AMWS, November 24, 2012, Virtual -- America called this week…collect of course. From the right, friends, concerned about higher taxes--from the left, new revelations about enduring economic disparities—in the middle, equal opportunity—thank God for voice mail! Whether you are hanging from a fiscal cliff or hanging around for your day in court, chances are your action or apathy is feeding America’s Prison Industrial Complex and a mess of unaddressed economic security concerns. Averting the “fiscal cliff” is barely a conversation worth having when someone asks you to STOP THE PIPLINE TO PRISON.
Call it the PIC, call it the #pipeline, but bank on it! There is plenty of money to be made and many jobs to be created. Prison Industrial Complex (PIC) refers to the expansion of the US inmate population, the political influence of private prison companies, and businesses that supply goods and services to government prison agencies. It can be stopped, but not without editing history’s vision of your future.
The “race card,” which so many Americans reluctantly play, intrinsically links itself to the back end of an economically driven and politically charged system dating back to 1712.
Willie Lynch, a British slave owner in the West Indies, is said to have endowed Virginia slave owners with his vision of America’s future. “I shall assure you that DISTRUST IS STRONGER THAN TRUST AND ENVY STRONGER THAN ADULATION, RESPECT OR ADMIRATION. The Black slaves after receiving this indoctrination shall carry on and will become self-refueling and self-generating for HUNDREDS of years, maybe THOUSANDS,” he taught.
The term “lynching,” derived from Willie’s last name, characterizes outcomes of an enduring experiment. The effect of Lynch’s teachings can now be quantified by Census data and economic surveys. Empirical evidence reflects long-term economic effects, sustained by a nation’s failure to address disparities endured by 13% of the population.
In the past, black mothers cried, moaned and groaned as black fathers and sons set out on a quest for “The American Dream.” One in five discoverers today feed an interweaving of penal institutions, profit-driven companies, and politicians. They awaken to a reality that racism and poverty largely determines who is repressed.
Sisters no longer need a man. They’re doing it for and to themselves. In fact, recent studies support fears that black women provide the prison industry with a means to grow…even faster! We’re not just talking about making babies, raising them in depressed environments, and educating them for systematic failure. A “super exploitation” of black women might be measured by the significant influx of women prisoners in the 1980s and 1990s.
Almost every day since America’s 13 percent minority moved mountains to re-elect Barack Obama, some conservative strategist has scratched a balding head wondering what went wrong. The economy was the major issue. It should have been a no-brainer for Americans of means.
The Republican comeback, if there is such a thing, calls for a new look at an old problem. With all the political machinery working full steam, the president shut down his opposition with a simple value. That value, printed on the U.S. dollar bill since 1956, promotes a common value and congressionally sanctioned motto.
Invoked by the nation’s called, anointed, and duly elected leader, the value “In God We Trust” brings into being the full faith and confidence of “One Nation Under God.” President Dwight D. Eisenhower added value to vision on July 30, 1956 by signing Public Law 84-851. The 34th President of the United States warned of a “Military Industrial Complex” from which today’s PIC is said to have evolved.
In reality, every citizen who made the economy a campaign issue also helped to perpetuate the prison pipeline as a tool for governing. Having presented the case in an environment where “All things are possible,” why is it that African Americans are disproportionately represented in America’s prisons? What really defines the problem? And who exactly benefits from sustaining it?
Let’s face it, placing people behind bars means more jobs. The promotion of prison building as a job creator and the use of inmate labor are also cited as elements of the prison-industrial complex. You say you want to STOP THE PIPLINE. Perhaps you should petition The White House….or pray.
The prison pipeline can very well define a network of actors motivated by getting paid. When the prison population grows, a rising rate of incarceration feeds small and large businesses such as providers of furniture, transportation, food, clothes and medical services, construction and communication firms. Inmates and parolees provide both cheap labor and workforce opportunities for corporations that contract prison labor, construction companies, surveillance technology vendors, lawyers, and lobby groups that represent them.
A veteran of the U.S. Armed Forces can find work as a prison guard, a case worker, or even a probation officer. A college-educated officer can run the prison, defend the accused as an attorney or argue for the state in a court of law. A social worker can find all kinds of reasons or resources to recommend solutions within a mechanism designed for rehabilitation that exists as a means of repression.
Just five years ago, the United States jailed more than 2 million people and spent an estimated $37 billion to maintain its prisons. In 2012, the United States prison population grew to 2.3 million, meaning 1 in every 100 American adults are in a prison at a cost of $74 billion per year. If in fact, the desire for monetary gain impacts the growth of the prison industry, then to STOP THE PIPLINE, would require a shift in values and behavior, and perhaps even a redistribution of wealth.
Prisons all over the nation are overcrowded, and people are being incarcerated at an increasing rate, whereas the new prisons cannot be built fast enough. To that end, one might ask, has the prison pipeline served as a quick fix to underlying social problems such as homelessness, unemployment, drug addiction, mental illness, and illiteracy? Or, has America missed an opportunity?
The motto, “In God We Trust,” models inclusive community reinvestment, collective work and responsibility, as well as cooperative economics. By now, we should know, “God blesses those who are poor and realize their need for him, for the Kingdom of Heaven is theirs.”
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