26.-pic-and-global-economy.pdf
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THE PRISON-
INDUSTRIAL
COMPLEX AND THE
GLOBAL ECONOMY

by Eve Goldberg and Linda Evans
1997
Ove: 1.8million people are currently behind bars in the United States. This
represents the highest per capita incarceration rate in the history of the world. fn
1995 alone, 150 new U8. prisans were built ard filled:

‘This montmnental commitment to lock up a sizeable perventege of the population is
‘an integral part of the glahalization of capital. Several strancs converged et the end
‘of the Cold War, changing relations between labor and capital on an international
scale: domestic economic decline, racism, the U.S. role as policeman of the werld,
‘and growth of the intematioral drug econcmy in creating 2 booming prison~
industrial complex. And the prison industrial complex is rapidly becoming an
‘essential component of the L.S. economy.

PRISONS ARE BIG 3USINESS

Like the mititary-industrial complex, -he prison industrial complex isan
interweaving of private business and government irterests.Iis twofold purpose is
profit and social control. Its public rationa e is the fight against crime,

‘Not so Jong age, commrnism was "the enemy" and communists were demonized as
away of justifying gargantuan military expenditures. Now, fear of crime and the
demonization of criminels serve a similar deological purpose: to justify the use of
tax dollars for the repression and incarceration of a growing percentage of our
population. The omaipresent mecia blitz about serial killers, missing chiléren and
“random violerce” feeds our fear. In reality, however, most cf the "criminals" we
lcck up are poor people who commit nonviolent crimes out of economic need.
Violence occurs in less than 14% of all reported crime, and injuries occur in just 3%.
In California, the top three charges for those entering prison are: possession of a
contrelled substance, possession of a sontvolled sutstance for salo, and robbery.
Violent crimes like murder, rape, manslaughter and kidnapping don't even make the
top ten,





Like fear of communism during the Cold War, fear of crime is a great selling tool for
a dubious product.

‘As with the building and maintenance of weapons and armies, the building and
raintenance of prisons are big business. Invesiment houses, construction companies,
architects, and support sexvives such as food, medical, tansportation and fusniute,
all stand to profit by prison expansion. A burgeoning" specialty item industry sells
fencing, handcaffs, drug detectors, protective vests, and other security devices to
prisons.





[As the Cold War winds down and the Crime War heats up, defense industry
like Westinghouse are re-tooling and ‘obbying Wasaingron for their share of the





domestic law enforcement market, "Night Enforcer" goggles used in the Gulf
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War, electronic "Hot Wire” fencing (’so hot NATO chose it for high-risk
installations"), and other equipment once used by the military, are now being,
narketed to the criminal justice system.

Communication companies like AT&T, Sorint, and MCI are getting into the act as
well, gouging prisoners with excrbitant prone calling rates, often six times the
normal long distanze charge. Smaller firms like Correc:ional Communications
Corp dedicated solely to the prison ghone business, provide computerized prison
phone syscems, fully equipped for systematic surveillance, They win government
contracts >y o“ering to "kickback" some of the profits to the government agency
‘warding the contract. These comparies ére reaping huge profits atthe expense of
prisoners and their families; prisoners are often effectively cut off from
cormmunication dus to the excessive zost of phone calls.



(ne of the fastest growing sectors of the prison industrial complex is private
corrections earnpanies. Investment firm SmithRarney is a part owner af a prison in
Florida. Amer can Express and General Electric heve invested in private sriscn
construction in Oklahoma and Iennessee. Correctional Corporation Of America, one
of the largest private prison ownsrs, already operates irtemationally, with moze than
48 facilities in 11 states, Puerto Rico, the United Kingdom, and Australia Under
contract by government to rin jails and prisons, and paid a fixed sum per prisoner,
the profit motive mandates that these firms operate as cheaply and efficiently as
possiole. This means lower wages for statT, no unions, and fewer services for
prisoners. Private contracts also mean less public scrutiny. Prisoa owners are -aking
in billions by eutting ccrners which karm prisoners. Substandard diets, extreme
overcrowding, and abuses by poorly trained personnel have all been documented end
can be expected in thes2 institutions which are unabashedly about making money.



Prisons ate also a leading rural growth industry. With traditional agriculture being
pushed aside by agribusiness, many raral American communities are facing hard
times. Economically depressed ercas arc fallirg over cach ctherto secure a prison
facility of theit own. Prisons are seer. as ¢ source cf jots in construction, local
vendors and prison staff, as well as a source of tax reventies. An average prison has a
staff of several hundred employees and an annual payroll of several million dollars.

Like any industry, the prison eccnomy needs raw materials n this case the raw
materials ae prisozers. The prison irdustial complex can grow only if more and
more people are incarcerated even if'erime rates drop. "Three Strikes" and
mancatory minimums (harsh, fixed senteaces without parole) are two examples of
‘the Iegal superstructure quiekly >eing putin place to guarantee that the prison
population will grow and grow and grow.

LABOR AND THE FLIGHT OF CAPITAL

‘The growth of the prison industrial complex is inextricably tied to the fortunes of
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labor. Ever since the onset of the Reagan-Bush years in 1980, workers in the United
States have been under siege, Aggressive union busting, corporat> deregulation, and
‘especially the flight of capital in search of cheaper labor markets, have been cracial
factors in the downward plight of American workers,

‘One wave of cepital flignt occurred in the 197¢s.Manufcturing such as textiles in
the Northeast moved south to South Carolina, Tenmassee, Alabama; non-union states,
where wages were low. During the 1980s, many more industries (steel, auzo,etc.)
closed up shop, moving on to the "more competitive atmospheres" ot Mexico, Brazil,
or Taiwan where wages were a mere fraction of those in the US. and environmental,
health and safety standards were much lower. Most seriously hur- by these plant
‘closures and layotts were Attican-Americans and other semiskilled workers in urben
‘centers who lost their decent paying industrial jobs.



Into the gaping economic hole let by the exodis of jobs from U.S. cies has rushed
another economy: the drug exonomy.

‘THE WAR ON DRUGS

‘The "War on Drugs." launched by President Reagan in the mid-eighties, has beon
fought on interiocking international and domestic fronts.

‘At the intomational evel, the war on drugs has beca both a cynical ccver-ap of U.S.
government involvement in the drug trade. as well as justification for U.S. military
intervention and control in the Third World,



Over the last 50 years, the primary goal of U.S. Foreign policy (and the military
irdustrial complex) has been to fight communism and protect corporate interests. To
this end, the US. governmert has, wich regulatity, formed strategic alliances with
drug cealers thoughout the world. At the conclusion of World War II, the OSS
(precursorto te CIA) allied itself with he-oin traders on the docks of Marseill> in an
eifort to wrest power away from zommunist deck workers, Durity the Vietnam wer,
tke CIA aided the heroin producing Hmong tribesmen in the Golden Triangle area. In
return for cooperation with the U.S. government's war against the Vietcong, and other
national liberation forces, the CLA flew local heroin out of Southeast Asia and into
‘America. Its no accident that hernin eddiction in the 11.8. rose exponentially in the
1360s.



Nor is itan accident that cocaine began to proliferate in the United States during the
1980s, Central America is the strategic halfway point for air travel be:ween
‘Colombia and :he United States, Ihe Contra War against Sandinista Nicaragua, a8
‘well as the war against the nstional liberation forces in Fl Salvador, was largely
bout control ofthis critical area. When Congress cut off support for the Contras,
‘Cliver North and tends found other ways to fund “he Contra re-supply operations,in
prt through drug dealing. Planes loaded with arms for the Contras took off frem the
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southern United States, offloaded their weapons or. private landing strips in
‘Hondaras, then loaded up with cocaine for theretumn trip.

‘A.1996 expose by the San Jose Mereaty News documented CIA invelvement in a
Nicaraguen drig ring which poured thousands of kilos of cocaine into Los Angeles’
African-American uvighburlioods in the 1980s, Drag boss, Danilo Blanclon, now an
informant for the DEA, acknowledged under oath ‘he drugs-for-weapons deals with
the CIA-sponsored Contras.



U.S. military presence in Central and Latin America has not stopped drug traffic. But
ithas influenced aspects of the drug trade, and is a powerful force of social centro! in
the region. U.S. military intervention whether in propping up dictators or syuashing
peasant uprisings now operates uncles cover of the righteous war against drugs and
“nareo-terrorism.”

In Mexico, for example, LIS. military aid supposedly earmarke¢ forthe drug war's
being used to arm Mexican troops in the southern part of the country. The drug trae,
however(production, transfer, and distribution pomts) is all in the no-th. “he “drug
‘war money" is being used primarily to fight against the Zapatista rebels in the
southern state of Chiapas wo are demanding land reform and economic policy
changes which are diametrically opposed to the transnetional corporate agenca,

In the Colombian jungles of Cartagena de Chaira, coca has become the oaly viable
commercial crop. In 1996, 30,000 farmers blocke¢ roads ard airstrips to prevent crop
spraying from airoraft. The Revolutionary Armied Forces of Colombia (ARO) one of
the o.dest guerilla organizations in Latin America, held 60 government soldiers
hostage for nine months, demanding that the military leave the jangle, that social
services ke increased, end that altcrnative erops be made available te farmers, Ané
iver the notorious involvement of Colombia's highest officials with the powerful
drug cartels, itis not surprising that most U.S."dnug wer" military aid actually goes

to fighting the gue-tillas.

‘One result of the international war on drugs has been the intemetionalization of the
U.S. prison population. For the most part, it isthe low leve} "mules" carrying drugs
into this country who are captured and incarcerated in ever-increasing numbers. At
‘east 25% of inmates ir. the federal prison system today will be subject te deportation
wher, their sentences are completed.



Here at home, the war on dnigs has been a war on poor people. Particularly poor,
urbaa, African American men and women. It's well documented that police
enforcement of the new, harsh dig laws have heen foeused on low- evel deaiers in
communities of color. Arrests of Aff-can-Americans have been about five times
aigher than arrests of whites, although Waites and African-American use drugs at
about the same rate. And, African-Ameri

‘more disproportionate ‘han their relative arrest rates. Its estimeted that in 1994, on


any given day, one out of every 128US. adults was incarcerated, while one out of
every I7 Africen-American adult males was incarcerated.

‘The differentia’ in sentencing for powder end crack cocaine ‘s one glaring example
of institutionalized racism. About 90% of crack arrests cre of African-Americans,
while 75% of powder cocaine arrests are of whites. Under federal law, it takes only
five grams of erack cocaine to trigger a five-year mandatory minimum sertence. But
ittakes 500 grams of powder cocaine 100times as much to tigger this same
sentence, his tlagrant injustice was tightighted by a 1996 nationwide teceral prison
rebellion when Congress refased to enact changes in sentencing laws that would
equalize penalties,





Saatistics show that police repression and mass incarceration are not curbing the drug
trade. Dealers are forced to move, tur? is reshu*fled, already vulnerable families are
broken up. Butthe demend for drugs still exists, as do hugeprofits for high-level
dealers in this fifty billion dellar international industry.



From one point of view, the war on drugs van actually be seen as a pre-emptive
strike, The state's repressive apparatus working overtime. Put poor people away
before they get angry. Incarcerate those at the bottom, the helpless, the
hopeless, before they demané change. Whet drugs don't damage (in te-ms of intact,
communities, te ability to teke action, to organize) the war on drags and mass
iraprisonment will surely destroy.



‘The erackdows. on drugs has not stopped drug use. But it has taken thousands of
unemployed (and potentially ang-y ard rebellious) yourg men ard women off the
sireets. And it has c-eated a mushrooming prison populetion,

PRISON LABOR

‘An American worker who once upon a time made $8/hour, loses his job when ‘he
company relocates to Trailand where workers are raid only $2/day. Unercployed,
and alienated from a society indifferent to his needs, he becomes invelved in the
dug economy of some other outlawed means of suvivel. He is arrested, put in
prison, and put to work, His new salary: 22 cents/hour

From worker, to unemployed, to criminal, to conviet laborerthe cycle has come full
circle, And the only victor is big 2usiness..

For private business, prison ‘aboris like a pot of gold, No strikes, No unien
‘o-gar:zing, No unemployment insurance cr workers’ compensation tc pay, No
Iengnage problem, as in a foreigr country New leviathen prisons are heing built with
thousands of eerie acres of factories inside the walls, Prisoners do data entry for
Chevron, inake telephore reservetions tor I WA,raise hogs, shovel manure, meke
creui: boards, limousines, waterbeds, and lingerie “or Victoria's Secret. All ata

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fraction of the cost of "free labor."

Prisoners can be forced to work for fennies because they have no rights. Even the
13th Amendment to the Constitution which abolished slavery, excludes prisoners
‘rom its protections.

And, more and more, prisons are charging inmates for basic necessities fiom medical
care, to tcilet paper, to use of the law library. Many states are now ckargiag "room
and toarc.” Berks County jail in Pennsylvania is charging inmates $10 per day to 3e
there. California has similar legislation pending, So, while government cannot (ye)
actually require inmates to work at private industry jobs for less than minimum
‘wage, they are forced to by necessity. Some pzisom enterprises ave state run. Inmates
-working at UNICOR (the federal priton industry corperaticn) make recycled
fumiture and work 40 hours a week for about $40 per month. The Oregon Prison
Industries produces a line of "Prison Blues” blue jeans. An ad in their catalogue
shows a handsome prison inmate saying, "I say we should make bell-bottoms, They
say I've been in heve to> lorg." Bizarre, tut true, The promotional tazs onthe clothes
themselves actually tovt their operation as rehabilitation and job training for
prisoners, who of course would never beable to find work in the garment industry
upon release.

Prison industries arc often circeily competing with private industry. Small furniture
‘manufacturers around the country ccmplain that they ate being driven out of
busiress by UNICOR which pays 23 cen-vhour and his the inside track on
government conirsets. in another case, U.S, Technologies sold its electronies plant in
Austin, Texas, leaving ts 150 workers unemployed, Six week later, the electronics
plant reopened in a nearby prison.

WELCOME 10 THE NEW WORLD ORDER

The proliferation cf prisons in the United States is one pieco of a puzzle ealled the
globalization of capital

Since the end of the Cold War, capitalism has gone on an international business
offensive, No longer impede by an alteruative socialist economy or the dareat of
national liberation movements sapperted by the Soviet Union or China, transnational
corporations see the world as their oyster. Agencies such as the World Trade
Organization, World Bank, and the Intertational Monetary Fund, bo'stered by
agreements like NAFTA and GATT are putting more aad more power into the hands
of trensnational corporations by putting the scueeze on national governments, The
srimary mechanism of control is dett. For decades, developing countries hav
depended on foreign loans, resuiting |

corporate straregy for tie global economy. Access to irternational credit and aid
ziven only if governments agree to certain conditions known as "structural
adjustment."







‘na nutshell, structural adjustment requires cuts in social services, privatization of
state-run industry, repeal of agreements with labor about working conditions and
minimum wage, conversion of muiti-use ferm lands into cash cro agriculture for
export, and the dismantling of trade laws which protect local economies. Under
structural adjusment, police and military experditures are the only government
spending that is encouraged. The sovereignty of nations is compromised when, as in
the case of Viemam, trade sanctions are threatened unless the government allows
Camel cigarettes to itter the countryside with billboards, or promises to spend
millions in the U.S -orchestreted crackdown on drugs.

‘The besic transnational corpcrate philosopity is this’ the world is a single market;
natural resources are to be exploited;people are consumers; enything Which hinders
profit 's tobe rooted out and destroyed. The results ofthis philosophy in action are
‘that waile economies are growing, so is poverty, so is ecological destruction, so are
sweatshops and child lator. Across the globe, Wages are plummeting, indigenous
poople are being forved off their lands, rivers are becoming industrial dumping,
grounds, and forests are being oblitereted. Massive regional starvation and "World
Bank riots’ are beccming mere frequent throughout the Third World.

All over the werld, more and more people are being forved into illegal activity for
their own survival as traditional cultures and sccial structures are destroyed.
Inevitably, crime und imprisonment rtes are on the rise, An¢ the United States law
enforcement establishment is in the forefrent, comesticelly and internationally, in
providing state-of-the-art repression,

Within the United States, structural adjustment (sometimes known as the Contract
With America) takes the form of welfare aad social service cuts, continued massive
military spending, and skyrocketing prison speading, Walk dhrougli auy poor wban
neighborhood: school systems are crumblixg. after school programs, libraries, parks
and drug treatment centers are closed. But you will see more police stations an]
more cops. Often, the orly "social service” available to 2u0r young peuple is jail.



‘The dismantling of social programs, and the growirg deminance of the right-wing
agenda in U.S. politics has been made possible, at I2est in part, by the successful
repression of the civil rights and ‘iberation movements of the 1960s and 70s. Leaders
Martin Luther <ing Jr., Malcolm X, Fred Hampton, and mary otiers were
assassinated, Others, like Geronimo ji Jaga Pratt, Leonard Peltier, ané Mumia Abu-
Jamal, have been locked up. Over 134 political leaders fram the hlack liheration
struggle, the Puerto Rican independence movement, and other resistance efforts are
siill in prison, Many are serving sentences ranging trom 40 to 90 yeats. Onpressed
‘communities have been robbed of radical politcal leadership which might have led
‘an opposition movement. We are reaping the results.

‘The namber of people in U.S. prisons has more the: tripled in the past 17 years from
530,000 in 1980 to 1.8 million in 1997. Today, more then five million people are
8


behird bars, on parole, protation, or under other supervision by the criminal justice
systen, The state of California now spends more cn prisons than on higher
education, and over the past decade has built -9prisons and only one branch
aniversity.

Add :0 this, the fact thet increasing numbers cf wemen are being locked sp. Between
1980and 1994, the number of women in prison increased five-fold, and women now
make up the fastest growing segment of the prison population. Mostof these women
are mothers leaving future generations growing up in foster horses of on the strees.

‘Welcome to the New World Order.

WHAT IS TO BE DONE?

Prisons are not reducing crime. But they are fracturing already vulnerable families
and communities.

Poor people of color are being locked up in grossly disproportionate numbers,
primarily for non violent crimes, But Americans are nct feeling safer. As “crimina’s"
become scapegoats for our ‘lourdering economy and our deteriorating sccial
structure, even the guise of rehabilitetion is quickly disappearing from our penal
philosophy. Afterall: rehabilitate for what? To go dack into an economy which has
rn jobs? To go back into a commumity which has no hope? As education and other
prison programs are cu: back, or in most cases eliminated altogether, prisons are
becoming vas’, over-erowded, holding taxks. Or worse: factories behind bars.

And, prison labor is undereutting wages, something which hurts all working and
poor Americans. Its a situation which can only occur because organized labor is,
divided and weak and has not kept step with crganized capital.

While capital has globelized, labor has not. While the transnationals truly are
“ashioning our planet into a glotal village, Unere is still ile conumunivation 0:
‘cooperation between workers arounc the world, Only zn internationally linked labor
‘movement can effectively challenge the power of the transnational corporations.



‘There have been some wonderful, shining instances of intemational worker
solidarity In the early °980s, 3M werkers in South Aftica walked ovt in support of
striking 3M workers in New Jersey. Recently, longshore workers in Denmark, Spain,
Sweden and several other countries closed down ports around the world in solidarity
with striking Liverpool dockers. The company was forved to negotiate. When
‘Xenault closed its plant in Belgium, 100,000 demonstreted in Brasseis, pressuring the
French and Relginm goverrments to condemn the plant clare and camel its

reopening.

Here in the US,, there is a glimmer of hope as the AFL-CIO has voted ir some new,
9
more progressive leadership. We'll see how that shaves up, and whether the last 50
‘years of anticommunist, breail-and-butter Ametican unionism is really a thing of the
pest.

‘What is certain is that resistance to the transnational corporate agenda is growing
‘arouné the globe: In 1996, the people of Bougainville, a sirall New Guintes iskand,
‘organized & secessionist rebellion, protesting the dislocations and ecological
destruction caused by corporate mining on the island. When the govemment hived
‘mercenaries fom South Arica to train local trcops in ccunterinsurgercy warfare, the
amy rebelied, threw ont the mercenaries, and deposed thePrme Minister.



‘Aone day General Strike shut down Haiti n January 1997. Strikers demarded the
suspension of negotiations between the Prime Minister end the International
‘Monetary Fund/World Bank. They protested the austerity measures imposed by the
IMF and WB which would mean laying off 7,090 government workers and the
privatization of the electric and telephone companies.

‘In Nigeria, the Ogoni people conducted a protractec eight year struggle against Shell
Oil. Acid rain, and hundreds of oil epills and gas flares were turning the orce fertile
countryside into a near wasteland, Their peaceful demorstrations, election boycotts,
ard pleas for internetional solidarity were met with violent gaverament repression.
ard ths eventual execution of Ogoni-writer leader Ken Saro Wiwa,



In France, a menth-long General Strike un‘ted millions of workers who protested
privatization, a goveramont worksr pay freeze, and eutbacks in social services.
‘Telepkone, airline, power, postal, education, health care and metal workers all oined
‘together, bringing business to a standstill. The right-wing Chirac government vas
{arced 19 make minor concessions before teing voted out for a new "socialist"
administration,

AL (he Oak Path He'ghts Conectional Facility in Minnesota, 150 prisoners wert on
stike in March 1997. demanding to be pai the mirimum wage. Although they lost a
litigation battle to attain this right, their strike gained attention and support from
several local labor unions,

ustas the prison industrial complex is becoming increasingly central to the growth
of the U.S. economy, prisoners are a cruciel part of building effective oppositicn to
the transnational comorate agenda. Because of their enforced invisibility,
powerlessness, and isolation, i's far too common for prisoners to be left out ofthe
equation of international solidarity. Yet, opposing the expansion of the prison
industrial complex, and supporting the rights and basic humsnity af prisorers, may
be the only way we can stave off the consclidation of a police state that rearesses us
all, where you or a friend or family member may yourself end up behind tars.



Clearly, the only alternative that will match the power of global cf capital is an
10


internationalization of human solidarity. Because, truly, we are ll in this together.
“Intemational solidarity fs not an actof charity It is an act of unity between allies
fighting on different terrains toward ‘he same objective. The foremost of these
objectives is to aid the development of humanity to the highest level possible.”

~ Samora Machel (1933-1986), Leader of FRELIMO, First President of
Mozambique

Linda Evans is a North American anti-
imperialist political prisoner currently at
FCI Dublin in California.

Eve Goldberg is a writer, film maker, and
solidarity and prisoners’ rights activist.

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