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It is strongly recommended that you include your outline in the body of your essay by using the outline as section titles. The headings below are there to remind you how section and subsection titles are formatted.
*Selling People for Profit:
The Rise of the Prison Industrial Complex*Underlined text
-- By OkontaP - 19 Feb 2016
The Limits of Luxury
With a population of about twenty thousand, Rikers is described as the third largest island in the state of New York. Lawyerland, by Lawrence Joseph, exposed an array of problems and injustices that plague our legal system. The primary character, Robinson, jests about the bakery on the island, and the free psychotherapy, but the narrative becomes more insidious as he describes the violence and drug trade that pervade the island. The island that serves as the third largest in the state of New York. The Island that hordes one of the largest correctional populations in the United States and the world.
The amenities don’t describe luxury, rather they may speak to more insidious and unjust circumstances: the proliferation of prisons to drive industry and profits. Rikers may be run by the City of New York, but it’s yearly budget nearly 1 billion dollars, and alludes to the violent stream of money that maintains the United States’ problem with mass incarceration and the exchange of bodies for bondage. This problem has been maintained and exacerbated, by private prisons.
The Explosion of US Prison Population
In order to fully realize the tremendous implications for-profit prisons, it is first important to develop an understanding of the explosion of the United States prison population. Profits are maintained and injustice is perpetuated with the exponential modern increase of the prison population. The modern dramatic increase in the prison population began in the late 1970s and early 1980s. This trend continued throughout the 1990s and into modern day. Up until 1970s in the US about 110 prison inmates for every 100,000 people, however in the 1990s that number rose to 445 per 100,000, and the rise continues to this day.
One of the most troubling factors is that this increase does not coincide with a substantial rise in the amount of violent crimes. In 1980, the number of individuals incarcerated was just over 300 thousand, by 1995, that number more than tripled, and by 2013, the most recent information provided on incarceration numbers, that number hit nearly 1.6 million. As far as crime statistics go, although there was a rise in the total amount of violent crime from the 1980s into the earl 1990s, as recently as 2012, crime has dropped to one of the lowest rates the country has seen since the 1970s. . An articl on the prison industry by the Atlantic sums up the disparity well in stating that, “since 1991 the rate of violent crime in the United States has fallen by about 20 percent, while the number of people in prison or jail has risen by 50 percent.” Many academics tasked with providing congressional policy analysis attribute the spike in incarceration with “tough on crime” Congressional reforms that too discretion out of the hands of judges and increased enforcement by federal officials.
The Rise of The Prison Industrial Complex
Robinson describes the penal system as “supply and demand.” With the immense growth of the prison population, federal and state agencies the bodies and costs were not maintainable, and the running of prisons were outsourced to private corporations. The ALCU claims that, “the crippling cost of imprisoning increasing numbers of Americans saddle[d] government budgets with rising debt and exacerbate[d] the current fiscal crises confronting states across the nation.” The private prison industry gained from the lacking of governments to maintain the population they created. As incarceration rates rocketed, the private prison industry expanded, holding a record amount of people in prisons and jails and profiting from their captivity.
What is particularly striking however, that even with the decrease in crime and slow progression away from the draconian minimum sentencing guidelines, the prison population has been maintained and has even increased. As explained by the ACLU, “Leading private prison companies essentially admit that their business model depends on high rates of incarceration.” As bodies behind bars became a means of profit, the prison industrial complex was formed, profits dominated the criminal justice system rather than punishment and rehabilitation.
The Prison Industrial Complex, is a mean political and social machine, fueled by green, the finger slicing green of crisp money. The Prison Industrial Complex is an interest group of sorts, that supports tough policing and surveillance, and imprisonment as an ends, rather than a temporary means. This industry use their immense wealth and clout to not only lobby the government creating an immense profit which yields political power and influence. The problem and influence is pervasive. According to a study conducted by the Washington Post, “Private prison contracts often require the government to keep the correctional facilities and immigration detention centers full, forcing communities to continuously funnel people into the prison system, even if actual crime rates are falling. Nearly two-thirds of private prison contracts mandate that state and local governments maintain a certain occupancy rate – usually 90 percent – or require taxpayers to pay for empty beds.” The private industry capitalizes from an individual’s misfortune, guiding the nation's criminal-justice policy behind closed doors. Corporations, facility constructors, and politicians (both liberal and conservative. All collude to pray on the fear of taxpayers and to profit on the imprisonment on minorities and the poor. A lucrative market perpetuating oppression to the most vulnerable of citizens.
Duty Calls
As lawyers, as future lawyers, as activist, and merely as people, each and everyone of us should be outraged. Proliferation of private prisons creates immense political influence and corrupts power and remains one of the most important issue criminal justice issues that no one’s talking about. Robinson thinks that everyone should be aware of the injustices of the system, and that awareness is just the start of our duty to correct it. Reformation of our criminal justice system from the inside out, demands society to deny using prisons as a capitalistic tool, which creates immense power and wealth for few, and destroys the life of the many.
Citations
- Joseph, Lawrence. Lawyerland. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1997. Print. Robinson’s Metamorphosis.
- Schwirtz, Michael, and Michael Winerip. "Rikers Jail Costs Soared Despite Fewer Inmates, Comptroller Finds." The New York Times. The New York Times, 16 Oct. 2014. Web. 19 Feb. 2016.
- Schlosser, Eric.1998. “The Prison Industrial Complex”. Atlantic Monthly, December, pp. 51-77
- "Estimated Number of Persons under Correctional Supervision in the U.S., 1980-2013." Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS). National Prisoner Statistics (NPS) Program, 20 Aug. 2015. Web. 19 Feb. 2016. Number includes total incarcerated in state and federal prisons and not jails
- "Estimated Violent Crime Total." Uniform Crime Reporting Statistics. FBI, Uniform Crime Reports, Prepared by the National Archive of Criminal Justice Data, 2012. Web. 19 Feb. 2016. National or state offense totals are based on data from all reporting agencies and estimates for unreported areas.
- Schlosser, Eric.1998. “The Prison Industrial Complex”. Atlantic Monthly, December, pp. 51-77
- Flatow, Nicole. "Federal Prison Population Spiked 790 Percent Since 1980." ThinkProgress? RSS. Center for American Progress Action Fund, 07 Feb. 2013. Web. 19 Feb. 2016.
- Joseph, Lawrence. Lawyerland. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1997. Print. Robinson’s Metamorphosis.
- Shapiro, David. "Banking on Bondage: Private Prisons and Mass Incarceration." American Civil Liberties Union. 2 Nov. 2011. Web. 19 Feb. 2016.
- Shapiro, David. "Banking on Bondage: Private Prisons and Mass Incarceration." American Civil Liberties Union. 2 Nov. 2011. Web. 19 Feb. 2016.
- Herzing, Rachel. "Defending Justice - What Is The Prison Industrial Complex?" Defending Justice – What is the Prison Industrial Complex? Political Research Associates, 2005. Web. 19 Feb. 2016.
- Cohen, Michael. "How For-profit Prisons Have Become the Biggest Lobby No One Is Talking about." Washington Post. The Washington Post, 18 Apr. 2015. Web. 19 Feb. 2016.
- Schlosser, Eric.1998. “The Prison Industrial Complex”. Atlantic Monthly, December, pp. 51-7
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