officers, GPS manufacturing companies, etc. as those who benefit from keeping our prisons full. Private prisons are up quite high on that list also.
Here is an example of another area in which someone benefits by keeping our men and women locked up----cheap prison labor.
And guess who else is getting in on the gravy train of inmate labor?----OUR OWN GOVERNMENT.
Here is the link to the entire article:
http://tinyurl.com/o9q22nu
If this is not disgusting as hell, I don't know what is.
If you do not want to read the entire article, I am cutting and pasting the important portion of the article which validates my point.
Here it is:
"Federal officials still have to navigate a tangle of rules. Defense officials, for instance, who spend roughly $2 billion annually on military uniforms, are required by a World War II-era rule called the Berry Amendment to have most of them made in the United States. In recent years, Congress has pressured defense officials to cut costs on uniforms. Increasingly, the department has turned to federal prisons, where wages are under $2 per hour. Federal inmates this year stitched more than $100 million worth of military uniforms."
and
"In recent years, figures show prison labor has boomed in the face of rising unemployment. A Dec. 2012 report by RT found that hundreds of companies were benefitting from the low- or no-wage labor source. In an April 2012 blog for HuffPost, professors Steve Fraser and Joshua Freeman attributed the rise to the privatization of prisons, which "has meant the creation of a small army of workers too coerced and right-less to complain."
"All told, nearly a million prisoners are now making office furniture, working in call centers, fabricating body armor, taking hotel reservations, working in slaughterhouses, or manufacturing textiles, shoes, and clothing, while getting paid somewhere between 93 cents and $4.73 per day," the professors wrote."
THIS IS WHAT WE GET WHEN WE ALLOW AN INDUSTRIAL PRISON COMPLEX TO HIJACK OUR CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM.
In the Cold War days, the United States always complained that the Communist nations, most notably the USSR, was sending people to slave camps. Isn't that what we are going? We have become no better than the countries we used to demonize. In many ways we HAVE BECOME those evil nations.
Why not attempt to rehabilitate those that have committed crimes instead of just locking them away?
What a terrible and sad journey our country has embarked on.
rewdiazepam
We have seen young men receive a 5, 10, or even 20 year sentence just for the mere possession of child pornography. This is just one example of many in which the punishment outweighs the actual crime. There are other examples.
It is not the prosecution of these crimes that bothers me, but the fact that the punishment does not fit the crime.
One reason these prosecutions will not stop is that there are too many people or groups of people monetarily benefiting from putting our men in prison, so there is no incentive to end this nonsense. The private prison corporations are making a killing off keeping their prisons full at all times and one method they use to accomplish this goal is to lobby our politicians for more "tough on crime" laws which will keep the prison occupancy rate close to 100%.
I previously listed groups of people such as law enforcement, parole officers, GPS manufacturing companies, etc. as those who benefit from keeping our prisons full. Private prisons are up quite high on that list also.
Here is an example of another area in which someone benefits by keeping our men and women locked up----cheap prison labor.
And guess who else is getting in on the gravy train of inmate labor?----OUR OWN GOVERNMENT.
Here is the link to the entire article:
http://tinyurl.com/o9q22nu
If this is not disgusting as hell, I don't know what is.
If you do not want to read the entire article, I am cutting and pasting the important portion of the article which validates my point.
Here it is:
"Federal officials still have to navigate a tangle of rules. Defense officials, for instance, who spend roughly $2 billion annually on military uniforms, are required by a World War II-era rule called the Berry Amendment to have most of them made in the United States. In recent years, Congress has pressured defense officials to cut costs on uniforms. Increasingly, the department has turned to federal prisons, where wages are under $2 per hour. Federal inmates this year stitched more than $100 million worth of military uniforms."
and
"In recent years, figures show prison labor has boomed in the face of rising unemployment. A Dec. 2012 report by RT found that hundreds of companies were benefitting from the low- or no-wage labor source. In an April 2012 blog for HuffPost, professors Steve Fraser and Joshua Freeman attributed the rise to the privatization of prisons, which "has meant the creation of a small army of workers too coerced and right-less to complain."
"All told, nearly a million prisoners are now making office furniture, working in call centers, fabricating body armor, taking hotel reservations, working in slaughterhouses, or manufacturing textiles, shoes, and clothing, while getting paid somewhere between 93 cents and $4.73 per day," the professors wrote."
THIS IS WHAT WE GET WHEN WE ALLOW AN INDUSTRIAL PRISON COMPLEX TO HIJACK OUR CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM.
In the Cold War days, the United States always complained that the Communist nations, most notably the USSR, was sending people to slave camps. Isn't that what we are going? We have become no better than the countries we used to demonize. In many ways we HAVE BECOME those evil nations.
Why not attempt to rehabilitate those that have committed crimes instead of just locking them away?
What a terrible and sad journey our country has embarked on.
rewdiazepam
It ous sad and in my mind no better then slave labour.
One of the biggest employers of the new slave labor is the military. This does sound like the USSR and China.
First, the government has a captive group of people. Many inmates have exactly no support system or family out there to send them money. So they work at these prison jobs. They need money for tobacco, coffee, hygiene supplies, etc so they work.
What is sad is that these jobs are the highest paying jobs in prison. When I was there a daily job started out at nine dollars per month. If the inmate got a raise after a few months, the pay was increased to $14. I had the highest paying job on the yard and I was paid $35 a month. This pay, anywhere from nine dollars to $35 a month, was for jobs on the yard itself, such as cleaning, mopping the floors, working in the laundry or kitchen. But at one of these factory jobs and inmate could make $60, and that was a fortune to some of the inmates.
So the first reason is that an inmate needs money for his extras. Now he does not have to go from cell to cell begging for items.
Secondly, these jobs give an inmate something to do to pass the time. Prison is for the most part a very boring existence. Some inmates just do better developing a daily routine and that includes going to work.
The sad thing is that at many prisons, inmates are FORCED to have a job someplace on the yard or they will receive a misconduct. At a medium, many inmates did not care as they had so much time to serve they knew they would never get out anyway. But this works well at a minimum. An inmate there MUST have a job or he will get a misconduct and his good time credits taken away. It is either he works or he does not go home as soon as expected.
It is a pitiful situation, but many things in prison are just so sad.
rewdiazepam
My first thought is, it's always good to have something to do, though I do think earning a GED, for those who don't have one, should come first. I love my time off from work but I get bored after a couple of weeks.
My second thought is (and this is a difficult situation when wrongfully incarcerated), why not work to recoup some of the cost of incarceration?
And third, do you see earning a wage equivalent to that job on the outside as making it fair?
How do we counter the money to be made from incarcerating people? Offering incentives to companies who teach valuable skills? Or to proven rehabilitation?
Of housing and food is taken out immediately.
The federal prison industry produces 100% of all military helmets, ammunition belts, bullet-proof vests, ID tags, shirts, pants, tents, bags, and canteens. Along with war supplies, prison workers supply 98% of the entire market for equipment assembly services; 93% of paints and paintbrushes; 92% of stove assembly; 46% of body armor; 36% of home appliances; 30% of headphones/microphones/speakers; and 21% of office furniture.
The thirteenth amendment of the U.S. constitution Section 1. 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.
Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
One out of every hundred Americans is currently incarcerated and mandatory minimum sentences ensure a steady stream of slaves.
America has five of the top ten worst prisons in the world. The average American doesn't worry about this statistic until a loved one ends up in one of the prisons.
I ended up a QA inspector making $.95 an hour. Since I had an unpaid court fine, 50% went to this. It worked out since this way they did not touch any commissary money that was sent to me. Without that job, they would have taken part of that.
It's all a scam. My fine was $7,500. Just about the cost of keeping me fed, clothed and housed in prison for 2 years.