Columnist Jamala Rogers
The U.S. prison-industrial complex weighs heavy on my heart for a number of reasons.
We were informed a couple of years ago that this country’s system had hit the 2 million mark, bringing the total number of people imprisoned, on probation or paroled to 7 million.
Then last week the Pew Center released a report entitled “One in 100: Behind Bars in America 2008.” It came as no surprise that the U.S. is now the prison capital of the world. One out of every 100 citizens in this country is behind somebody’s bars. That’s more than China, which has about a billion and a half people compared to our population of 230 million.
Also not surprising is who has been disproportionately affected by this racist social policy. One out of nine black males between the ages of 20-34 is incarcerated, compared to their white counterparts with one in 30. Because of racism, black men often received longer and harsher sentences. Some are even innocent of the crimes that landed them in the hell hole.
The Pew Center also pointed out the prison system sucked in $50 billion last year, and the costs are rising dramatically. The prison-industrial complex became a big money-maker back in the 1990s, in large part due to draconian legislation and social policies under then-Prez Bill Clinton, such as mandatory sentencing.
The report compares the amounts states are spending on higher education and prisons. It is truly disgusting. Missouri has a prison population of about 30,000. The state spends $585 million on prisons and $880 million on higher education.
A 2004 report by the Urban Institute (UI) on prison expansion documented that 40 percent of state prisons were built in the last 20 years. It also cited the Show-Me state with a whopping 271 percent increase in construction, jumping from seven prisons to 26 in just a few short years. Most of these are in rural counties who have greatly benefited politically and economically from these public ventures.
Prison construction skyrocketed in spite of decreasing violent crime rates and that fact that most convictions were for non-violent crimes. Even po-dunk Missouri ended up in the top 10 states for the number of so-called corrections facilities it built in a short amount of time.
The prison boom set the perfect stage for fostering the wide-scale corruption by prison employees, elected officials and other slime bags with their hands stuck out. Case in point was the Florida penal system which took a former Army colonel to go in and clean up the vice. Tax-funded sex orgies, kick backs to top prison officials and others, prison drug sales by guards, female guards being raped by fellow guards were the mild stuff.
UI wondered why the prison growth issue never received the “analysis and public scrutiny” it deserved given its huge impact on the nation’s psyche and our pocketbooks. My answer has always been that the “lock me up” theory satisfied both ambitious politicians and fearful constituents. Politicians bought the bacon home with jobs and contracts for their districts. Voters felt safe because they believed the problem people were out of their neighborhoods. It was all good. Until now.
Change is being forced in the prison policy, not because of some eye-opening insights or humane compassion. It is still about the money. State coffers are dwindling because of a failing national economy, and states no longer have the resources to fund this mammoth system. States will start to grant early releases to prisoners – prisoners who have been tortured, drugged and dehumanized while in captivity.
Continuing scare tactics and criminalizing black people are options that may have finally run their course. We must seriously prepare to receive the tens of thousands coming back into our community and help them to become productive and healthy citizens – or at least help them to pick up the pieces of their lives shattered by a brutal warehousing complex disguised as a correction system.