A Legacy of Supremacy: Prison, Power, and the Carceral Nation
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Rethinking the Rise of Carceral States Through the Lens of the Prisoners’ Rights Movement
We Are Not Slaves: Rethinking the Rise of Carceral States through the Lens of the Prisoners’ Rights Movement Robert T. Chase In November 1966 Fred Arispe Cruz sat naked in a darkened cell in the solitary confine- Downloaded from ment wing of the O. B. Ellis Unit in the Texas state prison system. Cruz was a frequent visitor to solitary, but this particular stay seemed to him truly unjust, as the cause was the guards’ discovery of a copy of the U.S. Constitution in his cell. Cruz had been a prisoner in Texas since 1961, when he arrived at the Harlem Prison Farm on thirty-five-year- and http://jah.oxfordjournals.org/ fifteen-year convictions for aggravated robbery. Within his first year as a prisoner within the Texas Department of Corrections, Cruz continued legal work on his appeal and be- came one of the earliest inmate pioneers to learn law and act as a jailhouse lawyer. Texas prisoners who acted as their own attorneys wrote appeals and writs of habeas corpus for court-ordered intervention, seeking relief from what they argued were unjust and illegal detentions.1 Among his fellow prisoners, Cruz was known as one of those “writ writers,” but among prison administrators he was simply called an “agitator.” He became an avid student of the by guest on November 20, 2016 law, mastering legal precedents, rules, and procedures, and his reputation among other in- mates, particularly among Chicano prisoners and black Muslim prisoners, became such that they sought him out for help on their appeals processes. As Cruz’s fame grew between 1962 and 1966, so did the animosity of his captors, who increasingly viewed him as a threat to the prison system’s otherwise-comprehensive control and power. -
Prison Abolition and Grounded Justice
Georgetown University Law Center Scholarship @ GEORGETOWN LAW 2015 Prison Abolition and Grounded Justice Allegra M. McLeod Georgetown University Law Center, [email protected] This paper can be downloaded free of charge from: https://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/facpub/1490 http://ssrn.com/abstract=2625217 62 UCLA L. Rev. 1156-1239 (2015) This open-access article is brought to you by the Georgetown Law Library. Posted with permission of the author. Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/facpub Part of the Criminal Law Commons, Criminal Procedure Commons, Criminology Commons, and the Social Control, Law, Crime, and Deviance Commons Prison Abolition and Grounded Justice Allegra M. McLeod EVIEW R ABSTRACT This Article introduces to legal scholarship the first sustained discussion of prison LA LAW LA LAW C abolition and what I will call a “prison abolitionist ethic.” Prisons and punitive policing U produce tremendous brutality, violence, racial stratification, ideological rigidity, despair, and waste. Meanwhile, incarceration and prison-backed policing neither redress nor repair the very sorts of harms they are supposed to address—interpersonal violence, addiction, mental illness, and sexual abuse, among others. Yet despite persistent and increasing recognition of the deep problems that attend U.S. incarceration and prison- backed policing, criminal law scholarship has largely failed to consider how the goals of criminal law—principally deterrence, incapacitation, rehabilitation, and retributive justice—might be pursued by means entirely apart from criminal law enforcement. Abandoning prison-backed punishment and punitive policing remains generally unfathomable. This Article argues that the general reluctance to engage seriously an abolitionist framework represents a failure of moral, legal, and political imagination. -
The Privatization of Immigration Detention: Towards a Global View a Global Detention Project Working Paper
The Privatization of Immigration Detention: Towards a Global View A Global Detention Project Working Paper By Michael Flynn and Cecilia Cannon September 2009 THE PRIVATIZATION OF IMMIGRATION DETENTION: TOWARDS A GLOBAL VIEW A Global Detention Project Working Paper By Michael Flynn and Cecilia Cannon∗ September 2009 Summary: The phrase “private prison” has become a term of opprobrium, and for good reason. There are numerous cases of mistreatment and mismanagement at such institutions. However, in the context of immigration detention, this caricature hides a complex phenomenon that is driven by a number of different factors and involves a diverse array of actors who provide a range of services. This working paper employs research undertaken by the Global Detention Project (GDP)—an inter-disciplinary research project based at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies—to help situate the phenomenon of the privatization of immigration detention within a global perspective. Part of the difficulty in assessing this phenomenon is that our understanding of it is based largely on experiences in English-speaking countries. This working paper endeavors to extend analysis of this phenomenon by demonstrating the broad geographical spread of privatized detention practices across the globe, assessing the differing considerations that arise when states decide to privatize, and comparing the experiences of a sample of lesser known cases. I. INTRODUCTION The phrase “private prison” often conjures images of rapacious corporations out to make a buck at the expense of prisoners. Abetted by neoliberal economic policies, private security companies are given a responsibility long considered a core function of the state—the appropriate treatment of people imprisoned because of their crimes. -
Hustle and Flow: Prison Privatization Fueling the Prison Industrial Complex
FULCHER FINAL (DO NOT DELETE) 6/10/2012 2:43 PM Hustle and Flow: Prison Privatization Fueling the Prison Industrial Complex Patrice A. Fulcher* ABSTRACT The Prison Industrial Complex (“PIC”) is a profiteering system fueled by the economic interests of private corporations, federal and state correctional institutions, and politicians. The PIC grew from ground fertilized by an increase in the U.S. prison population united with an economically depressed market, stretched budgets, and the ineffective allocation of government resources. The role of the federal, state, and local governments in the PIC has been to allocate resources. This is the first of a series of articles exploring issues surrounding the PIC, including (1) prison privatization, (2) outsourcing the labor of prisoners for profit, and (3) constitutional misinterpretations. The U.S. prison population increased in the 1980s, in part, because of harsh drug and sentencing laws and the racial profiling of Blacks. When faced with the problem of managing additional inmates, U.S. correctional institutions looked to the promise of private prison companies to house and control inmates at reduced costs. The result was the privatization of prisons, private companies handling the management of federal and state inmates. This Article addresses how the privatization of prisons helped to grow the PIC and the two ways in which governments’ expenditure of funds to private prison companies amount to an inefficient allocation of resources: (1) it creates an incentive to increase the prison population, which led to a monopoly and manipulation of the market by Correction Corporation of America (“CCA”) and The GEO Group, Inc. -
Private Prison Fact Sheet
Private Corrections Institute, Inc. QUICK FACTS ABOUT PRISON PRIVATIZATION The private prison industry has a sordid past, dating from the turn of the 20th century when inmates were handed over to private businesses under the “convict lease” system, primarily in the South. Abuses by private prison companies that used inmates for forced labor, including a high rate of prisoner deaths, led government agencies to abandon the concept of for-profit incarceration. The industry revived in the early 1980s due largely to tough-on-crime sentencing laws and the war on drugs, which resulted in an increase in the prison population. A number of companies were formed to capitalize on the developing market for housing inmates, including the industry leader, Corrections Corp. of America (CCA), the industry’s second-largest firm, GEO Group (previously known as Wackenhut Corrections), and Cornell Corrections, MTC, Civigenics and various other smaller companies. The industry expanded in the 1990s due to a crackdown on illegal immigration but has leveled off in more recent years. Today, approximately 8% of state and federal prisoners are held in privately-operated facilities, totaling over 126,000 inmates. Government agencies contract with private prison companies for several reasons, primarily anticipated cost savings and a need for additional bed space. However, there are a number of negative factors related to private prisons that should be considered, including the following: Staff Turnover Rate Staffing costs account for about 80% of operational expenses for prisons whether they are public or private. Thus, one of the main ways that private prison companies reduce costs to increase their profit margins is by cutting staffing expenses. -
State Slavery Sanctioned by the 13Th Amendment
State Slavery sanctioned by the 13th Amendment HISTORY OF PRISON LABOR IN THE UNITED STATES Prison labor has its roots in slavery. After the 1861-1865 Civil War, a system of “hiring out prisoners” was introduced in order to continue the slavery tradition. Freed slaves were charged with not carrying out their sharecropping commitments (cultivating someone else’s land in exchange for part of the harvest) or petty thievery – which were almost never proven –or vagrancy (leaving the plantation in search of better opportunities) and were then “hired out” for cotton picking, working in mines and building railroads. From 1870 until 1910 in the state of Georgia, 88% of hired-out convicts were Black. In Alabama, 93% of “hired-out” miners were Black. In Mississippi, a huge prison farm similar to the old slave plantations replaced the system of hiring out convicts. The notorious Parchman plantation existed until 1972. At least 37 states have legalized the contracting of prison labor by private corporations that mount their operations inside state prisons. The list of such companies contains the cream of U.S. corporate society: IBM, Boeing, Motorola, Microsoft, AT&T, Wireless, Texas Instrument, Dell, Compaq, Honeywell, Hewlett-Packard, Nortel, Lucent Technologies, 3Com, Intel, Northern Telecom, TWA, Nordstrom’s, Revlon, Macy’s, Pierre Cardin, Target Stores, and many more. All of these businesses are excited about the economic boom generation by prison labor. Just between 1980 and 1994, profits went up from $392 million to $1.31 billion. Inmates in state penitentiaries generally receive the minimum wage for their work, but not all; in Colorado, they get about $2 per hour, well under the minimum. -
Sept. 13, 2018, Vol. 60, No. 37
Trump bajo fuego 12 Workers and oppressed peoples of the world unite! workers.org Vol. 60, No. 37 Sept. 13, 2018 $1 Jailers lock down striking prisoners By Ted Kelly Philadelphia Chicago hotel workers strike for health Thousands of prisoners across Pennsylvania have been confined to their cells since Aug. 29. That’s when the state’s Department of Corrections Secretary John Wetzel declared an indefinite lockdown of all facilities under his jurisdiction. The lockdown, which began just days into the National Prison Strike (Aug. 21 to Sept. 9) is the most blatant in a series of repressive tactics that the state has resorted to in response to the strike. It was timed to preempt some major strike actions planned by prisoners. Attacks on right to legal counsel One week into the lockdown, Wetzel appeared alongside Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf, who announced a sweeping series of new policies that constitute an unprecedented crackdown on the rights of prisoners. Among the many petty and punitive policies, like banning prisoners from taking photos with their visitors, there are also new mea- sures that will systematically deny prisoners their right to privacy with legal counsel. All correspondence sent to prisoners is now to be trans- ported to a third-party facility in Florida, where it will be opened and photocopied before copies are sent to the re- spective prisons to be delivered to the intended recipients. Since prison officials are at least in theory not allowed to open any mail containing legal correspondence, except in the presence of its recipient, a farcical new method has ‘They work us like dogs when it’s busy been introduced to get around this protection. -
Overview of Prison Privatization in Arizona
Prison Privatization in Arizona A briefing paper prepared by the American Friends Service Committee, Arizona Area Program American Friends Service Committee, Arizona Area 103 N. Park Ave., Ste. 111 Tucson, AZ 85719 (520)623-9141 (520)623-5901 fax [email protected] October 2010 Introduction The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) is a Quaker organization that works for peace and justice worldwide. Our work is based on a commitment to nonviolence and the belief that all people have value and deserve to be treated with dignity and respect. The AFSC‟s programs promote social justice by focusing on a diverse set of social concerns. The organization‟s criminal justice work has always focused on the need for an effective and humane criminal justice system that emphasizes rehabilitation over punishment. Here in Arizona, our criminal justice program advocates for a reduction in the state‟s prison population through rational sentencing reform and a moratorium on new prison construction. A key focus of that effort is our work to educate the public on the risks inherent in prison privatization through for-profit prison corporations. This document is an attempt to paint a picture of the current efforts at privatization of prisons in the state of Arizona and raise questions about the potential pitfalls of this practice. Arizona Overview Arizona‟s experiment with for-profit incarceration began in the early 90‟s when the state faced the first of many prison overcrowding crises. Arizona‟s first privately operated prison was the Marana Community Correctional Treatment Facility, a minimum-security prison for people with substance abuse issues. -
Food in Prison: an Eighth Amendment Violation Or Permissible Punishment?
University of South Dakota USD RED Honors Thesis Theses, Dissertations, and Student Projects Spring 2020 Food In Prison: An Eighth Amendment Violation or Permissible Punishment? Natasha M. Clark University of South Dakota Follow this and additional works at: https://red.library.usd.edu/honors-thesis Part of the Courts Commons, Food and Drug Law Commons, Human Rights Law Commons, and the Legal Ethics and Professional Responsibility Commons Recommended Citation Clark, Natasha M., "Food In Prison: An Eighth Amendment Violation or Permissible Punishment?" (2020). Honors Thesis. 109. https://red.library.usd.edu/honors-thesis/109 This Honors Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses, Dissertations, and Student Projects at USD RED. It has been accepted for inclusion in Honors Thesis by an authorized administrator of USD RED. For more information, please contact [email protected]. FOOD IN PRISON: AN EIGHTH AMENDMENT VIOLATION OR PERMISSIBLE PUNISHMENT? By Natasha Clark A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment Of the Requirements for the University Honors Program Department of Criminal Justice The University of South Dakota Graduation May 2020 The members of the Honors Thesis Committee appointed to examine the thesis of Natasha Clark find it satisfactory and recommend that it be accepted. Professor Sandy McKeown Associate Professor of Criminal Justice Director of the Committee Professor Thomas Horton Professor & Heidepriem Trial Advocacy Fellow Dr. Thomas Mrozla Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice ii ABSTRACT FOOD IN PRISON: AN EIGHTH AMENDMENT VIOLATION OR PERMISSIBLE PUNISHMENT? Natasha Clark Director: Prof. Sandy McKeown, Associate Professor of Criminal Justice This piece analyzes aspects such as; Eighth Amendment provisions, penology, case law, privatization and monopoly, and food law, that play into the constitutionality of privatized prisons using food as punishment. -
Congressional-Executive Commission on China Annual Report 2019
CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA ANNUAL REPORT 2019 ONE HUNDRED SIXTEENTH CONGRESS FIRST SESSION NOVEMBER 18, 2019 Printed for the use of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China ( Available via the World Wide Web: https://www.cecc.gov VerDate Nov 24 2008 13:38 Nov 18, 2019 Jkt 036743 PO 00000 Frm 00001 Fmt 6011 Sfmt 5011 G:\ANNUAL REPORT\ANNUAL REPORT 2019\2019 AR GPO FILES\FRONTMATTER.TXT CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA ANNUAL REPORT 2019 ONE HUNDRED SIXTEENTH CONGRESS FIRST SESSION NOVEMBER 18, 2019 Printed for the use of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China ( Available via the World Wide Web: https://www.cecc.gov U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE 36–743 PDF WASHINGTON : 2019 VerDate Nov 24 2008 13:38 Nov 18, 2019 Jkt 036743 PO 00000 Frm 00003 Fmt 5011 Sfmt 5011 G:\ANNUAL REPORT\ANNUAL REPORT 2019\2019 AR GPO FILES\FRONTMATTER.TXT CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA LEGISLATIVE BRANCH COMMISSIONERS House Senate JAMES P. MCGOVERN, Massachusetts, MARCO RUBIO, Florida, Co-chair Chair JAMES LANKFORD, Oklahoma MARCY KAPTUR, Ohio TOM COTTON, Arkansas THOMAS SUOZZI, New York STEVE DAINES, Montana TOM MALINOWSKI, New Jersey TODD YOUNG, Indiana BEN MCADAMS, Utah DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California CHRISTOPHER SMITH, New Jersey JEFF MERKLEY, Oregon BRIAN MAST, Florida GARY PETERS, Michigan VICKY HARTZLER, Missouri ANGUS KING, Maine EXECUTIVE BRANCH COMMISSIONERS Department of State, To Be Appointed Department of Labor, To Be Appointed Department of Commerce, To Be Appointed At-Large, To Be Appointed At-Large, To Be Appointed JONATHAN STIVERS, Staff Director PETER MATTIS, Deputy Staff Director (II) VerDate Nov 24 2008 13:38 Nov 18, 2019 Jkt 036743 PO 00000 Frm 00004 Fmt 0486 Sfmt 0486 G:\ANNUAL REPORT\ANNUAL REPORT 2019\2019 AR GPO FILES\FRONTMATTER.TXT C O N T E N T S Page I. -
The Thirteenth Amendment: Modern Slavery, Capitalism, and Mass Incarceration Michele Goodwin University of California, Irvine
Cornell Law Review Volume 104 Article 4 Issue 4 May 2019 The Thirteenth Amendment: Modern Slavery, Capitalism, and Mass Incarceration Michele Goodwin University of California, Irvine Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarship.law.cornell.edu/clr Part of the Constitutional Law Commons Recommended Citation Michele Goodwin, The Thirteenth Amendment: Modern Slavery, Capitalism, and Mass Incarceration, 104 Cornell L. Rev. 899 (2019) Available at: https://scholarship.law.cornell.edu/clr/vol104/iss4/4 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at Scholarship@Cornell Law: A Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Cornell Law Review by an authorized editor of Scholarship@Cornell Law: A Digital Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. THE THIRTEENTH AMENDMENT: MODERN SLAVERY, CAPITALISM, AND MASS INCARCERATION Michele Goodwint INTRODUCTION ........................................ 900 I. A PRODIGIOUS CYCLE: PRESERVING THE PAST THROUGH THE PRESENT ................................... 909 II. PRESERVATION THROUGH TRANSFORMATION: POLICING, SLAVERY, AND EMANCIPATION........................ 922 A. Conditioned Abolition ....................... 923 B. The Punishment Clause: Slavery's Preservation Through Transformation..................... 928 C. Re-appropriation and Transformation of Black Labor Through Black Codes, Crop Liens, Lifetime Labor, Debt Peonage, and Jim Crow.. 933 1. Black Codes .......................... 935 2. Convict Leasing ........................ 941 -
Prison Strike Black and White.Pdf
WE ALL AGREE TO SPREAD THIS STRIKE THROUGHOUT THE PRISONS OF AMERI$$$A! FROM AUGUST 21ST TO SEPTEM- BER 9TH, 2018, MEN AND WOMEN IN PRISONS ACROSS THE NATION WILL STRIKE IN THE FOLLOWING MANNER: • WORK STRIKES: Prisoners will not report to assigned national jobs. Each place of detention will determine how long its strike will last. Some of these strikes may translate into a local list of demands designed to improve condi- tions and reduce harm within the prison. • SIT-INS: In certain prisons, men and women will en- gage in peaceful sit – in protests. • BOYCOTTS: All spending should be halted. We ask those outside the walls not to make financial judgments for those inside. Men and women on the in side will in- form you if they are participating in this boycott. • HUNGER STRIKES: Men and women shall refuse to eat. We support the call of Free Alabama Movement Campaign to “Redistribute the Pain” 2018 as Bennu Hannibal Ra – Sun, formerly known as Melvin Ray has laid out (with the exception of refusing visitation). See these principles described prison here: https://redistributethepain.wordpress.com/ HOW YOU CAN HELP Make the nation take a look at our demands. Demand action on our de- mands by contacting your local, state, and federal political representatives with these demands. Ask them where they stand. Spread the strike and word of the strike in every place of detention. Contact a supporting local organization to see how you can be supportive. If you are unsure of who to connect with, email [email protected] Be prepared by making contact with people in prison, family members of prisoners, and prisoner support organizations in your state to assist in strike notifying the public and media on strike conditions.