My last segment included this videomade by the NCIA in cooperation with the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) and the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). The federal program that brought the NCIA, BJA and DOJ together to promote private sector use of inmate labor as a way to reduce overhead is the Prison Industries Enhancement Certification Program (PIECP or PIE program).
While the PIE program was enacted in 1979 by Congress to allow the "training" of inmates so they would be more employable upon release (the sole purpose of the program) it has been abused to the point it is unrecognizable as the program authorized by federal lawmakers 31 years ago.
Privatization of state and federal prisons began to take shape and form in the 1970's following the "war on drugs" declared by the President. Shortly after corporate interests were firmly established in the field of privately run prisons, they found they had thousands of inmates in their control and sought ways to further capitalize off of the prisoners. They developed business plans to put the prisoners to work in industrial factories operated from within the prisons under their control and from within state prisons not under the control of CCA, Geo or other ocrporations.
By the mid 1980's privatized prisons and prison industry operations were in full swing. Support of US Lawmakers had been sought by the corporate interests and through campaign funding, had succumbed to the money offered. In exchange for the millions available to them from these private corporations, the legislators involved with ALECsoon went to work increasing state laws and increasing sentences of offenders convicted of breaking state and federal laws. The result of their efforts can be seen in every US state - and throughout the Bureau of Prisons (BOP). Hundreds of thousands of men and women are now housed by and work for these corporate entities.
PIECP has become the main tool used by corporations involved in private prison and prison industry operations to reduce overhead, transition our jobs from the private sector into the hands of prisoners and to get their hands upon public tax dollars as a means of increasing profits that are already considered obscene. Unbelievably, as the video link above shows, our Department of Justice is funding and supporting the use of inmates as a captive labor force - rather than simply providing the training called for under 18 USC 1761 and the PIECP guidelines. More than just supporting, they now openly advocate the transfer of manufacturing and other labor intensive jobs from the private sector to prison industry. No more pretense of "training" to reduce incarceration...rather "working" of inmates to increase corporate profits.
Today we will visually see for ourselves the tactics, planning and impact upon our society by this single program when used with the cooperation of our U.S. government through the Department of Justice. The DOJ is involved in much more than simply PIECP...they are responsible for enforcing laws, prosecutions of federal crimes, and placement of federal prisoners in privatized prison facilities owned by the likes of Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), Geo Group (GEO), Cornell Corrections (CC)and Management Training Corporation (MTC).
The following videos can be found on YouTube and other sites around the net. I have compiled them over the past five years. All address the issues of privatized prisons, mass incarceration for profits and prison industry programs that are taking our jobs through "insourcing."
Throughout all of the video's I've come across and present below, there is a central theme "Prisons for Profits" and though made by different individuals, companies or organizations, they all have a list of central "characters:" CCA, Geo, American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and ALEC's corporate members (that include AT&T, Geo, CCA, Prison Fellowship Ministries, Microsoft, Boeing...etc.) Corporate enablers of private prisons and prison industries are shown above. Many of you will recognize corporations and organization named by Alecwatch.org. These are the enablers, profiteers and funders of both private prisons and prison industry operations:
The Private Prison Problem: Not Here, part 1
The Private Prison Problem: Not Here, part 2
Privatization of Punishment
Here we are introduced to those who profit from incarceration and the use of inmate labor.
Prison Corporate America, Shopping and You
Now we come to the crux of the problem: increased sentences, harsher laws and hidden funding to make more arrests and thus increase incarceration:
Political Economy of Prison Labor
Prison Slave Labor in America
Inmates handling voting ballots and much more take place in the following video. Again some of what you've watched in the foregoing video's is found in this one as well - these filmmakers don't have the support and funding of the U.S. DOJ to make these films and have to use what is available to get the message out. Take note of the "corporations" found in every one of these videos.
Privatized prisons and Prison Labor is Slavery
Private Prisons - Commerce in Souls
It has not been enough for the likes of CCA, GEO and ALEC to control incarceration in the U.S. Over the past decade they have exported their business plans and operations overseas - in effect, outsourcing their philosophies to other nations" UK, New Zealand, Australia, Germany and other countries with names I can't even pronounce.
Below is a review of the expansion by CCA, Geo and Alec to Australia. Now that foreign countries are experiencing the costs in life, safety and money that is lost through such privatization efforts there, they have come to respect the US less. If we are fostering and "exporting" such concepts, we must be less developed and influential than previously thought. They have finally realized what we refuse to recognize; that mass incarceration for profit results in an increase in laws, harsher sentences, no parole and a corrections system fraught with assaults, murders, rapes and an unsustainable cost.
Private Prisons - More Corporate Greed, part 1
Private Prisons - More Corporate Greed, part 2
Today these corporations have been involved with manipulating state lawmakers to expand their control of incarceration of immigrants perceived as "illegal aliens" in the U.S. They have obtained large profitable contracts with states and the federal government to house those detained as possibly illegal. SB 1070 was conceived within the ALEC Public Safety task force. Now they are trying to break into immigration issues overseas, vying for foreign contracts to house immigrant detainees. It's as if the U.S. was the training ground for the likes of ALEC, CCA, Geo Group and other for-profit corporations partnered with them. They refined their business planning here and now that they see it as perfected they introduce it to the rest of the world.
After watching all of the videos offered here - again - I have had to change my understanding of what Slave Labor is and how it relates to actual racism. I have tried to keep the thought in my mind that prisons and prison industry operations do not depend upon one class, race or ethnicity for their operations. I think I was wrong in the context that both are dependent upon those provided to them by the state courts and of those "given" over to private prisons and prison industry, African-Americans represent the largest segment. Thus, this race is enslaved more frequently and in higher proportions than other races or ethnicities.
They may not put up recruiting posters asking for predominately Black inmates or workers, but they accept them readily from the courts exercising discrimination through selective prosecution and law enforcement. This explains why the arguments against the forced labor and privatized prisons are offered from that sector of our society - African-Americans. Their culture and communities are hit the hardest, the most oppressed and taken advantage of in higher percentages than any other ethnic group.
Soothsayer 99 and RadioGirl, I stand corrected.
In the next segment I will return to identifying the individual prison industries in the U.S. state by state, listing products and involvement in the PIECP program.