Modern Day Slavery, its back.
I have often written here on the injustices of the drug war and the penal system here in the USA. In Discuss Detroit under the thread Big Weed Bust some of us got off track talking about the drug war and the issue of modern day slavery.
I'm starting this thread because Big Weed Bust is not the right name for what we are talking about. I'd like to see a bigger discussion.
compn
http://www.detroityes.com/mb/images/...er-offline.pnglegalize it, stop wasting tax dollars and police resources on this crap.http://www.detroityes.com/mb/images/icons/icon1.png
the crime labs cant even test rape kits because theres so many drug cases?
courts are full of posession cases.
jails are full of non violent posession probation violations, they let murderers and rapists out on tether.
prohibition hasnt ended drugs, only made the cartels and gangs stronger.
kids can get drugs easier than tobacco / alcohol.
drug war has failed.
old guy.
July-12-1
Here's some info on the privatization of prisons.
The U.S. has the world's highest incarceration rate, with 2.2 million people, or nearly 1 in 100 behind bars. Rising immigration detentions and the disastrous "war on drugs"have helped push inmate numbers to record highs in recent decades. While this growing, largely nonviolent population has stretched federal and state prisons and budgets past their limits, the prison industrial complex has eagerly expanded to accomodate — and anticipate — new masses of inmates.
Corrections Corporation of America [[CCA), now the nation's largest private prison company, was founded just over 30 years ago in Nashville. Since then, it has become a multi-billion-dollar-a-year business with more than 60 facilities across the country. Meanwhile, the U.S. prison population has grown 500 percent.
A look at the CCA's annual shareholder reports over the past few years shows an aggressive business strategy based on building prison beds, or buying them off the government, and contracting them to government authorities — sometimes with decades-long contacts mandating minimum occupancy rates as high as 90 percent. Profits, after lining the pockets of shareholders, are used to create more beds and to lobby state and federal agencies to deliver inmates to fill them. The resulting facilities can be violent and disgusting.
CCA is currently building 10,000 new beds to meet expected demand.
The amazing part of that article is that for CCA to sign a contract to buy or lease a prison, they insist on a minimum occupancy rate for the length of the contract. What does that tell you?
We continue to benefit from a positive environment where the need for prison beds should exceed supply for the foreseeable future.
– CCA 2005 Annual Report
Our compensated man-days, or the number of days we are compensated for the occupancy of one inmate, rose 7.4% to 24.9 million compared with 23.2 million compensated man-days in 2005. The increase in man-days resulted in substantial revenue growth, excellent cash flow growth and strong earnings growth during 2006.
– CCA 2006 Annual Report
Historically, we have been successful in substantially filling our inventory of available beds and the beds that we have constructed. Filling these available beds would provide substantial growth in revenues, cash flow, and earnings per share.
– CCA 2010 Annual Report
We believe we have been successful in increasing the number of residents in our care and continue to pursue a number of initiatives intended to further increase our occupancy and revenue.
– CCA 2010 Annual Report
Any changes with respect to drugs and controlled substances or illegal immigration could affect the number of persons arrested, convicted, and sentenced, thereby potentially reducing demand for correctional facilities to house them.
– CCA 2010 Annual Report
Prison facilities consist primarily of concrete and steel and don’t require the level of capital improvements as many traditional real estate properties. Therefore, prison facilities typically have economic lives much longer than many traditional real estate properties.
– CCA 2013 Annual Letter to Shareholders
We are compensated for operating and managing facilities at an inmate per diem rate based upon actual or minimum guaranteed occupancy levels.
– 2009 CCA Annual Report
A recent study released by the Pew Charitable Trust indicates that one in every 100 U.S. adults are in prison or in jail. With the U.S. population estimated to grow by more than 18.5 million between 2007 and 2015, about 20,000 prisoners per year will be added to the system over the next seven years if historical trends in incarceration rates continue.
– CCA 2008 Annual Report
Our primary business strategy is to provide quality corrections services, offer a compelling value, and increase occupancy and revenue, while maintaining our position as the leading owner, operator, and manager of privatized correctional and detention facilities.
– CCA 2011 Annual Report
I strongly believe that the current penal system is becoming our new world of modern day slavery. As so many jobs went overseas to places like China where labor was too cheap to ignore we can now provide cheap labor for ourselves using prison labor. Most of our imprisoned countrymen and women are now considered cheap labor and for non violent offenses, drug crimes being the main supplier of laborers behind bars.
What do you think? Id love to tussle.
Despite Widespread Juvenile Abuse, Private Juvenile Jail Firm Expands Empire
Quote:
We look at a major new investigation into how Youth Services International, a private prison company that runs juvenile detention centers, is rapidly expanding its services, despite a record of abuse and neglect over the past 25 years. Despite allegations that include the neglect and abuse of young prisoners and the bribing of public officials to win contracts, Youth Services International has expanded its contracts to operate juvenile prisons in several states. More than 40,000 boys and girls in 16 states have gone through its facilities in the past two decades. This comes as nearly 40 percent of all detained juveniles are now committed to private facilities, and in Florida, it is 100 percent. We are joined by Chris Kirkham, business reporter at The Huffington Post, where he has just published his new two-part investigative series, "Prisoners of Profit: Private Prison Empire Rises Despite Startling Record of Juvenile Abuse." Kirkham explains: "When oversight is not as strong as it can be, companies are only going to be incentivized to do what the government that's paying them makes them do. And so in these cases if the oversight is lacking, if there is not constant monitoring, I think there is an incentive to cut costs and services."
"...the convictions of the two judges and their current incarceration..." Now there's a phrase seldomly heard.
Corporations Reap Billions from Mass Incarceration
Quote:
New campaign exposes the companies that profit off prisoners.
Multiple Anal Probes, Forced Defecation For Stop Sign Violation
Quote:
"A New Mexico man has filed a federal lawsuit claiming authorities subjected him to eight anal probes including enemas and a colonoscopy after a routine traffic stop.
David Eckert claims his nightmare began on Jan. 2, when he pulled out of a Deming Walmart and failed to make a complete stop at a parking lot sign. He was stopped by traffic police.
His attorney, Shannon Kennedy, said officers told him he appeared to be "clinching his buttocks" and suspected he was carrying drugs in his rectum.".* Cenk Uygur, comedian Dave Rubin [[The Rubin Report) and comedian Jimmy Dore [[TYT Comedy) break it down on The Young Turks.
Festival of Dangerous Ideas 2013: David Simon - Some People are More Equal than Other
Total duration 80 minutes:
Quote:
There are two Americas. In one, bankers get golden parachutes, insider traders return to society as well-paid consultants, and influence is for sale. In the other, opportunity is scarce and forgiveness scarcer, jail awaits those caught possessing recreational drugs, and cries for help are ignored. Society preaches forgiveness for the rich and retribution for the poor. Entrenched inequality and its companion, poverty, are the dark side of the American dream for a citizenry united by name, but not by rules.
Is the divide fair, the result of natural winners and losers, or is it built into the system? We know that inequality is bad for the rich as well as the poor, and that more equal countries are healthier and happier, but this knowledge won't bring change by itself. What can be done when those with the power to change the divide are those that benefit most from it? As long as the more equal won't let go, the less equal will suffer.
From his journalist days on the crime beat through to his work on shows like The Wire and Treme, David Simon has brought the divide between these two America's to life like no other. Simon looks at the oppressed, the victims of manmade disasters such as the war on drugs through to natural disaster such as Hurricane Katrina, and forces us to ask whether the fictional stories he shows us on screen are any less real than the theatre of compassion we see on the news from the very same people who have the power to treat all citizens equally but choose not to.
David Simon is a journalist, author, and television writer/producer best known as the creator and showrunner of HBO series The Wire and Treme. He spent twelve years on the crime beat for the Baltimore Sun. He also worked on the adaptations of his books Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets and The Corner: A Year in the Life of an Inner-City Neighborhood for NBC and HBO respectively.
Chair: Michael Williams is the director of Melbourne's The Wheeler Centre. He worked in publishing and radio broadcasting before joining The Wheeler Centre as programming director at the Centre's inception, helping nurture it into a culturally significant institution.
This is Crazy: Criminalizing Mental Health
Total duration 23 minutes:
Quote:
America is “treating” mental illness through incarceration - and the price we are paying both in dollars and human capital is enormous. This is Crazy: Criminalizing Mental Health focuses on the problems with criminalizing mental health told through first-hand accounts. SIGN THE PETITION:
Mental health needs to be treated, not criminalized!
Immigrants for Sale • FULL DOCUMENTARY • BRAVE NEW FILMS
Total duration 33 minutes:
Quote:
The detention of migrants has become a multi-billion dollar industry in which immigrants are sold to the highest bidder and traded like mere products. The Corrections Corporation of America, The Geo Group, and the Management and Training Corporation run over 200 facilities all over the nation. These facilities offer over 150,000 bed spaces and rake in a total profit of close to five billion dollars per year. The fact that these detention centers get paid for the number of people that are in the center per night offers, therefore, no incentive to speed up the legal processes and let the detainees leave the facility.
