When They Shove Me IN
The Prison Industrial Complex
Political Prisoners
THE X FACTOR: The Race of Political Prisoners Across America May Be the Key to Freedom for Some
By Fayemi Shakur
(The Source Magazine-January 2004)
When 60's radical Kathy Boudin was released from prison last October, the media never once referred to the White female as the political prisoner she was. A former recruit of the ultra- leftist Weather Underground organization, Boudin was convicted for her involvement in an armored truck heist in 1981, which left two police officers dead. But for political prisoners of color convicted in similar felonies, it appears that their skin tone and their political associations are what's really keeping them on lockdown.
"I think it's a form of revenge on a generation that rebelled," says Bonnie Kerness of American Friends Service Committee. Because of this, she argues, the freedom of some former Black Panther Party members facing the parole board this year -- Sundiata Acoli, Herman Bell, Jalil Muntaqim and others -- seems uncertain. Though maintaining their innocence throughout
for their alleged crimes, all were charged in the shooting deaths of police officers, but in Acoli's case, his ties to comrade and
escaped convict Assata Shakur may have proven to be a factor deterring his release.
"Acoli's denial of parole is a way of punishing him and trying to make him serve Assata's time," explains Monifa Bandele,
executive director of the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement. Bandele believes such actions imply an improper use of the parole system, where Black political prisoners routinely do not receive the same resources and legal support as Whites. But the challenge, supporters say, is not just convincing the parole board to release the prisoners, but in getting the public to speak out and pressure parole boards to make the right decisions.
As Fred Hampton Jr., the son of the assassinated Panther leader explains, "We are talking about comrades who challenged the system, so we are aware they won't just walk free without a fight."
"Half a mil for bail 'cause I'm african" Jay-Z
"See ya when I free ya if not when they shove me in."
-2 Pac
“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.”
-13th Amendment to the US Constitution
“Like the military/industrial complex, the prison industrial complex is an interweaving of private business and government interests. Its twofold purpose is profit and social control. Its public rationale is the fight against crime.”
General Prison Information
- Eve Goldberg and Linda Evans
THE PRISON MILITARY INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX
The prison military industrial complex (PMIC) is a system of government institutions, corporations, social policies, and cultural attitudes that profit a small minority of wealthy people at the expense of many disenfranchised people and communities -- the poor, people of color, immigrants, women, urban and rural youth, and lesbian, gay and transgender communities.
HOW ARE PRISONS AND INDUSTRY CONNECTED?
When the cold war ended in the 1990's, weapons manufacturers found themselves in a need of a new market for their products. At the end of the Cold War, the arms industry redirected its marketing strategies to appeal to the growing prison industry. Rural communities in particular, which had depended on the Cold War arms industry for jobs and economic sustenance, saw prisons as an alternative form of economic development, and gave land and financial incentives to private corporations to attract prison construction. today military equipment, such as surveillance technology and stun guns, is regularly used in prisons.
HOW ARE WE AS YOUNG PEOPLE AFFECTED BY THE INTERLOCKING INSTITUTIONS THAT CREATE THE PMIC?
We are recruited by the JROTC programs and Army/Navy/Marine recruiters in our schools before we have even graduated from high school. Especially if we are young people of color, we are essentially told that the military is our only choice for an education and career. Funding for scholarships, community colleges, and job training programs are being cut by the government (because of the "need" to pay for homeland security measures, war abroad, and the ongoing "war on drugs"), leaving us with fewer and fewer choices in terms of our future. For many of us, joining the military is the only way we will be able to get a college education. We are also "recruited" in a different way to prisons, especially if we are young people of color. Although we aren't asked to "join" prisons, a career in the informal drug economy is often the most lucrative choice presented to us.
WHO BENEFITS FROM EXPANDING PRISON SYSTEMS?
POLITICIANS – who receive votes and campaign contributions for maintaining an image of being "tough on crime" by supporting prison construction, stricter sentencing laws, and increased militarism within prisons.
WEAPONS MANUFACTUERS – who sell their products to prisons. These products include the types of surveillance and imprisonment technologies that are now used in today's prisons, such as video visit systems, electronic security, prison-wide video surveillance systems, stun guns, etc.
CORPORATIONS – who are paid to build and maintain prisons facilities, provide food services to prisoners, provide laundry services to prisons facilities, provide guards and staff to prison facilities, etc.
WHO SUFFERS FROM EXPANDING PRISON SYSTEMS?
THE POOR AND DISADVANTAGED – don't have access to expensive legal representation and are otherwise more susceptible to abuse by the system in terms of trial, sentencing, etc.
PEOPLE OF COLOR – are sentenced more harshly and more frequently than whites. For example, approximately 2/3 of crack users are White or Latino, yet the vast majority of persons convicted of possession in federal courts in 1994 were African American.
OUR COMMUNITIES – which are worn down when we blame each other, fear each other, and "invest" in the PMIC system's financiers, the corporations.
SOCIETY – which is manipulated by politicians, corporations, and the media into thinking they need more and more prisons to keep us safe from our neighbors, more and more weapons and a bigger and bigger military to keep us "safe" from other nations, (is there any reason this is in italics? JH
The Fact Is…
A few statistics and figures
The Prison Industrial Complex
As of November 3rd 2004 there are an estimated 2,157,549 people in U.S. prisons and jails.
On June 30, 2003 2,078,570 prisoners were held in Federal or State prisons or in local jails.
There were an estimated 480 prison inmates per 100,000 U.S. residents – up from 411 in 1995.
The number of women under the jurisdiction of State or Federal prison authorities increased 5% from June 30, 2002 to June 30, 2003, reaching 100,102. The number of men rose 2.7%, totaling 1,360,818 in mid-2003.
In the United States in 2003, there were 4,834 black male inmates per 100,000 black males, compared to 1,778 Hispanic male inmates per 100,000 Hispanic males and 681 white male inmates per 100,000 white males.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/prisons.htm
Get In That Cell…
U.S. incarceration rates by race, June 30, 2002:
· White males: 649 per 100,000
· Hispanic males: 1,740 per 100,000
· Black males: 4,810 per 100,000
By comparison, in South Africa under apartheid (1993), 851 of every 100,000 black males were incarcerated.
OTHER FACTS about the PMIC
There are approximately 2 million people in U.S. prisons and jails and 5.7 million people under state supervision.
One of three African American men in the U.S. will serve time in prison in their lifetimes.
The number of women serving time in state and federal prisons has increased 92% in the last 10 years.
The U.S. currently cages more people of color per capita than any other nation.
It costs more to send a person to prison for a year than to Harvard University for a year.
The prison system is not filled with violent and dangerous people: The majority of people are being sent to prison on drug charges and for acts which involve no violence whatsoever.
Private corporations such as Eddie Bauer and Lexus employ prison slave labor. Prisoners are forbidden by law to unionize or strike; they are not protected by minimum wage laws or the Fair Labor Standards Act; and they cannot voice complaints or even refuse to work without receiving severe retaliation.
Conditions in U.S. prisons have been repeatedly condemned by groups such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch for violating the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners.
Healthcare for prisoners is practically nonexistent. It is common practice for prisoners to be denied medical examinations and treatments.
Tell Me Who Profits?
Nortel IBM McDonalds
Motorola Compaq Tors R US
AT&T Dell Victoria’s Secret
Kaiser Steel Eddie Bauer Microsoft
Boeing Revlon Honeywell
Nordstrom MCI Texas Instrumental
3Com Jostens Pierre Cardin
Major Private Prison Corporations
Wackenhut Corrections
(52 Prisons, More than 26,000 Prisoners)
Operates in Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia, Puerto Rico, Australia, UK. |
CCA
Corrections Corporation Of America
(81 Prisons, More than 71,000 Prisoners)
Operates prisons in Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Puerto Rico, Australia, UK. |
Things That Make You Go -What the…?
If the percentage increases remain the same, compare
The Black Inmate Population now, and
the Black Male Slave Population in the 19th Century
|
Year |
Black Male Inmate Population |
|
2000 |
792,000 |
|
2005 |
1,040,027 (projected) |
|
2008 |
1,224,719 (projected) |
|
2017 |
1,999,916 (projected) |
|
Year |
Black Male Slave Population |
|
1820 |
783,781 |
|
1830 |
1,001,986 |
|
1840 |
1,244,000 |
|
1860 |
1,981,395 |
The number of African-American male inmates is derived from a baseline of two million prisoners and the fact that African-American men represent 41.3% of the total inmate population. The growth in prison population assumes a constant yearly growth rate of 5.6%. This was the average rate growth for the decade from 1990 to 2000.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Prisoners and Jail Inmates at Midyear 2000 (Washington D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice, March 2001)
CREATIVE ALTERNATIVES TO PRISONS
Adapted by Marilyn Eisenstat, from "Creative Alternatives to Prisons," by Ruth Morris (1995) available from Rittenhouse: A New Vision, (416) 972 9992 , 157 Carlton Street, Toronto, ON, Canada, M5A 2K3 email: ritten@ interlog.com http://www.interlog.com/~ritten
Prisons achieve only punishment, ignore individual victims of crime, and give the offender no responsible role in taking responsibility. Their primary functions are to institutionalize, and to punish. They create a violent atmosphere by disempowering and stigmatizing people.
Most of the following 23 alternatives to prisons are already working effectively in Canada. In general, their use only needs to be sharpened and expanded.
In thinking about alternatives, we need to be aware of our mixed motives. What do we want to do with offenders? Punish them? Rehabilitate them? Control them? Encourage them to take more responsibility? Reintegrate them? Stamp them as GUILTY all their lives? Or do we mistakenly think we can do all of this at once? Every alternative needs to be applied in a way which fosters respect and responsibility.
HOUSING ALTERNATIVES
- Community Resource Centres (Ontario) de-institutionalize people gradually, enabling those serving the last part of their sentences to live and work in the community.
- Bail residence provides a suitable, supportive community residence for those who have none during their pre-trial period.
- Halfway homes provide a caring home, with 24-hour support for those who volunteer to stay here.
- Therapeutic residences are residential drug or alcohol or psychiatric treatment programs which address the problems that caused the offence.
COMMUNITY SUPERVISION
- Bail supervision keeps people out of jail with responsible supervision while awaiting trial.
- Probation is an order of the judge after conviction. This person, now found guilty, is placed in the community with supervision and guidance to avoid future trouble.
- Parole comes after serving part of a prison sentence. The offender is released gradually towards independence into the community.
RESTORATION MODELS
These models focus on what the offender can give back to the community, or to the victim, in compensation for the crime.
- Through the civil courts, victims ask for financial damages.
- Fines are a court-ordered punishment. Money is restored to the community.
- Restitution is a court order to repay the victim money for money or property taken or damaged.
- Community service orders require hours of work in and for the community.
- Fine option programs offer people ways to earn money to pay off their fine.
TREATMENT
Treatment programs focus on the offender as having an illness or needs. A specific problem in an offender’s life is identified, and connected with a specific solution.
LEGAL RESTRAINT
Legislative remedies
- Decriminalization removes some behaviours from the criminal code.
- Capping sets maximum limits on the numbers or proportion of our population we are willing to jail.
Police discretion
- The police have the discretion not to charge people in many situations.
Court remedies
- Discharge occurs after a person comes to court and acknowledges responsibility for the charge. Most aspects of the criminal record are erased.
- Alternative sentence planning is a community service offered by a private agency through the court. The agency develops a plan using alternatives to incarceration. The court can then give an order incorporating these recommendations.
PRISON REMEDIES
- Immediate temporary absence passes are recommended by courts and implemented by prisons for persons with sentences who have jobs. The sentence is served on weekends or evenings, while the offender goes out to the job on weekdays.
- Early parole. With help from active community agencies, prison systems can release minor offenders more quickly with early parole by planning for parole as soon as the person enters the institution.
COOPERATIVE SOLUTIONS
- Community conflict resolution programs provide an alternative for conflicts before they get to the stage where crime can occur.
- Victim offender reconciliation brings victims and offenders together in order to understand facts, heal feelings, and find mutual resolution. The victim must, of course, agree to participate in the process. The victim’s suffering is dealt with as victims are allowed to safely express anger and hurt to the party directly responsible. Offenders sit face to face with the real people hurt by their behavior. Both parties are challenged to take responsibility for the situation, and to find mutual solutions.
- Diversion. Most diversion programs deal with first offenders. The accused person accepts responsibility for the alleged offence and, with a diversion worker, plans the most appropriate response: educational, work, compensation, etc.
Many of the above alternatives are not used as widely or as well as they could be. For example, fines need to be income related. Sentencing needs to respect the situation of both offender and victim. Civil settlements can keep financial issues out of criminal courts. Progressive alternatives need a wider chance: Victim Offender Reconciliation, Diversion, and Community Conflict Resolution.
With dedication, we can build community alternatives that bridge gaps, that help offenders, victims, and the wider community to assume responsibility together – and that heal and reconcile, creating mutual growth out of the pain of crime.
Adapted by Marilyn Eisenstat, from "Creative Alternatives to Prisons," by Ruth Morris (1995) available from Rittenhouse: A New Vision, (416) 972 9992 , 157 Carlton Street, Toronto, ON, Canada, M5A 2K3 email: ritten@ interlog.com http://www.interlog.com/~ritten
This information was compiled By
Movement In Motion
Artist and Activist Collective.
For more in depth research check out the websites provided on the following pages.
www.movementinmotion.org
Prison Industrial Complex Articles
Prison Activist Websites
Political Prisoner Sights
KATRINA RELIEF
Below are a listing of Black/ Minority relief efforts courtesy of writer/activist Kevin Powell:
BlackAmericaWeb.com Relief Fund
PO Box 803209
Dallas, TX 75240
OR you can make an online donation by going to www.blackamericaweb.com/relief
This fund has been set up by nationally syndicated radio personality TOM JOYNER.
NAACP Disaster Relief Efforts
The NAACP is setting up command centers in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama as part of its disaster relief efforts. NAACP units across the nation have begun collecting resources that will be placed on trucks and sent directly into the disaster areas. Also, the NAACP has established a disaster relief fund to accept monetary donations to aid in the relief effort.
Checks can be sent to the NAACP payable to
NAACP Hurricane Katrina Relief Fund
4805 Mt. Hope Drive
Baltimore, MD 21215
Donations can also be made online at www.naacp.org/disaster/contribute.php
FYI, the NAACP, founded in 1909, is America's oldest civil rights organization.
Team Rescue
www.teamrescueone.com
Set up by native New Orleans rapper Master P and his wife Sonya Miller.
You can mail or ship non perishable items to these following locations, which we have confirmed are REALLY delivering services to folks in need....
Center for LIFE Outreach Center
121 Saint Landry Street
Lafayette, LA 70506
attn: Minister Pamela Robinson
337-504-5374
Mohammad Mosque 65
2600 Plank Road
Baton Rouge, LA 70805
atten.: Minister Andrew Muhammad
225-923-1400
225-357-3079
Lewis Temple CME Church
272 Medgar Evers Street
Grambling, LA 71245
atten.: Rev. Dr. Ricky Helton
318-247-3793
St. Luke Community United Methodist Church
c/o Hurricane Katrina Victims
5710 East R.L. Thornton Freeway
Dallas, TX 75223
atten.: Pastor Tom Waitschies
214-821-2970
S.H.A.P.E. Community Center
3815 Live Oak
Houston, Texas 77004
atten.: Deloyd Parker
713-521-0641
Alternative media outlets where you can get a more accurate and balanced presentation of the New Orleans catastrophe....
www.diversityinc.com
www.alternet.org
www.blackelectorate.com
www.npr.org
www.daveyd.com
www.slate.com
www.bet.com
www.allhiphop.com
www.democracynow.org
www.blackamericaweb.com
Immortal Technique's new CD, "The Middle Passage" will be released in late 2005. This article appears on his website, Immortal-Technique.com
Beware
Armed bands are roaming the highways and marching through your neighborhoods. They may even try to enter your home! Watch for these gang identifiers
Vehicles: Sports cars, four-door sedans, and vans, often painted black and white or blue and white, with sirens and flashing red and blue lights.
Clothing: Well kept dress uniforms, usually blue or black (Gang Colors), and adorned with patches and badges. Head-wear varies. Other accessories include gun belts, handcuffs, hand-held radios, and large flashlights
Demeanor: Surly and hostile or aggressively “Friendly”
What They Call Themselves: Police, Sheriff, Highway Patrol, State Troopers, U.S. Marshall, C.I.A, F.B.I, A.T.F,D.E.A, etc
Affiliations: National Socialist, White Nationalist, Knights Of The Ku Klux Klan, Aryan Brotherhood,
These Gangsters are highly organized Well armed and potentially violent Warn your friends and neighbors
Do Not Provoke Them!
Do Not Let Them Corner You!
They Are Trigger Happy
They Like To Kill People
They are arrogant
They believe they have a right to disrespect you because they have a badge and a gun
Protect Yourself!!!
