Why has America's incarceration rate tripled since 1980?

[Jonathan50]

As you can see from the chart below something happened in the early to mid 1970's that started the incarceration rate in our prisons climbing at a drastic rate.

I think I know what it is but I would be very interested to know your thoughts on the matter.

[Breeze54]

1. Reagans 3 Strikes you're out and tighter marijuana laws?

That's my guess.

[Jonathan50]

6. Reagan wasn't elected until 1980 by which time the trend was well established

Something happened before Reagan.

[endarkenment]

15. Ah no - look at that chart again

The pattern was modest up and down swings above and below a baseline that was essentially flat. 1980 was an upswing - most likely an economic conditions driven upswing - and then the stupid WOD/Prison Industrial Complex initiated by Reagan with the assistance, the eager assistance, of almost every politician on both sides of the aisle kicked in and the trend changes entirely.

[Breeze54]

17. Raygun was a huge part of the over-populated prisons.

Ronald Reagan.

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2004/06/06/771/56276

As his deification by the media and the right continues today, we thought we'd point out three of his less-than-endearing legacies:

* Mandatory minimum drug sentences in 1986. This was the first time Congress passed mandatory minimum sentences since the Boggs Act in 1951.

* Federal sentencing guidelines: Under this new method of sentencing which went into effect in 1987, prison time is determined mostly by the weight of the drugs involved in the offense. Parole was abolished and prisoners must serve 85% of their sentence. Except in rare situations, judges can no longer factor in the character of the defendant, the effect of incarceration on his or her dependents, and in large part, the nature and circumstances of the crime. The only way to receive a more lenient sentence is to act as an informant against others and hope that the prosecutor is willing to deal. The guidelines in effect stripped Article III of their sentencing discretion and turned it over to prosecutors.

* The Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988: This law established a federal death penalty for "drug kingpins." President Reagan called it a new sword and shield in the escalating battle against drugs, and signed the bill in his wife's honor:

Organized Crime Control Act

The purpose of this 1970 act was to eliminate organized crime "by establishing new penal prohibitions and by providing enhanced sanctions and new remedies to deal with the unlawful activities of those engaged in organized crime."

http://www.answers.com/topic/organized-crime-control-act

Because of its comprehensiveness, the Organized Crime Control Act laid the foundation for additional legislation passed during the latter quarter of the twentieth century. Efforts toward reducing criminal activity have included a number of far-reaching programs, such as community action networks, larger police forces, tougher sentencing, limits on gun ownership, and new definitions of criminal activity. Congress built on the original law by passing the Omnibus Crime Control Act of 1970 and a major anticrime package in 1984. Congress continued with legislation such as the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act in 1993 and the Omnibus Crime Control Act and Safe Streets Act of 1994. These acts ban nineteen types of assault weapons, allow judges to waive minimum sentences for nonviolent, first-time drug offenders, and expand the number of federal capital crimes. Congress approved additional penalties for "hate crimes," federal offenses against victims based on race, religion, ethnicity, gender, disability, or sexual orientation, and instituted the "three strikes and you're out" policy that mandated life imprisonment for criminals convicted of three violent felonies.

[Richard Steele]

36. No. Your own chart says different. It breaks the bounds of its historical norm right about 1980.

[Jonathan50]

66. Two points

There is always some lag time before the change in politics affects the policy on the ground.

The slope of the line increases as you approach 1980.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_Drugs

The 1951 Boggs Act increased penalties fourfold; five years later, the 1956 Daniel Act increased penalties by a factor of eight over those specified in the Boggs Act. Although by this time there was adequate testimony to refute the idea that marijuana caused insanity and death, the deliberations for these laws shifted in focus to the proposition that marijuana use lead to the use of heroin, creating the gateway theory.

Nixon's modern-day War on Drugs began in 1969. He characterized the abuse of illicit substances as "America's public enemy number one." Under Nixon, the U.S. Congress passed the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) of 1970. This legislation is the foundation on which the modern drug war exists. Responsibility for enforcement of this new law was given to the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs, and then in 1973 to the newly formed Drug Enforcement Administration.

In 1988, towards the close of the Reagan Administration, the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) was created to centrally coordinate legislative, security, diplomatic, research and health policy throughout the government. In recognition of his central role, the director of ONDCP is commonly known as the Drug Czar. The position was raised to cabinet-level status by Bill Clinton in 1993.

[Richard Steele]

79. Yes. And I think the normal "time lag" simply became ABnormal in that '70s period.

That last upswing actually SHOULD HAVE BEEN started by Nixon.
As you noted, he actually started the modern "war on drugs".
In a NORMAL period, that chart would have started trending
sharply upward around '72 or '73.

But Nixon's second term had its hands full with a
whole bunch of unexpected problems that occupied its
full attention, and he certainly never again had the kind of
political capital that would have allowed him to turn
local beat cops into the door-kicking stormtroopers we
have today. His great "drug war" stayed on the back burner.

Gerald "no mandate" Ford was never in a position to radically
change anything, he had his hands full just playing benchwarmer;
and Carter never actually dismantled the "war on drugs"
apparatus which existed, little used, during his term.

So, the entire "war on drugs" machine sat idling with
no one at the wheel during those ten years. Until Reagan
gave the green light to put it into high gear and stomp
the gas pedal. That's why there's no charted "delay" visible
after he took office- the normal "delay" had actually
already been stretched into a ten-year hibernation,
creating the ILLUSION that it appeared overnight as soon
as Reagan took office.

[sarcasmo]

2. There is big money to be made in Privatization. More bodies equal more money.

Cheap labor is another reason.

[Joe Chi Minh]

43. Bingo!

[kedrys]

3. Bullsh*t drug enforcement

In the 70s and early 80s, you could still light up in public and not get hassled unless you were disturbing the peace. Nowadays they lock you up and throw away the key if you have long hair. :grr:

[Marnieworld]

4. War on Drugs

Non-violent drug offenders and all of the connected draconian laws attached.

Oh and the big business of it all. Prisons are highly profitable.

And contractors to build them.

And all of the law enforcement like the guaranteed jobs. It will be very hard to reverse this without a giant overhaul and opening up of the prison system.

President Kucinich would do it. I wish more talked about it.

[ixion]

14. yep, exactly...

[quinnox]

5. Illegal immigrants

Maybe it was the start of the mass number of illegal immigrants overrunning the borders.

[Jonathan50]

8. Illegal immigrants get deported if they have no other crimes against them.

Illegal immigration is a civil offense, not a criminal one.

[treestar]

56. I doubt this counts them

Most of the illegals are not imprisoned. We don't make much effort to enforce those laws. Even the few against whom it is enforced are only imprisoned long enough to effect the deportation.

[Solon]

60. There hasn't been a huge increase in Illegal Immigration till NAFTA was in effect...

Plus the other arguments that people have made so far.

[spindrifter]

7. Longer sentences for

virtually all drug convictions and mandatory sentences for a larger number of crimes. In addition, the states that reject parole are stuck with inmates that have to serve their entire sentences, minus any earned "good time." The populace gives a knee-jerk response to the "crime du jour," without thinking about whether their response is disproportionate.
We are throwing away a lot of people and destroying communities with these policies.

[Nederland]

9. Not sure

But I'm pretty sure the crime rate has fallen by more than half as a result.

[Jonathan50]

11. The drop in violent crime didn't start happening until about 1994

[Nederland]

34. True

There was the expected delay between incarcerating the criminals and a drop in violent crime. The drop in property crime, however, happened rather quickly.

[Laughing Mirror]

39. "Violent Crime in Cities Shows Sharp Surge"

Violent crime rose by double-digit percentages in cities across the country over the last two years, reversing the declines of the mid-to-late 1990s, according to a new report by a prominent national law enforcement association.

While overall crime has been declining nationwide, police officials have been warning of a rise in murder, robbery and gun assaults since late 2005, particularly in midsize cities and the Midwest. Now, they say, two years of data indicates that the spike is more than an aberration.

“There are pockets of crime in this country that are astounding,” said Chuck Wexler, the executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum, which is releasing the report on Friday. “It’s gone under the radar screen, but it’s not if you’re living on the north side of Minneapolis or the south side of Los Angeles or in Dorchester, Mass.”
...
The research forum surveyed 56 cities and sheriffs’ departments — as small as Appleton Wis., about 100 miles northwest of Milwaukee, and as large as Chicago and Houston. Over all, from 2004 to 2006, homicides increased 10 percent and robberies 12 percent.

http://www.tuscaloosanews.com/article/20070309/ZNYT02/703090353/1004

A lot of poverty and desperate people out there.

[rman]

10. contemporary push to privatize corrections

http://mediafilter.org/MFF/Prison.html

...
Three Trends Converge
But as the twentieth century stumbles to an end, the hard lessons of a hundred years ago have been drowned out by the clamor of free market ideologues. Again, privatization is encroaching ever further on what had been state responsibilities, and prison systems are the target of private interests. The shift to privatization coalesced in the mid-1980s when three trends converged: The ideological imperatives of the free market; the huge increase in the number of prisoners; and the concomitant increase in imprisonment costs. In the giddy atmosphere of the Reagan years, the argument for the superiority of free enterprise resonated profoundly. Only the fire departments seemed safe, as everything from municipal garbage services to Third World state enterprises went on sale. Proponents of privatized prisons put forward a simple case: The private sector can do it cheaper and more efficiently. This assortment of entrepreneurs, free market ideologues, cash-strapped public officials, and academics promised design and management innovations without re- ducing costs or sacrificing "quality of service." In any case, they noted correctly, public sector corrections systems are in a state of chronic failure by any measure, and no other politically or economically feasible solution is on the table.

More Prisoners, More Money
This contemporary push to privatize corrections takes place against a socioeconomic background of severe and seemingly intractable crisis. Under the impetus of Reaganite social Darwinism, with its "toughness" on criminal offenders, pris on populations soared through the 1980s and into the 1990s, making the U.S. the unquestioned world leader in jailing its own populace. By 1990, 421 Americans out of every 100,000 were behind bars, easily outdistancing our closest competitors, South Africa and the then USSR. By 1992, the U.S. rate had climbed to 455. In human terms, the number of people in jails and prisons on any given day tops 1.2 million, up from fewer than 400,000 at the start of the Reagan era.
...

[rock]

12. Drug War

[Cobalt Violet]

13. American Legislative Exchange Council

They've been pushing "Truth in Sentencing" and "Three Stikes Your Out" and "Mandatory Minimum Sentencing" laws on behalf of the private prison industy.

[Cobalt Violet]

19. The "Acts" they've pushed on behave of industry.

Criminal Justice & Homeland Security Model Legislation




Bail :


Alternative Method of Court Appearances Act


Anti-Crime (Secured Release) Act


Bail Agent Education and Licensing Act


Bail Bond Expiration Act


Bail Forfeiture Notification Act


Bail Forfeiture Payments Act


Bail Forfeiture Relief and Remission Act


Bail Fugitive Recovery Persons Act


Crimes With Bail Restrictions Act


Citizen's Right to Know: Pretrial Release Act


Uniform Bail Act





Commercial Theft :



Affidavit of Mailing Act


Anti-Skimming Act


Bogus Receipts and Universal Product Code Act


Establishing Jurisdiction For Online Sale Of Stolen Property Act


Mandatory Sentencing for Repeated Felony Theft From a Store Act


Organized Retail Theft Act


Theft from Three Separate Mercantile Establishments Act


Theft Using Emergency Exit to Avoid Apprehension or Detection Act


Unlawful Use of Theft Detection Shielding or Deactivation Devices Act


Unused Property Market Act





Courts and Sentencing :




Electronically Issued Warrants Act


Exclusionary Rule Act


Hearsay in Public Hearings Act


Insanity Defense Reform Act


Judicial Sentencing Disclosure Act


Mandatory Demand Reduction Assessment Act


Minimum-Mandatory Sentencing Act


Open Parole Hearings Act


Remote Video Court Appearance Act


Shock Incarceration Act


Third Theft Felony Act


Truth in Sentencing Act





Crimes Against Children :




Child Abuse Investigation Reform Act


Obscenity and Child Pornography Act


Sexual Offenses Against Children Act


Statute of Limitations for Offenses Against Children Act





Criminal Acts:


Animal and Ecological Terrorism Act


Anti-Stalking Act


Disarming a Law Enforcement Officer Act


Environmental Corrupt Organizations-Preventative Legislation and Neutralization (ECO-PLAN) Act


Environmental Corrupt Organizations-Preventative Legislation and Neutralization (ECO-PLAN) Forfeiture Act


Laser Safety Act


Money Laundering Act


Resolution in Support of the USA PATRIOT Act





Drugs:


Criminal Justice Drug Testing Act


Drug-Affected Infants Act


Drug Dealer Liability Act


Drug-Free Housing Project


Drug-Free Post Secondary Education Act


Drug-Free Schools Act


Drug-Free Workplace Act


Methamphetamine Reduction Act


Publication of Drug Offender Photographs Act


State Employee Drug-Free Workplace Act


Suspension of Professional Licenses Act


Treatment Center Accountability Act


Use of a Minor in Drug Operations Act


Workplace Drug Testing Act





Felons:


Conditional Post Conviction Release Act


Criminal Record Reporting Act


Electronic Home Detention Act


Habitual Violent Offender Incarceration Act


Intensive Probation Act





Firearms:


Concealed Carry True Reciprocity Act


Concealed Carry Outright Recognition Act


Consistency in Firearms Regulation Act


Criminal History Record Check for Firearm Sales Act


Defense of a Free Market and Public Safety Resolution


Emergency Powers Firearm Owner Protection Act


Resolution on Child Firearms Safety


Resolution on Firearms Purchase Waiting Periods


Resolution on the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution


Resolution on Semi-Automatic Firearms


Youth Firearm Safety Resolution





Juveniles :


Habitual Juvenile Offender Act


Juvenile Identification Act


Parental Accountability Act





Prisons :



Housing Out-of-State Prisoners in a Private Prison Act


Inmate Labor Disclosure Act


Prevention of Illegal Payments to Inmates Incentives Act


Prison Industries Act


Resolution on Prison Expenditures


Targeted Contracting for Certain Correctional Facilities and Services Act





Protecting Personal Information :



Personal Information Security Act


Resolution in Opposition to the REAL ID Act





Vehicular Misconduct/Enforcement:


Anti-Automated Enforcement Act


Automobile Theft Prevention Act


Drunk Driving Prevention Act


Ignition Interlock Device Act


Statement of Principles on Federally Mandated Blood Alcohol Levels


Suspension of Driving Privileges Act





Victims’ Rights:


Castle Doctrine Act


Constitutional Amendment for Victim’s Rights Act


Victim Impact Statement Act


Victim and Witness Address Confidentiality Act





Miscellaneous :




Comprehensive Asset Forfeiture Act


DNA Profiling Act


Prescription Non-Narcotic Assured Access Act


Resolution in Favor of Non-Bank Consumer Anti-Profiling Protection


School Violence Prevention Resolution


Underage Drinking Prevention and Enforcement Act


Zero Tolerance for Underage Access Act


http://www.alec.org/criminal-justice.html



Their always working on ways to throw more people in jail for the benefit of big business.

[Cobalt Violet]

21. I'd give you the details of these if I had $5000 to join.

These people are writing our laws.

[Marnieworld]

30. Your avatar is no surprise

I'm passionate about Gore but a Kucinich presidency or vice presidency would correct so much what is wrong in our country. He's called unelectable not because people (if they heard his positions and got to know him) wouldn't vote for him but the powers that be would never let it happen.

Department of Peace? Decriminalization of pot? Between the pharmaceuticals, private prison companies and contractors, lobbyists for law enforcement, Military and weapon manufacturers there is no way he'd survive a campaign (and I mean this literally). The media supresses him by ignoring him but if he ever got some steam they'd derail him as quickly as a Howard Dean Yeah-ahhhh!

It really is a war on people. They are robbing our treasury and exploiting the citizens for greed.

[Jonathan50]

63. Wow, good post

Nicely put together.

[Cobalt Violet]

65. Thanks,

It's a cut and paste right from their web site. All of those are links but you have to be a member to see the deatails of each one. Membership ranges from 5000-50,000; a little out of my budget. But many of those are familiar.

[LiberalEsto]

16. Free slave labor

The privatized prison industry makes profits on the work done by prisoners.

[Jonathan50]

18. Maybe this has something to do with it.

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Prison_System/CalifPrisonGuards.html


<i>In 1980 there were 22,500 prisoners in California. The average salary for California prison guards was $14,400 a year. The state budget for corrections was $300 million per year. In the past, California schools and universities were the envy of the world. The state's economy was strong, bolstered by huge numbers of defense jobs. CCPOA was a politically minuscule organization vying for attention among the giants of fat defense contractors.

By 1996 there were more than l40,000 prisoners in California. The average salary for California prison guards is $44,000 per year (well over $50,000 with benefits)-$ l 0,000 more than the average teacher's salary. Prison guards require only a high school education and a six week training course. Most teaching jobs require at least an undergraduate degree in education. In 1993 California spent a greater portion of its state budget on prisons than it did for education for the first time (compared to as recently as fiscal year 1983/84 when California spent 3.9 percent of its budget on its prison system, and 10 percent on higher education). The state corrections budget in 1994 was $3 billion. The demise of the Cold War meant the decline of defense jobs. According to the National Commission for Economic Conversion and Disarmament, a non-profit Washington D.C. group, there has been a decline of over 750,000 defense related jobs in the last five years alone-most of them in California. But as the military-industrial complex is waning in California, the prison-industrial complex is mushrooming. In this way California's wealth now comes not only from perpetuating the misery of millions of people around the world, but also from the rigidly enforced misery of thousands of its own citizens. Between 1984 and 1994 California added a whopping 25,900 prison employees, substantially more than were added to all other state departments combined (16,000). By one estimate, hiring for prisons has accounted for 45 percent of the growth in all California jobs in that ten year period.</i>

[Igel]

27. 1993 had huge budget cuts to education.

As an unfunded grad student and in student government, I watched the blood splatter (esp. bad at my school, since the chancellor assumed it was a one-year cut and took out a frigging short-term loan to cover the shortfall ... next year the cuts were worsened so he had to revise the budget to handle two-years' of cuts *and* pay back the loan).

It hit not only higher ed, but also K-12.

The intersection of sharply increasing corrections funding and shallower sloped education funding would have occurred a few years later otherwise.

But the problem is the cause occurs too many years after the effect. Now, I lover teleological arguments as much as the next paranoid, but this stretches credibility.

[wicket]

20. Incarcerating non-violent offenders

Thanks to the War on People (Drugs).

[demrabble]

22. Racism

The racists who run our country found a way to get powerful African-American males into cages.

[JHB]

23. The War on (some) Drugs

Nixon started the (current) notion of using the drug war for political ends: people who smoked pot did NOT vote for him and his party. And while the trend started before 1980, as you can see, it was Reagan who strapped rocketboosters to it.

[RaleighNCDUer]

24. That was when they began privatizing the prison "industry".

Before reading any other replies, I say this right off, as i've been saying for years. Establishing a profit motive results in increasing the scope of the industry to increase the profits.

All the drug-war, 3-strikes, mandatory minimum sentencing legislation of the past three decades has been promulgated by those who see profit in it for their industry - along with the side benefits of disenfranchising minorities, creating a permanent underclass to exploit and consolidating power in the right wing, all of which indirectly or directly support their industry as well.

[lectrobyte]

70. Yes. Follow the money.

[Jonathan50]

25. I didn't mean to start this thread and then abandon it.

But I have just been informed by she who must be obeyed that I'm going to be out for the rest of the day. :)

[mrreowwr_kittty]

26. Private prison industry n/t

[spanone]

28. Privatization of prisons....business is good. Have to keep the criminal rate up to bolster economy.

[blm]

35. That was my answer - plus - many states don't let felons VOTE.

.

[WinkyDink]

29. Disenfranchisement. PLUS the $$$ in private prisons. It's a win-win!

[goclark]

31. Yep ~ the $$$$'s talk. Have you watched MSNBC lately

Everyday they feature 2-3 hour long features on the Prisions.

It seems to me that they are pro prision.

[Cobalt Violet]

32. Plus private prisons lobby for new laws to lock up millions more.

Now they are being bailed out by locking up immigrants in prison like conditions. The end of "capture and release" and the beginning of 2000 bed mega detention centers.

[Richard Steele]

38. Saw a mid-'90s study; the most $$$ to "anti-drug" candidates came from the CONSRUCTION industry.

Things that make you go "hmmmmm".

[Cobalt Violet]

57. They're a big winner in the privatization of prisons.

And now with DHS building 2000+ bed Immigration Detention Centers things are looking good for them again.

[Laughing Mirror]

33. It will soon be 2.5 million on the inside

And half of that number will be black.

Lot of money to be made.

[cgrindley]

37. Increasing socioeconomic divide

between rich and poor. That and the collapse of the school system.

I guess it could also be the lack of discipline instilled in our youth from involuntary military service... I have yet to be treated disrespectfully by any current or former member of the armed forces. They might not agree with my politics, but they give me oodles of polite respect.

[noonwitch]

40. War on (some) Drugs

there are a whole lot of faulty WOD laws, passed during the public hysteria over crack in the 80s. Some of the laws punished those with crack at a much higher level than those convicted of powder cocaine possession. These are the kinds of problems that happen when congress passes a whole bunch of laws to deal with whatever the public is in a frenzy about, whether it's crack cocaine, child molestors or terrorism. They act quickly, without really thinking through the legislation's potential impact. It doesn't matter which party is in charge, they both do stupid things when pushed by a media that enjoys whipping up public frenzies.

[paparush]

41. Zero Tolerance Drug Laws - One strike and you're out....

[leftofthedial]

42. the "war" on drugs

the boom in the privatized prison industry

the evolution into a fascist police state

[nashville_brook]

44. there's money in them thar cells! here's a link to a decent article...

http://mediafilter.org/MFF/Prison.html

Prison Prlvateers
The growing private prisons industry-several dozen companies contracting with state entities to provide and/or operate jails or prisons-is oligopolistic in structure. CCA and Wackenhut Corrections Corporation dominate the upper tier, control more than half the industry's operations, and run 29 minimum- and medium-security facilities with more than 10,000 beds. Beneath the big two is a tier of lesser players: a cluster of smaller regional companies, such as Kentucky-based U.S. Corrections Corporation and Nashville-based Pricor; and small corrections divisions of international concerns, including construction giant Bechtel Corporation. The boom has created a shadier realm of speculators ready to turn a quick profit from the traffic in convicts. Compared to the big three, these smaller companies are undercapitalized, inexperienced, understaffed, and are more likely to fail eventually. Run by hucksters, fast-talking developers, and snake-oil salesmen, they sell for-profit prisons-disguised as economic development-to depressed rural communities desperate to bolster their budgets and local economies. The pitch is simple: Prisons are overcrowded! Build a prison and the prisoners will come to you! You'll reap the benefits in terms of jobs and increased tax revenues! Reality is a bit more complex. Quirks in the federal tax codes remove exemptions for prison bonds if more than ten percent of prisoners are out-of-state, if state prison officials are reluctant to have their prisoners housed out-of-state, or if large cities with severe overcrowding are unwilling or unable to pay to transport local prisoners hundreds of miles. In short in the trade in convict bodies, supply and demand don't always match. Prisons built on a speculative basis are a risky venture-at least for the towns or counties involved; the speculators take their money off the top.

Wackenhut
Historically, this bottom tier has been the locus of most of the publicized problems and abuses. But although these bottom feeders attract "60 Minutes"-style scandal of banal corruption, it is in the top tiers that the most serious potential for abuse exists. Wackenhut, founded by former FBI of ficial George Wackenhut in 1954, is the largest and best known, as well as the oldest and most diversified. From its beginnings as a small, well-connected private security firm, Wackenhut has grown to a global security conglomerate with earnings of $630.3 million in 1992. Prison management is only the latest addition to its panoply of security and related services. When the Coral Gables, Florida-based firm first entered the prison business in 1987, it had one 250-bed INS detention center. It now operates 11 facilities in five states housing nearly 5,500 prisoners. Wackenhut maintains two medium security prisons in Australia and boasts of "prospects for additional facilities in the U.S., South America, Europe, and the Pacific Rim.'' While some of its competitors in the private repression industry have specialized-Pinkerton and Burns, for example, lead the "rent-a-cop" field-Wackenhut tries to cover all the bases. Its 1991 revenues reflect its corporate diversity: The private security division contributed 43 per cent; the international division, 22 percent; airport security services, 15 percent; contracts to guard nuclear installations and Department of Energy facilities, 10 percent; and, last but not least, private corrections contributed 10 percent. Given the high rate of return in its corrections division-10 percent compared to 1.8 percent overall-Wackenhut has indicated that it wants to see that area grow.

Corrections Corporation of America
Its closest rival is CCA, which despite its youth and small size compared to the Wackenhut empire, has emerged as the pioneer and the industry leader. But unlike Wackenhut, CCA -like the second tier companies such as Pricor, U.S. Corrections, Concepts, Inc., and Correction Management Af filiates-is almost completely dependent on private imprisonment for its revenues. Founded in 1983 by the investors behind Kentucky Fried Chicken, CCA used the sales skills of Nashville banker/ financier Doctor R. Crants and the political connections of former Tennessee Republican Party chair Tom Beasley- co-founders of the company-to win early contracts. The next year, CCA cut its first big deals: to operate INS detention centers in Houston and Laredo, and to run the Silverdale Workhouse (Hamilton County prison farm) in its home state, Tennessee. In the next nine years, CCA grew steadily to become the industry leader, with 21 detention facilities hous ing more than 6,000 prisoners in six states, the U.K., and Australia. Its profits are up by nearly 50 percent from its 1991 end-of-the-year figures.

Pricor
Once number three behind CCA and Wackenhut, Pricor has taken a different tack from its competitors. It carved out a specialized niche within the private prison industry by convincing underused county jails in rural Texas that they could profit by accepting inmates from overcrowded national and statewide prisons. After cutting its corporate teeth on juvenile education and detention and halfway houses, expan sion into adult prisons must have seemed a natural step. In 1986, its first year of adult prison operations, Pricor opened minimum security detention facilities totaling 170 beds in Alabama and Virginia. By 1990, the company looked west to Texas, with its seemingly unending supply of prisoners and profits. Soon, it operated or had contracts pending for six 500-bed county "jails for hire," mainly in underbudgeted and underpopulated West Texas, and also with one 190-bed pre release center operated under contract with the Texas Department of Corrections. Although Pricor, fueled by its West Texas operations, posted fiscal 1991 revenues of more than $30 million for its adult corrections division, its Texas project was in shambles by mid-1992.

The Critiques ot Prison Prlvatlzatlon
Since the last round of prison privatization ended a century ago, a strong ethical and practical presumption has grown up that imprisonment should be solely a function of the state. The practical challenge centers around the material self interest of the various pro-privatization constituencies. There are two broad areas of concern: efficiency, i.e., can private operators be trusted to run prisons for less without sacrificing "quality of service"; and accountability, i.e., what oversight mechanisms will assure that society's interests come before those of the managing corporations. As to efficiency-leaving aside for a moment critical questions about what "efficiency" means in prison operations-three well-designed comparative studies found that private operators did run prisons more cheaply without sacrificing ''quality.'' Typically, the studies found, Wackenhut and CCA were able to provide cost savings of five to fifteen percent while still maintaining high marks for provision of services. Even in Texas, which has one of the lowest cost per prisoner rates, both Wackenhut and CCA came in cheaper. But what about "efficiency"? If the term means nothing more than the ability to house bodies cheaply while complying with minimal standards, then industry leaders, at least, appear to be efficient. Imprisonment, however, is generally acknowledged to include, at best, deterrence and rehabilitation, or at least, reduction of recidivism rates. While there is no definitive private-public comparative study on recidivism, the private prisons, as opposed to the state, have a direct conflict of interest. By reducing the number of repeat offenders, they are in effect reducing the supply of profit producing "customers." It is in the material interest of these companies, therefore, to produce not prisoners who have "paid their debt to society," but ones who will continue to pay and pay on the installment plan. The question of accountability is a legal sinkhole. Under U.S. Iaw, the state is subject to constitutional restraints that do not apply to private entities. With prisoners' rights already under attack from Congress and the federal courts, and with ambiguous case law on private versus public liability, some legal scholars are worried. They fear that privatized prisons place inmates in a legal limbo-caught in a grey area between the state and the private sector-unable to hold either answerable for infringements of their constitutional rights. Another accountability issue concerns monitoring. The profit-motive could cause private operations to cut corners; leading to poor or unsafe conditions. Privatization proponents argue that regulation and careful state monitoring of compliance will sufficiently protect inmates, but that contention must come as cold comfort to prisoners who have already felt the tender mercies of the state. The record so far, however, shows that compared to the murderous outbreaks in state penitentiaries, incidents of violence, riot, escape and the like have been relatively rare in the private prisons. Direct comparisons are problematic, however, as CCA's Leaven worth facility opened in 1992, is the first, and so far only, private sector institution to handle maximum-security inmates as its primary function.

[butterfly77]

45. Smoking weed, bank robbers,unemployment,...

no hope...

[Initech]

46. Three words: War on drugs

To quote Bill Hicks - "It's not a war on drugs, it's a war on personal freedoms."

[Xithras]

47. Nobody has mentioned the closure of the mental hospitals yet.

Reagan had a thing against the mentally ill. He pushed for the closure of government funded mental health facilities in California when he was the governor, and across the nation when he became president. As a result, millions of people with actual diagnosable (and often treatable) mental health issues were kicked out onto the street to fend for themselves. The vast majority of them reside on the streets or in prisons today.

At one time, everyone from pedophiles to kleptomaniacs, not to mention the manics and schizos, were placed in mental wards when they were caught. For some, the goal was treatment so they might rejoin society. For others, the goal was to simply provide them with a comfortable life while protecting they and society from each other. Nowadays, we just toss them in cages for a few years, and whine about recidivism rates.

[LiberalUprising]

48. The answer:

The Aristocracy of Prison Profits - The whistle has been blown!

by Catherine Austin Fitts


I made the decision to write “Dillon, Read & Co. Inc. and the Aristocracy of Prison Profits” while gardening at a community farm in Montana during the summer of 2005. I had come to Montana to prototype Solari Investor Circles, private investment partnerships that practice financial intimacy — investing in people and products that we or our network know and trust. If we want clean water, fresh food, sustainable infrastructure, sound banks, lawful companies and healthy communities, we are going to have to finance and govern these resources ourselves. We cannot invest in the stocks and bonds of large corporations and governments that are harming our food, water, environment and all living things and then expect these resources to be available when we need them. Nor can we deposit and do business with the banks that are bankrupting our government and economy. ....

It details the story of two teams with two competing visions for America. The first was a vision shared by my old firm on Wall Street — Dillon Read — and the Clinton Administration with the full support of a bipartisan Congress. In this vision, America's aristocracy makes money by ensnaring our youth in a pincer movement of drugs and prisons and wins middle class support for these policies through a steady and growing stream of government funding, contracts for War on Drugs activities at federal, state and local levels and related stock profits.....

....The second vision was shared by my investment bank in Washington — The Hamilton Securities Group — and a small group of excellent government employees and leaders who believed in the power of education, hard work and a new partnership between people, land and technology. This vision would allow us to pay down public and private debt and create new business, infrastructure and equity. We believed that new times and new technologies called for a revival that would permit decentralized efforts to go to work on the hard challenges upon us — population, environment, resource management and the rapidly growing cultural gap between the most technologically proficient and the majority of people.

My hope is that “Dillon, Read & the Aristocracy of Prison Profits” will help you to see the game sufficiently to recognize the dividing line between two visions. One centralizes power and knowledge in a manner that tears down communities and infrastructure as it dominates wealth and shrinks freedom. The other diversifies power and knowledge to create new wealth through rebuilding infrastructure and communities and nourishing our natural resources in a way that reaffirms our ancient and deepest dream of freedom.

My hope is that as your powers grow to see the financial game and the true dividing lines, you will be better able to build networks of authentic people inventing authentic solutions to the real challenges we face. My hope is that you will no longer invite into your lives and work the people and organizations that sabotage real change. If enough of us come clean and hold true to the intention to transform the game, we invite in the magic that comes in dangerous times.


http://sensiblyeclectic.com/news/index.php/mainsite/2007/03/10/dillon_read_aamp_co_inc

[nolabels]

68. That seems to be largest part of the answer to be sure

Q.How do you know when your country has become a fascist state?
A.When they can't build the prisons fast enough

Too bad they are not locking up all them white collar criminals because that is were the real problem comes into play :shrug:

[porphyrian]

49. The "war on drugs" is definitely a winner. - n/t

[ellisonz]

50. Fear of the Black Male Voter...

[Cobalt Violet]

59. 4,919 per 100,000 Black males in prison.

South Africa under apartheid (1993), Black males: 851 per 100,000

U.S. under George Bush (2004), Black males: 4,919 per 100,000

[ellisonz]

61. 25% of black males have served time in prison. Last time I checked convicted felons couldn't vote.

And there's no sign we're changing course...

It's a form of marginalization and has the same function that exile does in the political system in terms of sapping the political life out of the community.

[qwlauren35]

72. Voting rights differ by state.

In NC for example, it's at the end of probation. In MD, I think there's a waiting period. (I could have these backwards.)

I think it's a permanent loss of rights in Florida.

[Joanne98]

51. The answer is here,....

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x395417

[Cobalt Violet]

67. Absolutely!

:hi:

[benEzra]

52. Escalation of the war on non-approved herbs... (n/t)

[tblue37]

53. War on Drugs and mandatory sentencing. (eom)

[Nutmegger]

54. They don't call it the Prison Industrial Complex for nothing.

There's tons of green to be made out there.

[Rex]

55. Incarceration of non-violent drug offenders.

The BFEE's war on the working class.

[ulysses]

58. drug war. also,

the war on drugs. That, too.

[baldguy]

62. Private prisons.

[Selatius]

64. Poverty became worse after Reagan started dismantling social programs.

Also, the War on Drugs claimed its fair share of victims. Nevermind the fact that the CIA made a profit off crack and heroin trade to partially finance its clandestine operations.

[liberal hypnotist]

69. Economic trends and prison industry

Unemployment is highest in urban minority communities. Six weeks after all unemployment benefits are exhausted an individual drops off the unemployment index. Not working but not counted. Sell drugs fill prisons. Good for unemployment numbers-good for prison industry.

[MrSlayer]

71. Escalation of the ludicrous "war on drugs" plus the introduction of "Crack".

The drug war had a major upswing in the Eighties due to the introduction of Crack to society. Crack lead to the Crips and Bloods and their ilk all over the country to graduate from half loaded Saturday Night Specials to crateloads of AK-47s. And at the same time put tons of people, mostly poor, otherwise law abiding citizens, into the position of dealing. Prostitution also went through the roof due to crack, to the point where the old school Pimps and Hos were forced out of business. Not that we're crying any tears for the Pimps or anything but it's an example of just how many "Ladies of the Night" flooded the market. Casual murder, burglaries and the like all rose too as if all of the underground society became a quasi-Mafia on, well, on crack. Imagine Don Vito with a glass dick in his hand and Sonny just got hit. But I digress.

Almost none of that shit would have happened if drugs were legal. The war on drugs has done nothing but create criminals out of regular people and that's the way they want it. They bring a good bit of it in, let's not fool ourselves about it, they sell it, they bust you and fine you for it, they steal your property over it, they imprison you for it and then they sell the shit they "seized" and start all over again. They generate way more money from it being illegal than they would even if it were taxed and regulated.

So many of the prisoners in the system are in for simple possession or selling small amounts of pot it's ridiculous. Basically, crack and the ludicrous crackdown on marijuana are the reasons for the huge increase in inmate population.

Edit: double word.

[Blackhatjack]

73. Early 70s ushered in jail for 'victimless crimes' especially war on drugs...

With the election of Reagan we got 'mandatory minimum sentencing' guidelines that reduced the options available to judges to use their discretion to craft appropriate sentences.

With the war on drugs, one factor that ratcheted up drug arrests was the 'revenue sharing agreements' between the Feds and the state and local police, which allowed the state and local police to 'keep a portion of the drugs, money, and property seized' in drug cases. Many local police departments changed their focus to drug interdiction to grab a piece of the seizure spoils.

Then the politicians realized that this was an issue that played well to a population fearful of crime from massive overexposure of individual crimes by the MSM.

Privatization came into play, money was injected to get prisons built and operated.

It all has resulted in a massive upward rise in total incarceration numbers.

What has never been refuted is that for every dollar spent on drug treatment there is a benefit of many times that amount in incarceration costs to the government. Same for probation officiers and alternative sentencing. But then there would be no political benefit, nor profit to corporations that build and run prisons.

[shield20]

74. War on Drugs. Prohibition was same...

The highest murder rates in this country coincide EXACTLY with prohibition, and the high-point of the war on drugs. That's the result of trying to control behavior by outlawing objects. The amount of 15-25 year olds in the general population is also a great indicator of crime rates.

This is one of the best arguments against a total gun ban - crime, violent crime, organized crime, illegal use, etc. in relations to arms will INCREASE, as no such prohibition has EVER reduced criminal involvment or illegal access to the object being banned.

[eShirl]

75. War on Drugs, the foot in the door of losing our Constitutional rights (n/t)

[shield20]

76. Unfortunely, 60-80% of violent criminals are drug related, or

What's worse then those IN JAIL, is that most violent offenders had serious criminal histories - one fifth of offenders had been arrested for a prior violent offense, and three-fifths had a history of drug charges. A large percentage of offenders AND victims were 15-21 years of age.

[Blackhatjack]

77. But the great majority of drug users incarcerated have never committed a violent crime...

We are paying over $24,000/yr to incarcerate low level users of illicit drugs because of mandatory minimum sentencing guidelines, which leads to prison overcrowding and many violent offenders are either not incarcerated or released early because of the beds taken up by the non-violent drug users caught up in the mandatory minimum sentencing frenzy.

[shield20]

78. GREAT INFO! Thanks! nt

[mdmc]

80. Dems love their drug war

heckuvajob!