From The Ramparts
Junious Ricardo Stanton
US Prisons The New Slavery
"'Insourcing,' as prison labor is often called, is an even cheaper alternative to outsourcing. Instead of sending labor over to China or Bangladesh, manufacturers have chosen to forcibly employ the 2.4 million incarcerated people in the United States. Chances are high that if a product you’re holding says it is “American Made,” it was made in an American prison".http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-insourcing-of-prison-labor-seven-us-corporate-household-names-use-prison-labor-to-produce-their-goods/5492033?utm_campaign=magnet&utm_source=article_page&utm_medium=related_articles
If you haven't read Michelle Alexander's best selling book The New Jim Crow Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness please read it soon. She documents the creation and rise of the prison industrial complex's underclass of Black and Brown prisoners who have been stripped of: their citizen rights, the right to vote, the right to serve on a jury, severely minimizes their employment opportunities, eliminates financial aid for education, and their ability to secure public housing. The sad reality is the US gulag system was ramped up by President Bill Clinton with major support from his wife Hillary who campaigned hard for legislation that created a sharp spike in federal and state prison construction and the rise of Wall Street traded private prisons.
When our people are locked up they are usually forgotten except by their families. Unless they are a celebrity, very little is known about what happens once those steel doors slam behind them and become engulfed into the prison culture. Even if they are not subjected to atrocities, torture or horrid conditions they are for all intents and purposes now slaves.
Slavery in the US was legally outlawed by the Thirteenth Amendment but that amendment contains language that says, "except for punishment of crimes." So what we have is not just a new Jim Crow (apartheid) in the US but also slavery. Many of us are familiar with US history following the War Between the States and the end of so called "Reconstruction" whereby Southern Blacks were routinely arrested on bogus and trumped up charges sanctioned by legislation enacted by most of the former Confederate States called the Black Codes. These laws reinstituted the subservient status of Black people, severely restricted their movement and activities. Once Blacks were arrested they were often "hired out" to plantation owners, the railroads, mines or did forced labor for the county or state. That system still exists today.
Racism and class bias are endemic in the "justice system" and seeking fairness and justice is not easy. The costs of securing a competent legal criminal defense and all that goes with it such as investigators and support staff are prohibitive for most people. Most people are forced to rely on the Public Defenders who are overworked and overwhelmed by the volume of their caseloads. This overload is due to the draconian laws passed at the behest of lobbyists who pushed for anti crime laws that mandated prison time that benefited their clients; the for profit private prison companies.
State and federal prison systems actively collude with corporations to use their inmates to make the corporation's products. These companies only pay inmates a pittance in some cases less than $1 a day. http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-insourcing-of-prison-labor-seven-us-corporate-household-names-use-prison-labor-to-produce-their-goods/5492033?utm_campaign=magnet&utm_source=article_page&utm_medium=related_articles. More and more corporations are turning to prison labor to increase their profits. Corporations that directly or indirectly use prison labor are: At&T, Walmart, McDonalds, Whole Foods, Victoria's Secret, Wendy's Starbucks, Verizon, Sprint to name a few. For an extensive list of companies involved in prison labor use go to https://www.popularresistance.org/identifying-businesses-that-profit-from-prison-labor/. America imprisons more people than any country in the world. It's not about reducing crime, it's about profit. Prison labor the new slavery is one of the reasons.
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Replies
Asante Sana for US Prisons The New Slavery - Junious Ricardo Stanton. This info is powerful if We can mount an advocacy campaign against the companies on the "enslavers list". Sadly, The New Jim Crow Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness was originally published: January 5, 2010 and We have been "complaining" about the finding every since. What We find to acknowledge is the fact that she got the idea from a Black Power grassroots group who advocated the New JimCrow long before Michelle. No respect to Michelle Alexander, but identifying the problem is only step one in the scientific method to problem solving. Six years should be enough time to id this problem. We should be at the stage of the problem solving process.
The Basic Steps:
State the Problem - A problem can't be solved if it isn't understood.
Form a Hypothesis - This is a possible solution to the problem formed after gathering information about the problem. The term "research" is properly applied here.
Test the Hypothesis - An experiment is performed to determine if the hypothesis solves the problem or not. Experiments are done to gather data. It is very important that good observations and records are made during an experiment.
Collect the Data - This is where you record your observations, measurements, or information from experiment.
Analyze the Data - Just what does all that data indicate about answering the problem you are solving?
Draw Conclusions - After examining the data from the experiment, conclusions can be drawn. In it's simplest form, the conclusion will be "yes" the hypothesis was correct, or "no" the hypothesis was not correct.
I agree with what you have said. I would add, however, that one of the crucial steps is to disseminate the information. Unfortunately, too many people are still not aware of this pattern and its historical roots. Either that or they are so invested in the system that they are not moved to change it.
I read something a couple of years ago about one of the Southern states in which people (majority Black people) were being fined for not paying their previous fines, and for minor matters such as traffic violations. The way the system worked was that it dug people deeper and deeper into the hole of debt. Many of these people ended up behind bars.
Economic empowerment is crucial.
Economic empowerment is crucial for our survival. Unfortunately today's hustler class of " Black leaders" are only looking out for themselves. We lack the righteous leadership of a Booker T Washington Marcus Garvey or Elijah Muhammad who thought in terms of and organized for collective empowerment and self sufficiency.
I'm sure there are many righteous leaders around, but they do not get the press and the exposure the others get.
Sadly, this is nothing new and has been going on since Reconstruction. Check out my blog post: Slavery by Another Name, which gives information on how large corporations such as Microsoft use prison labour.
Plus, in August of 2008, I interviewed Gloria J. Browne-Marshall, author of Race, Law and American Society 1607-Present on this subject.
The ruling class uses the same play book over and over. Remember the British colonies were repositories for convicts many who were debtors or who fell victim to the laws the Anglo Saxons enacted to fill their jails with Irish Welsh and others they drove from their lands into the towns and cities where they then charged them with vagrancy and other petty crimes. AmeriKKKa has always seen a nexus between prisoners, convicts, slave (both European and African) and free labor.
Very true. The English colonised their own working class before moving on to the Scottish, Irish and Welsh. Having perfected their methods, they then exported them all over the world.