Postmodern Plantation
06.03.07 - by:
prisons thus perform a feat of magic … But prisons do not disappear problems, they disappear human beings. And the practice of disappearing vast numbers of people from poor, immigrant, and racially marginalized communities has literally become big business.
-- Angela Davis
“Reflections on the Prison Industrial Complex”
Braving rush hour traffic and an overly friendly homeless man on the sidewalk, I finally arrived at the small storefront in South Los Angeles. Critical Resistance, a grassroots organization committed to abolishing the prison industrial complex (PIC), was in the midst of their No New Jails meeting. I tiptoed into the room, feeling like a narc in my Ann Taylor outfit and Coach bag. The issue being debated by this motley gathering of black, white and Latino activists was AB900, a $7.8 billion reform plan Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger recently signed into law. The program would create 53,000 new beds in state prisons and county jails, and some 8,000 inmates would be shipped to private facilities out of state.
Prior to attending the No New Jails meeting, I compiled my own Dummies Guide to the Prison Industrial Complex. I had a few cousins behind bars, but my knowledge of the penal system was embarrassingly limited to ‘hood movies and rhetoric spouted by radical intellectuals at open mics. I had to remove my Valley Girl blinders. I needed to understand why the PIC was branded by many as a postmodern plantation, and why minorities are viewed as its cash crop.
The prison industrial complex is a group of organizations that act as subcontractors for prisons, such as construction companies, prison guard unions and surveillance technology vendors. According to The Sentencing Project, the ‘80s ushered in a new era of prison privatization. The War on Drugs and tough sentencing laws, like mandatory minimums and “Three Strikes,” saw prison growth skyrocket, making it difficult to maintain on the local, state and federal levels. In response to this overcrowding, private investors hopped on the expansion bandwagon with a fervor that would make Starbucks proud. Private-sector involvement moved from food prep and inmate transportation to contracts for the management and operation of entire prisons.
Opponents of the PIC argue that it criminalizes poor and minority communities and emphasizes profits over rehabilitation. They feel that blacks and Latinos are overly policed to comply with tough-on-crime legislation, therefore providing “raw material” for already bulging prisons. Once in the Big House, inmates become a source of cheap labor, doing data entry, garment and furniture manufacturing, contract packaging and telemarketing.
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