Sometimes we wonder about who the prisoners in our prison are; where they come from, what they did to get sent to prison, the kind of work they do in prison, their family and the class status of those incarcerated.
First they have had to commit a crime. In the U.S. now one does not have to actually commit an offense to be jailed and charged. As recent records indicate, many are in prisons or jails on charges they are innocent of. Our judicial system is set up in such a manner as to provide an unfair advantages to the prosecutors over the public defenders provided to most defendants. These advantages to the prosecutors include nearly unlimited access to public dollars for investigating, researching and pursuing a case. On the other hand states have time and again cut the funding for public defender offices. A PD has to show a clear cut reason for needing a private investigator to fully explore the alibis of defendants or to explore the witnesses statements and claims. Not so with the prosecutor's office. Whenever we are told that our judicial process is one of equal justice, that isn't necessarily the case...
To date there have been several hundred death, life and long sentences overturned due to actual innocence. The worst of all these are the innocent men and women who were sentenced to death by overzealous prosecutors on minimal evidence, phony confession coerced from the "suspects" or witnesses who have ulterior motives for pointing an accusatory finger at a defendant.
Sadly elections and other political issues are often times used to justify harsh-on-crime pursuits and agendas. Politicians wanting the public to know they are working hard to protect them by putting the most people possible behind bars, occur in every election cycle of late. Tough on crime now equates to putting millions into prison and keeping them there the longest time possible - regardless of the lack of an actual victim, or actual guilt.
Little known events take place and slide by under our radar and unless the incidents are brought to the attention of the public, it remains an issue contained within the locality where it occurred, handled in a manner that prevents the word from getting out.
One of these "incidents" that recently transpired happened in one of my least favorite - and thus most written about states - Texas. Below is a link to a video that authorities in Houston, Texas, the prosecutor and federal authorities tried desperately to suppress and keep away from the media.
A fifteen year old burglary suspect was chased by police in Houston and eventually caught - after being hit by a police car used in the chase - and what happened to this young man (a possible burglary suspect, to be sure) after he was hit by the vehicle.
Here is the link to the AlterNet article that has the video and news report. Take a few moments - it's only 3 or 4 and watch this horrible example of a police department gone berserk then come back and we'll continue the discussion...
I know many of you are as disgusted as I and are having the same feelings of Déjà vu back to 1991 that I experienced following the beating of Rodney King that caused massive riots in Los Angeles.
I put the above video link in the blog because it represents more than just another "beating by cops" issue. No, an issue of importance is that the crime committed by the police officers was caught by surveillance equipment set up to catch possible crime - and it did in fact catch it. However, unlike the Rodney King incident of yesteryear, today most authorities now pursue and arrest those who capture their behavior on video tape, voice recording or still photography.
Apparently it is okay for police to videotape stopping you on the highway for a traffic infraction - without your consent - but not okay for you to videotape their actions. Obviously if authorities argue that they cannot properly perform their duties if videotaped by the public, they are not intending to operate within the law in performing those duties. Why would they object to their lawful activities being recorded if they intended to abide by the law? The argument against surveillance of police offered up by political and police authorities is to protect the police, the agency that employs the officer and those who condone police violence or other civil liberty violations.
Lest you begin to think that all "criminals" are treated the same by police, authorities, politicians and judges, let me introduce you to Florida-style justice through Vicki Lukis, a current PRIDE Enterprises Board member, a member of the Florida Reentry Council and member of a Task Force of new Governor Rick Scott. Lukis was a Lee County, Florida county commissioner, elected in 1990. Here is the first part of the Lukis story and here is the conclusion. I must warn you that this is a lengthy but important narrative about the Lukis story and politics in Florida. Through reading this story you will get a feel about the impact of lobbyists, corporate interests and manipulations of state laws by both to get their way. This little part of history will lead you from the smoke filled back rooms of politicians in Florida to rubbing elbows with Presidents at inaugurations.
Following her trial, Ms. Lukis was sentenced to 27 months in prison and served 13. In April 2008 she was appointed by FDOC Secretary McNeil to the Florida Department of Corrections’ Reentry Advisory Council and in May of the same year Governor Charlie Crist appointed her to the PRIDE Board. On November 21, 2000, President Clinton commuted Mrs. Lopez Lukis’ sentence. On December 9, 2004, Governor Jeb Bush and his Cabinet restored her civil rights in Florida and on February 22nd of this year her entire conviction was nullified by a federal judge in Fort Myers, Florida.
Now I'm not complaining that Ms. Lukis was or wasn't guilty as charged and convicted back in the 90's, no. What I am saying is that those who are well connected in the Conservative political arena are very definitely treated with deference - even in the face of criminal behavior - once they have become established as Conservatives. Obviously this sordid "romantic and pseudo-criminal love story" has many interpretations and one can take from it what they will, but the "facts" relating to appointments of an ex-offender to positions by a state Governor and Secretary of a state Department of Corrections before a legal conviction was overturned, is troubling.
The Lukis story involves lobbyists, (JP Morgan executives), the dirty underside of politics at the state and even county level and how all of that translates into costs to the public. Costs in money, dignity and integrity if nothing else. This clearly demonstrates the lengths some will go to in an effort of chasing profits and personal gain. Even county officials were wined and dined by the likes of Smith Barney in that corporation's efforts of deriving profit from underwriting bonds. All involved were using their position and influence to chase after public tax dollars and in the end that same influence was used to defeat criminal justice - as you and I know and understand it.
For the past three years now, after being imprisoned for a crime, Ms. Lukis has sat upon the Board of Directors of the one corporation that has been exploiting prison labor more than any other in the U.S. Before her appointment(s), PRIDE's CEO, Pam Davis and President, John Bruells and others in the company were forced to resign because of their participation in a spin-off scam similar to the one involving Enron. Since half the PRIDE Board was replaced by the Governor in 2005 for their involvement, it is beyond comprehension how the next Governor could appoint a convicted felon to the same position that had been used before to defraud the public and reward violators with personal gain. Maybe it is because of her political affiliations and the fact that her husband is an influential lobbyist. This is simply what our government - state and national - has become of late; rewarding those who commit criminal acts with subsequent appointments or involvement in government programs, agencies and departments.
Now the incoming Governor, Rick Scott, issued campaign statements that he wanted to abolish PRIDE entirely and "reform" the department of corrections to eliminate the corruption. His Transition Team on Law Enforcement recommended doing just that with both PRIDE and the FDOC...yet he continues to now remain silent about the prison industry operations. Maybe he learned from the previous attempts to abolish PRIDE by former FDOC Secretary James McDonough's failed efforts. Once he went after PRIDE the Legislature suggested he was tired and maybe needed to retire - which he immediately did within two months of the suggestion.
Once elected Scott appointed someone from Greenberg Traurig as Special Counsel to the Governor, a firm PRIDE uses for lobbying and for representing them in many of the corporation's interests. His appointments also included an executive of Walmart, a company which also has ties to the use of prison labor over the years.
As I've said over and over again, prison industries in the U.S. are the legislative "cash cow" for conservatives. Through their lobbying and influence in states such as Florida, Arizona, Texas and many others, millions of dollars are funneled into campaigns nationwide to ensure continued profits from prison industry operations. Between prison industries and the likes of the Koch brother's efforts, conservatives have bought nearly full control of all governmental operations today and as the Lukis drama above demonstrates, the involvement begins at the lowest levels of government. In this one story we see a clear picture of two lobbyists and their approach to influencing politicians on behalf of their "clients" like Waste Management. We also see how the likes of Smith Barney and JP Morgan have their corporate tentacles wound around the coffer of tax dollars as far down as the county and municipal levels of government, wining and dining low paid government workers to get them to exclude competition for those tax dollars.
The influence is all around us and goes mostly unnoticed, appearing as dry figures reported on annual corporate reports. We are without knowledge of the amount of time, effort and lobbying that goes into something as simple as a trash incinerator project in Lee County, Florida and how manipulations are ongoing behind the curtains that impact upon our taxes. Our tax dollars are today's target for these corporate giants, make no mistake about it or think their efforts are not pervasive and persuasive at the same time.
How do all of the issues mentioned above; police brutality, slave labor, political corruption, lobbying and corporate interests all tie in together? Simply because they are all interwoven with criminal justice and demonstrate a state of mind of those belonging to the "Haves" camp. In this new millennium police have become the enforcement arm of the corporate elite. They operate at will and when caught violating the very laws they are to enforce, they wiggle off the hook time and again - Rodney King, the murder of Frank Valdez at Florida State Prison, the arrest and prosecutions of those who videotape police (we've all seen many of these over the past two or three years alone) - and the criminal use of slave labor at all levels to take jobs from civilians and give them to inmates as a source of corporate profit. Through the efforts of Conservative funded and led ALEC, there has been an increase of criminal laws across the country. This has been escalating from 1980 till now and is the reason today we have more than 2.3 million of us behind prison fences and another 5.3 million on some form of parole or probation. ALEC's efforts have been funded by members Koch Industries, AT&T Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), Geo Group, GlaxoSmithKline, the American Bail Coalition, etc. All of these entities and individuals have been involved in profiting from imprisonment - whether through bonding of criminals, reentry programs, prison privatization or prison industries. All of these contribute to corporate profits and provide a steady, large and multi-talented workforce of prisoners sentenced for mostly victimless crime. In fact they have so many prisoners available as labor now, that they are actively recruiting for more American companies to join the slave labor movement and eliminate civilian workers through a joint effort with the Department of Justice!
Through the use of lobbyists the likes of Charles and David Koch have been able to mold legislation at all levels of government to their benefit. They are able to buy what they need from "store-front shops" that sell legislators as commodities - such as ALEC. We have asked for and tried on numerous occasions to pass legislation to eliminate or restrict lobbying by special interests, to no avail. Too many of our politicians have been bought outright by the Kochs and others using the money they've earned from that lobbying on issues such as prison industry operations, to be able to even discuss such lobbying legislation.
The push by the same politicians and police authorities to outlaw and in fact prosecute those who would tape, film or record improper actions of law enforcers is an indicator of the influence wielded. Similar attacks against the progressive and main stream media to keep such news out of the headlines is another indicator of how they work 24/7 to keep their actions and agenda hidden from view.
For some the ongoing demonstrations at state capitols over wages and Unions is a just discovered issue. For others it is the first emergence of the deadly cancer that is attacking our society from within. Now that the Koch brothers and Koch Industries and more recently the manipulations of their number one source for beneficial corporate legislation, ALEC, has been subjected to the light of day - the curtain pulled aside to reveal the puppeteers with the strings of our country in their greedy hands - all can see what has been ongoing for a couple of decades. There they are for all to see, their manipulations clearly exposed and their pursuit of eliminating the middle class entirely demonstrated. One now can also understand how this push to put our jobs in the hands of prisoners was a stop-gap maneuver to provide needed labor while they went after the rest of us through wage deductions and eliminating collective bargaining and Unions.
Sad, sick state of affairs and should not be something our country allows itself to become involved in. As President Obama stands at the podium and fails to lend his strong voice to the labor issues of today, he is also standing silent on the issue of removal of our jobs and putting them in the hands of prisoners where they provide profits for the corporations involved. One has to wonder how many of those involved are even now, contributing to his re-election fund...and similar campaigns run by conservative incumbents and potential candidates?
Time for Progressives, moderates and liberals alike to wake up and smell the greed in the air...and work to do something about it...