Maybe what is needed is a mental image to urge involvement. How about this: picture a convoy of trucks filled with hundred dollar bills traveling from Washington, DC along our highways to each state. Along the route stands an assortment of state employees holding vacuum cleaners, kitchen brooms, dustpans and push broom in their hands. All of these individuals represent necessary programs, trying to acquire the funds necessary for their continued operations. Along comes the Prison Industrial Complex. They shoulder their way through the crowd at the trough in Virginia and situate themselves along the highway outside of DC. Instead of a broom or Hoover in their hand, they hold an industrial model shop-vac and begin to suck up most of the federal money from each truck as it passes by. When the convoy leaves Virginia headed elsewhere, most of the money is gone. As it reaches each state, truck after truck contains only a few of the bills it originally held - those that somehow eluded the powerful pull of the PIC. Even there - at the end of the line - CCA, Geo Group and state prison administrators stand, taking their "share" of what little that made it to the states.
While states scramble to make do with the scraps they were able to come away with...the fat cats of the PIC sit at their desks counting the huge piles of federal tax dollars they've come away with. One turns to the other with a smile and asks,
"Do you think they'll ever catch on?"
"Naw," says the other, "and if they do? We'll talk to the lobbyists in DC to get 'our' lawmakers to change the route next time...and we'll take it all..."
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While the country suffers from the economy, struggling to make our personal and national budgets stretch to cover necessary expenses, others are figuring how to make the most of President Obama's stimulus funds.
Recently in Arizona and Alabama stimulus funds received by those states for things like education, instead found their way into prison. IN Arizona Governor Brewer accepted $200 million from the feds in stimulus funds. While cries went out for needed funding for such mundane things like organ transplants and other important needs, Brewer suggested those arguing for such funding contact the feds and ask for assistance. When asked how she had spent the $185 million she had already received in stimulus funds, Brewer responded it had all gone to important programs that were necessary for Arizona citizens.However some find not funding $1.2 million of that money for medical coverage for organ transplants both a no-brainer and unbelievable. Truth of the matter is this: Brewer spent $50 million of the available $185 million in funding Arizona prison operations - you know, the one with all the contracts with private prison corporation CCA? Yeah, that prison prison system. In an interview she was asked:
""How many people have to die before you are prepared to reverse your decision on the transplant operations?" seemed like the obvious question.
"She said she thought that was unfair and started to explain how dire the state's financial situation is. If people are so worried about the transplant patients then they should ask the federal government in Washington to send us more money, she said. But she would not explain to me, or to any Democrats in the state capitol, what she has done with the nearly $200 million she was already given in 'stimulus funds' to spend on anything she liked."
While giving the prisons nearly one third of the stimulus money, she announced the cuts to Medicaid and other state programs.
In actuality the $185 million was stimulus funds she had discretion to use as she saw fit. Brewer saw fit to "use" $78,245,494.00 of that money - nearly half - for "Public Safety" Here's the breakdown:
Public Safety $78,245,494.00
- Corrections $50,000,000
- Border Security Enhancement $10,000,000
- Public Safety Stabilization $10,000,000
- Supplemental P.S. Projects $6,545,494
- ADOA Public Safety Project $1,700,000
The largest single expenditure of all the discretionary funds available to her, went to Prison - $50,000,000.00. After the furor and media exposure about her connections to CCA, Geo Group and ALEC, it is not surprising she sent $50 million their way. I mean that's why they lobby isn't it...to get more government money?
How about something more incredulous? Alabama. Alabama also received $1.1 billion for stimulus funding for "education". Out of that money, $118,000,000.00 was given to the state Corrections Department. This amounted to 4 times what is spent on children's education for grades k through 12:
'The agency has received $118 million of $1.1 billion in stimulus funding doled out to the state by the U.S. Department of Education since 2009. The money covered health care costs for 26,000 inmates, and salaries and benefits for about 4,200 corrections officers and other employees for three and a half months, officials said.
'The spending was legal: Governors were allowed to give up to 18 percent of the funding to areas other than education, such as public safety.
Nonetheless, Alabama spent about $4,500 in education stimulus dollars per prisoner, about four times the amount per student in kindergarten through 12th grade.
'Also, while Alabama claims to have saved or created 5,825 jobs per quarter with stimulus funds for education, according to the U.S. Department of Education, 1,725 of those jobs apparently were nowhere near a classroom.
'If we could’ve had that $118 million,” Baldwin County schools Superintendent Alan Lee said of school systems in general, “we could’ve given the prisons less business.”
'Studies have shown that students who fail classes and drop out are more likely to go to prison than those who do well in school.
'Mobile County’s school system — the state’s largest — received the second-most stimulus money after prisons, at $77 million. That was an average of $1,233 for each of its approximately 62,000 students.'
In order to get these funds, the DOC used the same old and worn out rhetoric..."we'll have to release 40% of our prisoners if we don't get the money we want:"
"Steve Brown, associate commissioner over administration for the Department of Corrections, said the injection of federal stimulus dollars was vital to the 31 prison facilities across the state.
Without it, he said, his agency might have petitioned the Legislature for permission to release inmates, something that Brown said would not have been well-received. Or, the state would have had to skim money from all of its other departments, including education, to cover a corrections budget that has been ailing for years.
Prisons are overcrowded and the corrections department is staffed only at 80 percent of what it should be, he said.
“We’ve done ‘what if’ drills before. We would’ve had to release 40 percent of our inmates. That’s not a viable option,” Brown said.
Brown said that federal auditors examined the corrections department spending and gave their OK."
This kind of funding backed up by the argument that 'if you don't give us the money we need, we're going to be forced to turn violent criminals loose upon your community,' is nothing more than what the Republicants have been doing for two years with our country - holding us hostage to get money from us. In the political version it's our money for the rich via tax cuts. In the former, it's simply using fear to once more wring more money out of what little is available to the state.
Education is the primary victim of incarceration spending. That's a shame since education is what can bring down the rate of both incarceration and recidivism. It's not just to keep another person out of prison, education is what we depend upon to produce brilliant minds to advance our science, technology and society in the future.
This constant push to 'dumb us all down' by cutting education spending and increasing prison populations and corrections spending by that very action is crippling us as a society and a country. We all profess to want more for our children and grandchildren than we had as both a child and an adult. How can we do this when we're providing less education and more prison?
The battle cry of the corporate elite is "Make 'em fear...something." They use it to scare us into agreeing to do things that should not be done. Through this philosophy we have been bled and bled to the point all the blood's at the top of the pyramid. The only thing left that can bleed, are those who have acquired ours...and they take great care to not sustain any 'cuts' they don't make themselves.
When the federal government started dispensing stimulus funds to the states, many state politicians and Governors immediately issued statements declining the money - Alaska, Arizona, Texas, Louisiana, Idaho, S. Carolina, Alabama and Mississippi - said they would not accept federal stimulus dollars.
Under pressure and accusations of posturing and preening as a way of preparing for future political campaigns, many of those state's citizens and sensible lawmakers objected to each of the above state Governor's refusal of the stimulus funds. Luckily for those states, there was a provision to allow acceptance of federal stimulus money in the face of opposition or rejection by a state Governor:
"The bill contains a provision, added ironically by South Carolina’s own Democratic Rep. James Clyburn, in subsection 1607(b) that holds:
If funds provided to any State in any division of this Act are not accepted for use by the Governor, then acceptance by the State legislature, by means of the adoption of a concurrent resolution, shall be sufficient to provide funding to such State."
Most of the objecting Governors to the stimulus money were in fact posturing - and all were not surprisingly, Republicants. Eventually the states holding out against taking stimulus funds decided they could take "some of the money" and "reject the rest".
Knowing that the bulk of these federal funds were for bolstering and funding projects and programs such as; welfare, unemployment, education and state highway maintenance, it was inconceivable to me that there were any objections in the first place.
Which brings us to the present. The states accepted the stimulus money - in huge chunks - and once in their hands, many of our Governor's were allowed to designate a small percentage of those funds to go to programs other than those earmarked by the feds. These funds were used as "discretionary spending". Each Governor had millions available to them for such discretionary spending. Alabama and Arizona chose to spend the largest portion of those funds on prison spending. In Alabama's case 4 times the amount spent on education went to funding inmate "healthcare" (if you believe that I've got a bridge in San Francisco I'll sell ya' cheap) and payroll for 4,200 correctional staff. Hmmmm could the private prison industry be involved in anyway in Alabama? Would any of that $118 million wind up in privatized prison profits?
Unfortunately the answer is yes. LCS Corrections Inc. operates one facility in Perry County. Earlier this year Alabama removed 250 state prison inmates from that facility after a double escape. However, LCS and Alabama's Prison Commissioner both stated the removal of inmates was due to money being in short supply. In support of that statement an LCS representative said:
"An executive at LCS Corrections Inc., which runs the prison, said he knew of the state's plan. But he said the company was told the state could place twice as many inmates at the private prison next year if lawmakers approve funding."
With the $118 million infusion from federal education stimulus funds, will this actually happen? Not as LCS expected anyway:
"(08/13/2010)
"MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Lawmakers are pressing a proposal to purchase a 726-bed private prison in Perry County to relieve dangerous levels of overcrowding in the state prison system.
"The Alabama State Legislature is considering a bill that would authorize a $60 million bond issue to finance the purchase and upgrade of the Perry County Correctional Center in Uniontown.
"At the end of 2009, the state prison system housed almost 32,000 inmates in facilities with a total combined capacity of about 13,400 beds, according to official figures.
"The Alabama Department of Corrections, which is in the midst of a severe overcrowding crisis and operating under the looming specter of federal intervention, already houses about 400 inmates at the PCCC. Total capacity at the 120,000-square-foot facility, which occupies a 35-acre site 80 miles west of Montgomery, could be expanded to 1,500 beds, officials say."
For the two states - Alabama and Arizona - a combined $168 million dollars was spent on corrections that involve the Prison Industrial Complex PIC. Private prison corporations are going to get a lot of those funds originally given to the states for immediate and necessary programs such as medical healthcare and education programs...Cha-Ching!
How about Washington State? They have fought a long and hard battle to close one of their prisons due to a budget deficit facing the state's corrections department. The McNeil Island Corrections Center is slated to close in April 2011. One would think this is a positive step to reducing the costs of corrections, right? Wrong.
Just yesterday I read an unbelievable claim in the Seattle news. Washington is now proposing to build a new prison to replace McNeil Island facility! The article doesn't provide information advising whether or not this new prison project is a result of federal stimulus funds or based upon just plain ignorance:
"TUMWATER, Wash. - Next year the state could close one prison and start the process to build a new one.
Due to budget cuts, the state has proposed closing McNeil Island Corrections Center next April.
Next month the Department of Corrections is accepting bids from communities willing to house the new 1,000-bed facility.
The project was approved under the state's capital budget and is paid for by bonds. The money generated by the bonds cannot be used for the state's general fund, said a spokesperson of Gov. Chris Gregoire.
A DOC spokesperson the new prison would reduce the cost of caring for the state's offenders by more than $12,000.
The small Grays Harbor County community of McCleary wants the prison. The city's engineer said the 600 new jobs would be a huge economic boost.
"You can't win the lottery if you don't buy a ticket," said Director of Public Works, Nick Bird."
I just love that quote from the Director of Public Works..."You can't win the lottery if you don't buy a ticket." I believe this sums up how most states, prison corporations,Republicants and the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) perceive the PIC - a grand lottery - with the winners receiving more and more of our money in tax dollars.
Buying those "tickets" in WA. state are the prison industries. A huge amount of products are being made by the prisoners in Washington's reformatories and prisons. Corporations like Boeing use inmate labor to make everything possible...including parts for the airplane you may travel in next time. From the article titled: "Did You Know... A Prisoner Could Have Made The Product You're Using (Even Your Airplane)?" we find this:
"We have been investigating a potential case where a simple, but critical, product failed and catastrophically injured our client. Our investigation discovered that the product was made by prisoners as essentially slave labor. I was curious as to what other products might be made by prisoners... it's not just license plates and it's far more than you think!
In 1997, there were more than 90,000 state and federal prisoners working in a wide range of public and private enterprises while serving time in prison. Private businesses had contracted with 25 states to set up factories and businesses inside prison walls to take advantage of state-supplied facilities and ultra-low-wage, non-union workers. Even aircraft maker, Boeing, contracted with the Washington State Reformatory (WSR) in Monroe, Washington. Boeing set up a wholly owned "front" company called "MicroJet" that employed prison labor to make aircraft components. MicroJet listed its business address as 16700 177 Ave. SE -- the same address as the prison. Boeing paid prisoners minimum wage up to $7/hour -- significantly cheaper than the machinists at Boeing's Everett plant who earned up to $30 an hour for the same work.
The Washington State Reformatory also contracted with a garment maker supplying clothes for Eddie Bauer, Kelly Hanson, Planet Hollywood, Union Bay and other brands; a metals manufacturing company; a window blinds manufacturer and a telemarketing group.
Maybe WA. just doesn't have enough skilled workers and the new facility will hold those offenders with higher education or skills needed by Boeing, Microsoft or others using inmate labor. Any of my readers live and used to work in WA. who have the same skills needed by these manufacturers? Maybe that's why your job disappeared.
While this goes on in WA., AL. and AZ., other states are attempting to stem the incarceration tide by addressing prison, corrections and concentrating on reducing prison and jail populations. Governor Daniels here in Indianaand incoming Governor Snyder in Michiganare both taking bold and deliberate steps toward judicial and criminal reforms.
Indiana is fed up with locking up more and more citizens for lesser and lesser, non violent offenses. It is simply fiscally irresponsible.
"INDIANAPOLIS (December 15, 2010) - Governor Mitch Daniels today endorsed recommendations from the first comprehensive review of Indiana's criminal code and sentencing policies in more than 30 years and said the state will improve public safety and security for Hoosiers by concentrating Department of Correction resources on the state's most violent criminals and by taking a new and smarter approach to those who commit lesser offenses.
"Every significant aspect of law enforcement and criminal justice has been brought together in this project," said Daniels. "We have hoped for a package of changes that will bring more certain and firm punishments to the worst offenders in Indiana, more sensible, smarter incarceration for those who pose much less of a danger to Hoosiers and, as a byproduct of that, grace to taxpayers in the form of lower costs in the years ahead. I am thrilled to say that this group has brought about such a product and I am happy to pass it on to the General Assembly with my strongest endorsement."
Unfortunately private prisons are also here (Geo Group) in New Castle,Indiana and they had to be appeased at the same time Indiana is expecting to cut back severely on incarceration. This was in the same article quoted from above:
"In addition, the governor announced the state has reached an agreement with The GEO Group, Inc. to build a 512-bed high security annex to the New Castle Correctional Facility. GEO will finance and operate the facility for maximum security prisoners contiguous to the existing prison."
Even in the face of needed and promised reform, the PIC continues to demand "their due" from Indiana. If we're supposed to be excited about reducing incarceration - how can we support the building of more private facilities to house more state prisons? I believe it's because of lobbying (more on that below). Indiana went purple in 2008 but it is still a conservative Republican stronghold. Thus the reason for more money to Geo Group.
I'm sure many other states are just as eager to decrease incarceration and support judicial reform, but at the same time others are content to divert stimulus funding away from needed social programs to fund more incarceration. We can all see the trend and patterns involved in all of this: Conservative Republicants continue to direct our tax dollars at the private prison corporations that pump contributions into their campaign accounts.
If you have any doubt about the above statement or claim, let's take a brief look at the face of some of the incoming Congressional members that will take their oaths and office in January. Even in the face of loud objections to the inclusion of "lobbyists" as members of our federal government staffers, the incoming Republicant senators and congressmen have again chosen from a long list of lobbyists when considering choices for their Chiefs-of-Staff:
– Rep.-elect Marlin Stutzman (R-IN) selected lobbyist Tim Harris as his chief of staff. Harris works as lobbyist for a trade association representing the shareholders of energy companies like American Electric Power, Duke Energy, NiSource, Vectren.
– Rep.-elect Mike Pompeo (R-KS) selected Mark Chenowerth as his chief of staff. Chenowerth previously worked as a lawyer on the lobbying team for Koch Industries, the conglomerate owned by Charles and David Koch. As ThinkProgress reportedearly this year, Pompeo was groomed for office by Koch Industries-run front groups, and has served as an executive for Koch Industries oil company subsidiaries.
– Rep.-elect Robert Dold (R-IL) selected corporate lobbyist Eric Burgeson as his chief of staff. Burgeson works for the lobbying firm BGR Holdings serving business clients in China, the coal industry, and a nuclear company.
– Rep.-elect Chip Cravaack (R-MN) selected corporate lobbyist Rod Grams as his chief of staff. Grams works for a lobbying firm called Hecht, Spencer, and Associates where he represents 3M, Norfolk Southern and the Financial Services Roundtable, the trade association for the country’s largest banks.
– Rep.-elect Krisi Noem (R-SD) selected Jordon Stoick as her chief of staff. Stoick is a vice president at the lobbying firm Direct Impact. Direct Impact also specializes in building public support for corporate causes, boasting on its website that it once generated hundreds of letters to the FCC on behalf of the telecom industry.
– Rep.-elect Jeff Denham (R-CA) selected corporate lobbyist Jason Larrabee as his chief of staff. Larrabee is the founder of his own lobbying firm.
– Sen.-elect Pat Toomey (R-PA) selected former corporate lobbyist Chris Gahan as his chief of staff. Gaham previously worked at the lobbying firm Latham and Watkins.
– Rep.-elect Steve Pearce (R-AZ) selected Todd Willens as his chief of staff. Willens is a lobbyist at Vitello Consulting, a firm that represents a number of interests, including a casino.
– Sen.-elect Charlie Bass (R-NH) selected lobbyist John Billings as his chief of staff. Billings is a lobbyist for a food marketing and whole sale trade association.
– Rep.-elect Chris Gibson (R-NY) selected Steve Stallmer as his chief of staff. Stallmer is a lobbyist for the Associated General Contractors of New York State.
– Sen.-elect Ron Johnson (R-WI) selected Don Kent as his chief of staff. Kent is a lobbyist for the firm Navigators Global. Navigators Global represents AT&T, CitiGroup, and other major corporations.
– Sen.-elect Mike Lee (R-UT) selected lobbyist Spencer Strokes as his chief of staff. Lee is one of the most prominent corporate lobbyists in Utah, representing clients from the private prison industry to the nuclear industry.
– Sen.-elect Rand Paul (R-KY) selected anti-union lobbyist Douglas Stafford for his chief of staff. Stafford is the vice president of the National Right to Work Committee.
As the foregoing shows us, the incoming GOP members of Congress are coming to Washington with an arsenal of more lobbyists. As if that's what's needed in DC, right? Familiar corporate names I've addressed in detail in both my Corporatocracy and earlier segments of this Insourcing series' are sprinkled among the names of the lobbyists provided above: Koch Industries, AT&T, CitiGroup, 3M and Vectren. Most of these corporations support, fund or donate to ALEC. CCA, Geo Group and a hundred or more other corporations also are connected to ALEC. Many sit upon ALEC's Private Enterprises Board and have seats on ALEC's nine (9)"Task Forces" where they propose new state laws beneficial to their corporate membership through "Model Legislation". More recently ALEC has taken their conservative "values" overseas to Australia, Germany, UK, New Zealand and of all places, China.
The above corporations, lawmakers, lobbyists and ALEC have done so well here in the U.S. they're now exporting their prison privatization efforts across both ponds in search of more influence and profits.
We simply have to use one word to describe what needs to be done in regard to prison, prison industries and prison privatization and increased incarceration - "STOP"!
We have got to understand that following along this same path will soon result in every state in the U.S. winding up in the same financial situation California is now experiencing. They are hovering on the verge of state bankruptcy with a huge mult-billion dollar deficit. A major cause of the state's budget woes is incarceration. They have the largest prison population - so large they're now considering transferring many inmates out of state to serve their time in more private prisons fun by Geo Group and CCA. California's largest union? California Correctional Peace Officers Association (CCPOA),. In 2006 the "average" salary of a typical CA. prison guard was $70,000.00 and with overtime exceeded $100,000.00. Retirees receive pensions of 90% of their salaries. This is where each of our states are heading.
The harsh laws suggested by ALEC and turned into state laws by ALEC's 2,400 conservative U.S. lawmakers led to the bulging prisons and large current deficit in California. The same laws have been implemented nationwide and are pushing the other states in the same direction.
Once we realize that all of our social programs - often referred to as a "safety net" have lost a substantial amount of funding. They are currently at risk of being abolished completely. At the same time education funding has been cut...cut again...and again in each state legislative session. Now with the fed freeing up and providing necessary funding for those programs and education, those Republicants who hold the purse strings, are taking those dollars and smiling proudly, delivering them to the altars of state and private prison operations.
All of us know at some level that education is necessary to combat crime. We also know that educating those who have offended is critical to reducing recidivism. We know and understand that...yet with the billions going to incarceration, all funding for prison education programs have been abolished. Vocational training programs to provide occupational training to inmates...cut, cut cut. These are all gone. Men and women are sent into prison and what they have in the way of education and job skills when they enter - is what they come home with. All of the money spent on incarceration is used to house them. This contributes to the recidivism rates in the U.S. by causing a "revolving door" policy that should have an advertised slogan like; "keep 'em coming back". Today incarceration is nothing more than job security for the largest growth industry in America.
I urge everyone to become involved before it's simply too damn late to put a stop to all of this manipulating, posturing and rhetoric that is costing us billions a year - and reducing our educational standards due to a lack of funding. We must put a stop to our being led around by our collective noses - told when to be afraid, how dangerous every single prisoner is to us and that our education standards and funding are adequate. This dumping billions into paying for keeping other citizens locked away - while crime rates have been dropping for two decades how - and in the process sacrifice our children's education to pay for it - is completely insane for a 21st Century American society. Sure there are plenty who need to be in prison for years or life, but not 2.3 million of them! Come on America, let's put our efforts toward educating those who without it would wind up just another PIC statistic and commodity.
If we truly want our children to grow into adults and benefit from the choices we've made along the way as parents, we have to choose wisely now. To do otherwise plays into the hands of those lining up to make money off of our progeny as they reach early adulthood - less smart and with less jobs available to make a living. In fact those profiteers think they can even now hear the faint "cha-ching" in the distance as I close this segment.