THE PRISON INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX! WHO PROFITS?
The Federal Bureau of Prisons was established in 1930 to purportedly provide more progressive and humane care for federal inmates. But let’s be real, what is the Federal Bureau of Prisons really about? Well, the Federal Prison Industries, also known as UNICOR and FPI, is a wholly owned United States government corporation created in 1934 that uses penal labor from the Federal Bureau of Prisons to produce goods and services. You know it’s a bad thing when the penal system is backed by and operated by private companies solely for the interest of profit.
Incarceration rates for black Americans dropped from 2000 to 2009, but in 2009 black men were still 6.4 times as likely to be incarcerated as white men. Black inmates now account for about 38 percent of all inmates in state and federal prisons, while white inmates account for 34 percent. The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world, and the largest inmate population. In 2010, drug offenders made up 51 percent of the federal prison population, and the increase in time served by drug offenders accounted for a third of the total federal prison population growth from 1998 to 2010.
There are 2.3 million inmates in the U.S., at a cost of $55 billion a year to the federal government. Some 218,000 inmates are in federal prisons, with an average minimum-security cost of $21,000 annually. The Obama administration requested $6.9 billion for the Bureau of Prisons in fiscal 2013. At the same time, the private prison industry has boomed, growing by 1,600 percent between 1990 and 2010 and bringing in about $3 billion in annual revenue.
So, what can be done? Two bipartisan members of Congress recently put forward an idea: Change the name of the Bureau of Prisons to the Bureau of Corrections.
It’s a damn shame that the federal government is profiting off the prison labor under the guise of deterring crime. Like most so-called foes that the United States government creates to instill fear, the defendant in courtrooms across America are made out to be monsters and the source of the economy collapsing. Unfortunately, what it all boils down to is, “Dollars & Cents”.
The Ugly Truth is that the, “PRISON INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX” we’ve come to know as (The Criminal Justice System) profits more when individuals are committed to prison rather than establish meaningful alternatives for first-time, low level option.
Think about this for a moment. Why is it that the state prison system is bursting at the seams? Yet, the Federal Government continue to create more statutes to throw people in prison. In Sacamento California Under the court order, the state must reduce the population in its 33 adult prisons to about 110,000 inmates by year’s end to improve the treatment of sick and mentally ill inmates. The state is preparing to appeal, but the U.S. Supreme Court already has upheld the decision once. Released January 12th, 2014, in the Hoff Post. Now call me crazy but why is the United States Courts ordering the state to reduce it’s prison population while the Bureau of Prisons swells to a whooping 39% over capacity. It has also been reported by the Union that 14 prison workers have been assaulted this year with weapons and another 45 were assaulted by unarmed inmates.
The way I see it, before anyone stands up and says something about this travesty I’m afraid it will be too late. Don’t scream when the governments over reaching hand grabs you are someone you care about before you get involved. Statistic show that 1% of the adult population in America are in prison. Until we decide to do something about this injustice there is a chance that you may end up staring at your fears from the opposite side of the fence. This is Maestro.
