Hamza-T
22-05-03, 14:17
Two million prisoners in the land of the free
uploaded 15 May 2003
http://www.khilafah.com/content/graphics/1053035309.jpg
ÈÓã Çááå ÇáÑÍãä ÇáÑÍíã
Two million prisoners in the land of the free
The American Dream
The transatlantic slave trade, transported between 600,000 and 650,000 Africans forcibly to North America. This is probably an underestimate. Other ‘freedom loving nations’ may not be fully aware that it was this cruel and bloody history of slavery that moulded modern America. However, the 17th and 18th centuries seem eons away for some black Americans today. It is often said that the most powerful woman in the world is National Security Advisor, Condoleezza Rice. She is a black woman. The man in charge of foreign affairs, Colin Powell, is a black man. The main spokesperson for the US military and Central Command in the recent Iraqi invasion was Brigadier General Vincent Brooks - a black man. How is it that the great, great, great grandchildren of slaves can become elevated to such lofty positions? Surely this fact supports the notion that America is truly deserving of its title - ‘the land of the free’. The Kennedy clan may have gone from immigrant shoeshine boy to Presidency in a just a few generations, but slavery to Secretary of State in just four centuries surely epitomises the American dream.
This American dream is also lived by the 603,032 black men enrolled in colleges and universities, in the year 2000, but not necessarily by the 791,600 black men in American prisons and county jails in the same year. That is, according to a study by a Washington DC think tank, the Justice Policy Institute. The study shows a five-fold increase in the number of incarcerated black men over the past 20 years. In 1980, 143,000 were in jail and 463,700 in higher education. So why is there more black men behind bars than in college? One reason may be that following a boom in prison construction there has been an increase in the numbers of people being incarcerated for non-violent crimes. Spending on prisons, in the land of the free, has increased from 2.1% of the national budget to 6.3% in the past 20 years, while higher education spending has fallen from 8% to 4.3%, the study showed. The total number of people in jail during the same period rose from 502,000 to 2.1 million, while numbers in college increased from 12.1 million to 14.8 million. According to US government figures, 46% of prisoners are black and 36% white, while one in 32 Americans is under the control of the correctional system, whether in prison, on probation or on parole. So black men are 10 times more likely to go to prison than whites and one in 20 over the age of 18 is in jail.
The older brother in the Coalition of the willing
The appalling state of Saddam Hussain’s prisons has been cited as one of the justifications for the Crusader Coalition’s invasion of Iraq. Indeed the Baathist regime was a regime of internal repression. He tortured, terrorised and terminated the lives of tens of thousands of Iraq civilians. However it is the leader of the free world, the US, that jails the highest percentage of its own citizens.
In the UK there may be a different approach. Tony Blair’s winning ticket was ‘education, education, education’. Yet the number of black prisoners in Britain's jails has risen by 54% from 7,585 to 11,710 since Labour came to power. One in every 100 black British adults is now in prison, according to Home Office figures (March 2003). A recent crackdown on guns, drugs and street crime has led to an explosion in the number of prisoners from an Afro-Caribbean background, who now account for one in six of all inmates. The statistics are somewhat disproportionate as the general population, is comprised of 2% African and Caribbean but 16% of all prisoners in the UK are black. To be fair, Britain does not claim to be the land of the free. It was Britain that started the transatlantic human traffic.
Corrections Corporations
Tony Blair, prior to taking office, was against private money being used to run prisons. However Blairism has been characterized by hypocrisy. That is, particularly with regards to foundation hospitals and public private partnerships for transport. His recent pattern suggests, he seems to adopt whatever the US has on offer. The UK now has the highest number of private prisons of any European country. Perhaps Blair has been impressed with the American model. Frequent escapes, killings, beatings, sexual abuse (both men and women), suicides and the mistreatment of employees have become the hallmarks of the private prisons in the US. This was also the case whilst public sector control, but the problem has become more acute when prisons are run for profit. Although the proponents of private prisons claim that private enterprise would improve conditions, ease over-crowding, and attract significant savings to the taxpayer. In the US the prison ‘industry’ is euphemistically referred to as ‘corrections’. It is a 50 billion dollar industry, bigger than baseball or pornography. Two companies dominate the business. In the early 1980’s, Nashville-based Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) was set up by a group of entrepreneurs using money from Kentucky Fried Chicken. The other is Wackenhut Corrections founded by an ex-FBI officer. Both companies are big favourites with investors on Wall Street. Recently CCA was one of the top five companies on the NY stock exchange.
These companies claim to be contributing to the good of the community by breathing life into the flagging rural economy. Most prisoners come from big cities but they serve their sentences in the countryside, where ‘corrections’ has become a lucrative business. Unemployment black spots that once relied on farming or heavy industry have welcomed the building of prisons in theirs mists, and the jobs that go with them. The idea of Black men from Washington DC and Detroit being incarcerated and stripped of their humanity in the rural South bares a cruel irony in this cycle of history. One prison, the Rivers Correctional Facility in North Carolina, was built on the same field that used to be a cotton plantation. So, these men idle around in an exercise-yard where their forefathers may have picked cotton.
Three strikes and you're out
The notorious ‘Three strikes and you’re out’ ruling, along with several other measures has been responsible for the phenomenal growth in the prison population. Under this law, first passed in by the state of California, anyone convicted of a third offence gets a sentence of at least 25 years. Many of these tough on crime policies were sponsored by a think tank, American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). Out of the headlines, and behind the scenes ALEC lobbies politicians to change the face of the US crime and punishment system. ALEC’s agenda includes, challenging government restrictions on corporate pollution, and limiting government regulations of commerce, privatising public services, representing the interests of the corporations that make up its supporters (including the private prison companies) and increasing prison sentences. Many right-wing foundations and organizations support ALEC, including but not limited to: National Rifle Association, Family Research Council, and the Olin Foundation. In addition ALEC has over three hundred corporate sponsors: Enron, American Nuclear Energy Council, American Petroleum Institute, Amoco, Chevron, Coors Brewing Company, Shell, Texaco, Union Pacific Railroad, Pharmaceutical Research & Manufacturers of America, Phillip Morris, R.J. Reynolds Tobacco, and others.
Prison works
Today the prison population in the US stands at over two million. The majority of these prisoners are not mass murderers or drug barons. They are petty criminals convicted of non-violent crimes. The basic arguments for locking up more people are simple. The more people in prison the larger the profits for the corrections corporations. Prisoners can be used to repair roads, patch potholes, wash clothes and even give advice in call centres. They can perform tasks at a cheaper cost to the taxpayer. Plus the prisoners will increase their self-esteem, put something back into society, and learn skills - like breaking up big rocks into smaller ones with a hammer. They may appreciate the usefulness of these skills when they leave prison in thirty years time, at the age of 50. The gleaming shiny new private sector prisons are clean and high tech. They rely on CCTV, intercoms and electronic door locks rather than human personnel, thus reducing costs. However the clean cut image masks many problems. Stabbings and other acts of violence involving prisoners and correction officers are substantially higher than in the public sector. Fatalities are now becoming routine. A string of homicides and other disasters has forced an FBI investigation into Wakenhut’s facilities. In Texas the company was fined $600,000 when dozens of guards were indicted for sexual abuse of inmates. At another of the company’s facilities in Louisiana, a judge said teenage inmates had been treated no better than animals.
Conclusions
The US government ignores public opinion and continues to lock up non-violent offenders, at record rates. September 11 2001 provided an excuse to go after immigrants, as well as urban Blacks. After September 11, it has become clear that the Federal government intended to escalate the war on immigrants, using the pretext of the "war on terrorism" to go after Mexican farm workers and Filipino housekeepers. This is beside the treatment of Muslims and Arabs in the US.
The mouth pieces of the US like Fox news and CNN have spent much time reporting on the numbers of prisons and files of detainees in Iraq, under Saddam. The Baathist regime was brutal and the Muslims should never forget this. However the US’s track record is not much better. The US’s attitude to prisoners has come into sharp focus in the eyes of the world. The detention of under-16-year olds in Camp X-Ray and the general treatment of prisoners in Guantanimo Bay have not gone unnoticed. Neither has the US torture camps in Bagram Afghanistan. The US had already declared itself the global cop years ago. It now wants to take on the role of global prison warden. If we want an indication of what is to be its modus operandi in this context we need look no further than Wakenhut and CCA.
Salim Fredericks
Khilafah.com Journal
14 Rabee Al-Awwal 1424 Hijri
15 May 2003
link:
Khilafah (http://www.khilafah.com)
uploaded 15 May 2003
http://www.khilafah.com/content/graphics/1053035309.jpg
ÈÓã Çááå ÇáÑÍãä ÇáÑÍíã
Two million prisoners in the land of the free
The American Dream
The transatlantic slave trade, transported between 600,000 and 650,000 Africans forcibly to North America. This is probably an underestimate. Other ‘freedom loving nations’ may not be fully aware that it was this cruel and bloody history of slavery that moulded modern America. However, the 17th and 18th centuries seem eons away for some black Americans today. It is often said that the most powerful woman in the world is National Security Advisor, Condoleezza Rice. She is a black woman. The man in charge of foreign affairs, Colin Powell, is a black man. The main spokesperson for the US military and Central Command in the recent Iraqi invasion was Brigadier General Vincent Brooks - a black man. How is it that the great, great, great grandchildren of slaves can become elevated to such lofty positions? Surely this fact supports the notion that America is truly deserving of its title - ‘the land of the free’. The Kennedy clan may have gone from immigrant shoeshine boy to Presidency in a just a few generations, but slavery to Secretary of State in just four centuries surely epitomises the American dream.
This American dream is also lived by the 603,032 black men enrolled in colleges and universities, in the year 2000, but not necessarily by the 791,600 black men in American prisons and county jails in the same year. That is, according to a study by a Washington DC think tank, the Justice Policy Institute. The study shows a five-fold increase in the number of incarcerated black men over the past 20 years. In 1980, 143,000 were in jail and 463,700 in higher education. So why is there more black men behind bars than in college? One reason may be that following a boom in prison construction there has been an increase in the numbers of people being incarcerated for non-violent crimes. Spending on prisons, in the land of the free, has increased from 2.1% of the national budget to 6.3% in the past 20 years, while higher education spending has fallen from 8% to 4.3%, the study showed. The total number of people in jail during the same period rose from 502,000 to 2.1 million, while numbers in college increased from 12.1 million to 14.8 million. According to US government figures, 46% of prisoners are black and 36% white, while one in 32 Americans is under the control of the correctional system, whether in prison, on probation or on parole. So black men are 10 times more likely to go to prison than whites and one in 20 over the age of 18 is in jail.
The older brother in the Coalition of the willing
The appalling state of Saddam Hussain’s prisons has been cited as one of the justifications for the Crusader Coalition’s invasion of Iraq. Indeed the Baathist regime was a regime of internal repression. He tortured, terrorised and terminated the lives of tens of thousands of Iraq civilians. However it is the leader of the free world, the US, that jails the highest percentage of its own citizens.
In the UK there may be a different approach. Tony Blair’s winning ticket was ‘education, education, education’. Yet the number of black prisoners in Britain's jails has risen by 54% from 7,585 to 11,710 since Labour came to power. One in every 100 black British adults is now in prison, according to Home Office figures (March 2003). A recent crackdown on guns, drugs and street crime has led to an explosion in the number of prisoners from an Afro-Caribbean background, who now account for one in six of all inmates. The statistics are somewhat disproportionate as the general population, is comprised of 2% African and Caribbean but 16% of all prisoners in the UK are black. To be fair, Britain does not claim to be the land of the free. It was Britain that started the transatlantic human traffic.
Corrections Corporations
Tony Blair, prior to taking office, was against private money being used to run prisons. However Blairism has been characterized by hypocrisy. That is, particularly with regards to foundation hospitals and public private partnerships for transport. His recent pattern suggests, he seems to adopt whatever the US has on offer. The UK now has the highest number of private prisons of any European country. Perhaps Blair has been impressed with the American model. Frequent escapes, killings, beatings, sexual abuse (both men and women), suicides and the mistreatment of employees have become the hallmarks of the private prisons in the US. This was also the case whilst public sector control, but the problem has become more acute when prisons are run for profit. Although the proponents of private prisons claim that private enterprise would improve conditions, ease over-crowding, and attract significant savings to the taxpayer. In the US the prison ‘industry’ is euphemistically referred to as ‘corrections’. It is a 50 billion dollar industry, bigger than baseball or pornography. Two companies dominate the business. In the early 1980’s, Nashville-based Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) was set up by a group of entrepreneurs using money from Kentucky Fried Chicken. The other is Wackenhut Corrections founded by an ex-FBI officer. Both companies are big favourites with investors on Wall Street. Recently CCA was one of the top five companies on the NY stock exchange.
These companies claim to be contributing to the good of the community by breathing life into the flagging rural economy. Most prisoners come from big cities but they serve their sentences in the countryside, where ‘corrections’ has become a lucrative business. Unemployment black spots that once relied on farming or heavy industry have welcomed the building of prisons in theirs mists, and the jobs that go with them. The idea of Black men from Washington DC and Detroit being incarcerated and stripped of their humanity in the rural South bares a cruel irony in this cycle of history. One prison, the Rivers Correctional Facility in North Carolina, was built on the same field that used to be a cotton plantation. So, these men idle around in an exercise-yard where their forefathers may have picked cotton.
Three strikes and you're out
The notorious ‘Three strikes and you’re out’ ruling, along with several other measures has been responsible for the phenomenal growth in the prison population. Under this law, first passed in by the state of California, anyone convicted of a third offence gets a sentence of at least 25 years. Many of these tough on crime policies were sponsored by a think tank, American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). Out of the headlines, and behind the scenes ALEC lobbies politicians to change the face of the US crime and punishment system. ALEC’s agenda includes, challenging government restrictions on corporate pollution, and limiting government regulations of commerce, privatising public services, representing the interests of the corporations that make up its supporters (including the private prison companies) and increasing prison sentences. Many right-wing foundations and organizations support ALEC, including but not limited to: National Rifle Association, Family Research Council, and the Olin Foundation. In addition ALEC has over three hundred corporate sponsors: Enron, American Nuclear Energy Council, American Petroleum Institute, Amoco, Chevron, Coors Brewing Company, Shell, Texaco, Union Pacific Railroad, Pharmaceutical Research & Manufacturers of America, Phillip Morris, R.J. Reynolds Tobacco, and others.
Prison works
Today the prison population in the US stands at over two million. The majority of these prisoners are not mass murderers or drug barons. They are petty criminals convicted of non-violent crimes. The basic arguments for locking up more people are simple. The more people in prison the larger the profits for the corrections corporations. Prisoners can be used to repair roads, patch potholes, wash clothes and even give advice in call centres. They can perform tasks at a cheaper cost to the taxpayer. Plus the prisoners will increase their self-esteem, put something back into society, and learn skills - like breaking up big rocks into smaller ones with a hammer. They may appreciate the usefulness of these skills when they leave prison in thirty years time, at the age of 50. The gleaming shiny new private sector prisons are clean and high tech. They rely on CCTV, intercoms and electronic door locks rather than human personnel, thus reducing costs. However the clean cut image masks many problems. Stabbings and other acts of violence involving prisoners and correction officers are substantially higher than in the public sector. Fatalities are now becoming routine. A string of homicides and other disasters has forced an FBI investigation into Wakenhut’s facilities. In Texas the company was fined $600,000 when dozens of guards were indicted for sexual abuse of inmates. At another of the company’s facilities in Louisiana, a judge said teenage inmates had been treated no better than animals.
Conclusions
The US government ignores public opinion and continues to lock up non-violent offenders, at record rates. September 11 2001 provided an excuse to go after immigrants, as well as urban Blacks. After September 11, it has become clear that the Federal government intended to escalate the war on immigrants, using the pretext of the "war on terrorism" to go after Mexican farm workers and Filipino housekeepers. This is beside the treatment of Muslims and Arabs in the US.
The mouth pieces of the US like Fox news and CNN have spent much time reporting on the numbers of prisons and files of detainees in Iraq, under Saddam. The Baathist regime was brutal and the Muslims should never forget this. However the US’s track record is not much better. The US’s attitude to prisoners has come into sharp focus in the eyes of the world. The detention of under-16-year olds in Camp X-Ray and the general treatment of prisoners in Guantanimo Bay have not gone unnoticed. Neither has the US torture camps in Bagram Afghanistan. The US had already declared itself the global cop years ago. It now wants to take on the role of global prison warden. If we want an indication of what is to be its modus operandi in this context we need look no further than Wakenhut and CCA.
Salim Fredericks
Khilafah.com Journal
14 Rabee Al-Awwal 1424 Hijri
15 May 2003
link:
Khilafah (http://www.khilafah.com)