Torture in US Prisons

"The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons."

Fedor Dostoevski

by Stephen Lendman

In March 2005, a UK Deborah Davis Channel 4 report titled, "Torture, Inc., America's Brutal Prisons" highlighted the horrors, including prisoners savaged by dogs, brutally shocked with cattle prods, burned by toxic chemicals, harmed by stun guns, beaten, stripped naked and abused in various other ways. Sound familiar? Welcome to mainland Guantanamo.

"It's terrible to watch some of the videos," witnessing torture, at times resulting in death. Routinely, guards yell at and abuse prisoners, "ordering them to lie on the ground and crawl." If they don't "drop to the ground fast enough, a guard kicks him or stomps on his back." Another man screams when a dog bit his lower leg.

One other has a broken ankle, can't crawl fast enough so gets jabbed with a stun gun on his buttocks. Hours later his whole body still shakes. Men line up across the cellblock, guards standing over them shouting, prodding, kicking, and beating, their humiliation captured on video. The images are horrifyingly brutal, reminders of Guantanamo and Baghdad's Abu Ghraib. They're as commonplace in America, but unreported except by Channel 4 UK, calling it "wholesale torture taking place inside the US prison system," uncovered by a four-month investigation, not based on rumor or suspicion. Throughout America, videos and other solid evidence confirm it, what US major media reports won't reveal.

In most states, prison regulations mandate that guards videotape "use of force operations" like cell searches, in theory to show proper procedures were used. Most often, they reveal otherwise, clear evidence of inmate abuses - "a shocking insight into the reality of life inside" US prisons. Even the best of them are harsh, the worst hellish, Davis explaining that videos are "terrible" to watch, saying:

"you're not only seeing torture in action but, in the most extreme cases, you are witnessing young men dying. In one horrible scene, a naked man, passive and vacant, is seen being led out of his cell by prison guards. They strap him into a medieval-looking device called a 'restraint chair.' His hands and feet are shackled. There's a strap across his chest. His head rolls forward. He looks dead. He's not. Not yet."

He's being punished for having a pillowcase on his head in his cell and refusing to remove it. Why? He has a long history of schizophrenia, yet he's restrained for 16 hours. Two hours later, "he dies from a blood clot resulting from his barbaric treatment....We found 20 (other cases of) prisoners who've died in the past few years" after being brutally restrained, what American media won't report.

Two deaths were in Phoenix, AR county jail, run by "America's Toughest Sheriff," Joe Arpaio. "You don't want to be fettered in one of Sheriff Joe's jails." His toughness often ends tragically.

In one tape, nine deputies manhandle Charles Agster, a tiny man, a mentally disturbed drug user, arrested for disturbing the peace. Restrained in a chair, one deputy kneeled on his stomach, "pushing his head forward on to his knees and pulling his arms back to strap his wrists to the chair. Bending someone double for any length of time" can cause "positional asphyxia."

After 15 minutes, he's unconscious. He's already brain dead. Hospitalized, he expired three days later.

Another tape showed guards severely beating a man, Scott Norberg, including Tasering him 19 times and forcing him into a restraint chair. He suffocated.

Other inmates suffered similar abuse, including beatings causing broken bones, a broken neck, and internal injuries. One man died from septicaemia (blood poisoning) after a month in a coma.

In some tapes, sounds are as "unbearable" as images, a Florida prison one showing an inmate lying on a hospital examination table, guards ordering him to get into a wheelchair. "I can't, I can't," he shouts. "It hurts," after which he's Tasered on both hips, screams, but still can't get into the wheelchair.

Guards force him into it, bend his legs painfully, the man shrieking in agony. His lawyer said he's mentally impaired, has a back injury, can't walk, or bend his legs without intense pain. Yet guards try to make him stand and hold a walker. "He falls on the floor, crying in agony." He's Tasered again, lying there out of breath and energy, just moaning.

Other tapes show prisoners handcuffed, brutally beaten, kicked in the head, Tasered, while other guards "just stand around and watch." Photographs collected were also horrific, showing prisoners doused with pepper spray, "then left to cook in the burning fog of chemicals." one image revealed a man with "a huge patch of raw skin over his hip." Another is covered in an angry rash across his neck, back and arms. A third has deep burns on his buttocks.

"Fire extinguisher" sized pepper spray canisters are used, at times inflicting second degree burns all over prisoners' bodies. For those targeted, "The tell-tale sign is they turn off the ventilation fans in the unit," and shove cardboard in door cracks to make units air-tight.

On man on death row for killing a prison guard was brutally beaten to death. He began writing to Florida newspapers about prison brutality and corruption. "So a gang of guards stormed into his cell to shut him up. They broke almost every one of his ribs, punctured his lung, smashed his spleen and left him to die."

Several guards later tried for murder were acquitted. The warden was promoted to head of all Florida prisons. The few guards willing to discuss what goes on have a "siege mentality. They see themselves outnumbered, surrounded by dangerous, violent criminals, so they back each other up, no matter what....it solidifies into a general climate of acceptance among the many." Even decent staff do their best under hard circumstances. Ratting means getting themselves in trouble, maybe abused or fired.

As for inmates, "the notion of rehabilitation has been almost lost. The focus is entirely on punishment," the harsher the better based on examples like the above. They're not the exception. They're more the rule in federal, state and local prisons.

Davis said contact was maintained with families and prisoner rights groups. As a result, "Every single day come more emails full of fresh horror stories," showing inmate treatment domestically like at Guantanamo and other torture prisons, guards brutalizing them with impunity.

"Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo - or even Texas. The prisoners and all guards may vary, but the abuse is still too familiar," one of many of America's dirty secrets.

America's Gulag - The World's Largest Prison Population

On December 8, 2009, US Justice Department Bureau of Justice Statistics reported over 2.4 million imprisoned Americans at yearend 2008. They include inmates in federal and state facilities, local jails, Indian, juvenile, and military ones, US territories, and numbers held by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

In addition, another 7.3 million are under correctional supervision, and 13 million pass through US prisons and jails annually. Half are for non-violent offenses. Half of those are drug-related. In 1980, 40,000 drug offenders were imprisoned. Today, it's over 500,000 because of the "war on drugs," that's part of the war on civil liberties.

Since 1970, America's prison population grew eightfold, not for more crime, for getting "tough" on it against more people getting longer sentences under extremely harsh conditions. Recent Center for Economic Policy Research figures compare America's incarceration rate per 100,000 population with other OECD countries in 2008/2009, showing the following:

-- Iceland 44

-- Japan 63

-- Denmark 66

-- Finland 67

-- Norway 70

-- Sweden 74

-- Switzerland 76

-- Ireland 85

-- Germany 90

-- Italy 92

-- Belgium 94

-- France 96

-- South Korea 97

-- Austria 98

-- Netherland 100

-- Portugal 104

-- Greece 109

-- Canada 116

-- Australia 134

-- Slovakia 151

-- Hungary 152

-- England and Wales 153

-- Luxembourg 155

-- Turkey 161

-- Spain 162

-- New Zealand 197

-- Czech Republic 206

-- Mexico 209

-- Poland 224

-- America 753 - the highest percentage in the world, higher than Russia at 629, and a total prison population four times China's with its fourfold higher population.

Worse still, America's incarceration rate from 1880 through 1980 held steady for over 100 years. It then skyrocketed over the past 30 while crime rates stabilized or fell - a shocking indictment of a criminally unjust system, filling beds for the prison-industrial complex, around 8% in prisons-for-profit, the population comprised of two-thirds Blacks and Latinos.

They're victimized by get tough on crime policies, racist drug laws, mandatory minimums, one size fits all, three strikes and you're out, a guilty unless proved innocent mentality, being in America undocumented, and Muslims for their faith, ethnicity, prominence, or charity to the wrong recipients, those unjustly called terrorists.

Sexual Abuse and Treatment of Women

About 200,000 women are incarcerated in US federal, state, local and immigrant detention prisons, nearly 10% of America's prison population. In its Fact Sheet - Sexual Assault and Misconduct Against Women in Prison, Amnesty International (AI) explained that:

"The imbalance of power between inmates and guards involves the use of direct physical force and indirect force based on the prisoner's total dependency on officers for basic necessities and the guards' ability to withhold privileges. Some women are coerced into sex for favors such as extra food or personal hygiene products, or to avoid punishment."

Daily they're affected by:

Powerlessness and Humiliation:

Male guards and other prison officials abuse women by rape, other sexual assault, sexual extortion, and random body searches. They also watch them undress, take showers or use toilets. Women who complain face brutal recrimination.

Retaliation and Fear:

Guards use inmates' personal history files, including prior complaints, to enforce silence by threatening visitation rights, other privileges and at times punishment.

Impunity:

Abuses go unpunished by ignoring them, guilty guards and officials transferred to other facilities, or inmates relocated instead.

Blame the Victim:

Like men, women are victimized by the war on drugs, especially those of color.

Medical Neglect:

Women are denied essential resources and treatment, especially reproductive care when pregnant, or for treatable diseases. Also for chronic and degenerative ones, exacerbating them as a result. The common attitude is they're prisoners. Who cares!

In addition, few qualified staff means long delays and inferior treatment, compounded by overall indifference. Other problems include facilities charging inmates, shackling during treatment, not addressing substance abuse, and inadequate mental health services. Prisoners have no rights whatever, staff given impunity to abuse them freely.

Discrimination Based on Race:

Black women are eight or more times likely than Caucasians to be imprisoned, their numbers comprising about half the female population, mostly for drug-related or other nonviolent offenses.

Latina women experience four times the incarceration rate as whites. State and federal laws mandate minimum sentences for all drug "offenders," eliminating judicial discretion to excuse first-timers or refer others to counseling or other non-punitive programs.

Further, crack cocaine is the only illegal substance mandating prison for first time possession, disproportionately affecting Blacks, their common drug of choice.

Simple first-time powder cocaine possession is a misdemeanor, punishable at most up to one year in prison. For crack, however, it's five years, Blacks accounting for 84% of convictions in 2000, Hispanics 9% and Whites 6%.

Discrimination Based on Sexual Orientation:

Juror perceptions are especially biased against gay, lesbian or transgender defendants, compounded during imprisonment when guards and officials act more abusively against a perceived lifestyle they reject.

All inmates are powerless, women most of all, making them especially vulnerable to abuse, including rape and other forms of sexual assault, despite federal and state laws criminalizing forced or nonconsensual acts. Yet they repeatedly happen, many unreported for fear of recrimination or inability to provide proof. Other times out of shame or expectation that charges will be scoffed at.

In addition, women at times reporting them are isolated, ostensibly for safety, but the effect takes a physical and emotional toll. According to Deborah Golden, staff attorney for the DC Prisoners' Project of the Washington Lawyer' Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs, many women don't view sex as an abuse. Most experienced sexual and other physical mistreatment before prison, reports Sarah From, Women's Prison Association public policy director.

In 2004, AI reported nearly 2,300 sexual abuse cases against men and women, the true totals far higher according to experts believing the problem is systemic and growing.

According to a 2007 Bureau of Justice Statistics report titled, "Sexual Victimization in State and Federal Prisons Reported by (male and female) Inmates," 4.5% of prisoners (108,000) reported being abused in the past year - also grossly understated because most incidents aren't reported. In addition, they're equally common against men and women, Human Right Watch saying at least 140,000 males are raped during incarceration.

In her 2006 paper titled, "Sexual abuse of women in United States prisons: a modern corollary of slavery," Brenda Smith compared the similarities, explaining that custody is the common thread even though, unlike slaves, prisoners ostensibly have rights under Eighth Amendment protections against cruel and unusual punishment, the Thirteenth Amendment outlawing slavery and involuntary servitude, and US law.

Abuse, however, remains unchecked, Angela Davis calling prison rape "an institutionalized component of punishment behind prison walls," men, women, and children victimized. Further, they're almost never provided mental health services to handle trauma, nor are guards given proper training or mandates to prevent sex crimes in the first place. This issue was addressed by the 2003 Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA), the first federal law regarding sexual assault on prisoners, aiming to curb it through a "zero-tolerance" policy, as well as research and information gathering.

It calls for developing national standards to prevent, detect, reduce and punish sexual assault, making data on them more available to administrators, and holding officials and guards more accountable for their actions. But laws without enforcement are hollow, prisoner rights historically America's lowest priority. Those incarcerated are society's most abused and mistreated, especially vulnerable women out of sight behind bars.

Male Rape in Prison

Against women or men, rape inflicts pain and suffering. As a result, human rights and humanitarian groups as well as international courts now recognize it as torture. Most US states define it as forced, nonconsensual sex. California's law mirrors others saying:

It's sexual intercourse carried out "against a person's will by means of force, violence, duress, menace, or fear of immediate and unlawful bodily injury on the person or another." It's also when "the perpetrator threatens to use public authority to imprison, arrest, (otherwise punish), or deport the victim or another, and the victim reasonably believes the perpetrator is a public official."

This article focuses on torture against men and women, inflicted by prison guards and officials. Male rape is generally inmate-on-inmate. As a result, the topic is covered briefly, very much deserving detailed discussion in a separate article.

In April 2001, Human Rights Watch (HRW) published a report titled, "No Escape: Male Rape in US Prisons," citing studies showing about one in five men raped at least once during confinement. Documenting it with dozens of first-and accounts, HRW explained its long-lasting effects, including depression, PTSD, and HIV-AIDS, one victim saying:

"I remained in shock and paralyzed in thought for two days until I was able to muster the courage to report it. This is the most dreadful and horrifying experience of my life."

According to HRW, "Rape is not an inevitable consequence of prison life, but it certainly is a predictable one if little is done to prevent it and punish it." Indifference to prisoner rights perpetuates it against vulnerable men, women and children.

Prolonged Isolated Confinement

A previous article addressed it, accessed through the following link:

http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2010/04/harmful-effects-of-prolonged-isolated.html

In Supermax and other prisons, inmates compare long-term isolation to being buried alive. It also contributes to anti-social behavior and mental illness, experts saying punitive sensory deprivation changes behavior for the worst by crushing the human spirit, mind and body. Yet 80,000 or more Americans languish in isolation in US federal, state and local prisons. Over time, living in windowless cells with no human contact for 23 hours a day causes:

-- severe anxiety;

-- panic attacks;

-- lethargy;

-- insomnia;

-- nightmares;

-- dizziness;

-- irrational anger, at times uncontrollable;

-- confusion;

-- social withdrawal;

-- memory loss;

-- delusions and hallucinations;

-- mutilations;

-- profound despair and hopelessness;

-- suicidal thoughts;

-- paranoia; and

-- for many, a totally dysfunctional state and inability ever to live normally outside of confinement.

A Final Comment

An earlier article discussed "Torture As Official US Policy," accessed through the following link:

http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2008/07/torture-as-official-us-policy.html

It addressed post-9/11 Bush administration policies in prisons like Guantanamo and others abroad, explaining the systemic use of prohibited interrogation practices, excluding only those causing organ failure.

Legalized restraints remain ignored, permitting cruel and unusual punishment. Yet it routinely occurs domestically, out of sight and mind behind bars, many nonviolent and innocent inmates brutalized and forever affected.

The Sentencing Project.org says America's criminal justice system "fall(s) short of meeting its international human rights obligations," in accordance with established international law. Systemic prison torture is the clearest example.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.

http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/

7.3 million in the US prison system

From ThePeoplesVoice.org:

7.3 million in the US prison system

Link: http://wsws.org/articles/2009/mar2009/pris-m04.shtml

A study released this week by the Pew Center on the States delivers a staggering statistic: 7.3 million Americans - or 1 in every 31 adults - are in the nation's prison system. This figure includes those in US jails and prisons, on parole, on probation, or under other forms of correctional supervision. No other country comes close to matching this number. If these individuals were grouped together, they would number more than the entire populations of Israel or Honduras, or all of the residents of Washington state.

The USA is fundamentally uncivilized

The great Russian author Dostoevsky once wrote: "The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons". By that measure, the United States cannot be considered a civilized society.

Anyone doubting this should carefully remember following:

Dozens of 13 and 14 year old children have been sentenced to life imprisonment with no possibility of parole in this nation. In a new report called Cruel and Unusual, the Equal Justice Initiative has documented 73 such cases. The United States is the only country in the world where a 13-year-old is known to be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. In fact, over 2225 juveniles (age 17 or younger) have been sentenced to life imprisonment without parole in the US. Read the full report "Cruel and Unusual" just published by the Equal Justice Initiative.

You can also listen to the excellent interview of Equal Justice Initiative's executive director Bryan Stevenson on Uprising Radio.

The USA has the highest incarceration rate on the planet. The USA employs 3.5 full-time law enforcement employees per 1'000 habitants (also one of the highest rates on the planet). These law enforcement employees are backed up by 16 (sixteen!) "intelligence" agencies which, in turn, are backed by a huge private intelligence network system.

Unsurprisingly, the Blacks are far more likely to be jailed than Whites. Equally predicable is the fact that most incarcerated inmates are nonviolent drug offenders.

The USA prison system also is unique among all the prison system in that is systematically uses rape (certainly a form of torture) as a form of punishment and coercion. The the full Human Rights Watch "No Escape: Male Rape in US Prisons". Even worse is the fact that rapes are something which the US society not only accepts, but *expects* to take place in prisons.

Imagine being a 13 year old boy in such a prison system!

"Bubba is going to make you his girlfriend" is something which you can see in American movies, books, and conversations. Inmates are supposed to "stand up for themselves" and those who are raped are considered as unworthy of respect. Needless to say, the vast majority of Americans are absolutely convinced that the kids of things which happens in US jails and prisons also happen in the rest of the world, they are absolutely incredulous when they are told that this is not at all the case.

In every single one of its aspects, and I have touched upon only very few here, the US immense prison system is an obscene affront to civilized mankind and can only be compared to the Soviet Gulag in terms of cruelty, inhumanity and lack of civilized norms. The big difference is that, unlike its Soviet counterpart, the US "Gulag" is also immensely profitable as it provides the government with a slave force of 2'000'000 inmates who are totally deprived from even their basic human rights. Not only that, but an increasing part of the American Gulag is now being run by private companies who pocket billions of dollars of taxpayer money and who provide the US government a 'cost-effective' black hole in which all the undesirable elements of society can be thrown.

Take the example of Marijuana laws. I won't even bother explaining that Marijuana is a totally harmless substance, or even that it is highly beneficial in many cases (if you do not understand that you are reading the wrong blog). I ask a simple question: is there a point in incarcerating millions of people solely because of their use of this substance? I believe that there very much is one: the point is to take those who are too critical of dumb laws, or those who do not unquestionably obey the government, off the streets while scaring all the others. This is just a social variation on the idea that the USA should bomb some small nations into smithereens every couple of years or so just to frighten everybody else. Add to this the ever present (and taser-carrying) cops and you will see why Americans are as passive as sheep and why they cannot even throw a decent riot when an arrogant dimwit steals the presidency.

Oscar Wilde famously said that "America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between". Well, if "the degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons " then the US prison system is the best proof that the USA is a fundamentally uncivlized country, a country which is barbaric for its poor and decadent for its elites.

That a country which fancies itself the "leader of the free world" endowed with a "manifest destiny" to lead mankind to a better future can sentence a 13 year old child to life without possibility of parole would be laughable if it wasn't so tragically sad. That this can happen in the quasi total indifference of everybody else is outrageous.

How can a presumably Christian society forget the warning of Christ "whoever receives one such child in My name receives Me, but whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea" (Matt. 18:5-6)?

Meet the American Gulag

The prison industry in the United States: big business or a new form of slavery? By Vicky Pelaez

Global Research, March 10, 2008

El Diario-La Prensa, New York

Human rights organizations, as well as political and social ones, are condemning what they are calling a new form of inhumane exploitation in the United States, where they say a prison population of up to 2 million - mostly Black and Hispanic - are working for various industries for a pittance. For the tycoons who have invested in the prison industry, it has been like finding a pot of gold. They don't have to worry about strikes or paying unemployment insurance, vacations or comp time. All of their workers are full-time, and never arrive late or are absent because of family problems; moreover, if they don't like the pay of 25 cents an hour and refuse to work, they are locked up in isolation cells. There are approximately 2 million inmates in state, federal and private prisons throughout the country. According to California Prison Focus, "no other society in human history has imprisoned so many of its own citizens." The figures show that the United States has locked up more people than any other country: a half million more than China, which has a population five times greater than the U.S. Statistics reveal that the United States holds 25% of the world's prison population, but only 5% of the world's people. From less than 300,000 inmates in 1972, the jail population grew to 2 million by the year 2000. In 1990 it was one million. Ten years ago there were only five private prisons in the country, with a population of 2,000 inmates; now, there are 100, with 62,000 inmates. It is expected that by the coming decade, the number will hit 360,000, according to reports. What has happened over the last 10 years? Why are there so many prisoners? "The private contracting of prisoners for work fosters incentives to lock people up. Prisons depend on this income. Corporate stockholders who make money off prisoners' work lobby for longer sentences, in order to expand their workforce. The system feeds itself," says a study by the Progressive Labor Party, which accuses the prison industry of being "an imitation of Nazi Germany with respect to forced slave labor and concentration camps." The prison industry complex is one of the fastest-growing industries in the United States and its investors are on Wall Street. "This multimillion-dollar industry has its own trade exhibitions, conventions, websites, and mail-order/Internet catalogs. It also has direct advertising campaigns, architecture companies, construction companies, investment houses on Wall Street, plumbing supply companies, food supply companies, armed security, and padded cells in a large variety of colors." According to the Left Business Observer, the federal prison industry produces 100% of all military helmets, ammunition belts, bullet-proof vests, ID tags, shirts, pants, tents, bags, and canteens. Along with war supplies, prison workers supply 98% of the entire market for equipment assembly services; 93% of paints and paintbrushes; 92% of stove assembly; 46% of body armor; 36% of home appliances; 30% of headphones/microphones/speakers; and 21% of office furniture. Airplane parts, medical supplies, and much more: prisoners are even raising seeing-eye dogs for blind people. CRIME GOES DOWN, JAIL POPULATION GOES UP According to reports by human rights organizations, these are the factors that increase the profit potential for those who invest in the prison industry complex: . Jailing persons convicted of non-violent crimes, and long prison sentences for possession of microscopic quantities of illegal drugs. Federal law stipulates five years' imprisonment without possibility of parole for possession of 5 grams of crack or 3.5 ounces of heroin, and 10 years for possession of less than 2 ounces of rock-cocaine or crack. A sentence of 5 years for cocaine powder requires possession of 500 grams - 100 times more than the quantity of rock cocaine for the same sentence. Most of those who use cocaine powder are white, middle-class or rich people, while mostly Blacks and Latinos use rock cocaine. In Texas, a person may be sentenced for up to two years' imprisonment for possessing 4 ounces of marijuana. Here in New York, the 1973 Nelson Rockefeller anti-drug law provides for a mandatory prison sentence of 15 years to life for possession of 4 ounces of any illegal drug. . The passage in 13 states of the "three strikes" laws (life in prison after being convicted of three felonies), made it necessary to build 20 new federal prisons. One of the most disturbing cases resulting from this measure was that of a prisoner who for stealing a car and two bicycles received three 25-year sentences. . Longer sentences. . The passage of laws that require minimum sentencing, without regard for circumstances. . A large expansion of work by prisoners creating profits that motivate the incarceration of more people for longer periods of time. . More punishment of prisoners, so as to lengthen their sentences. HISTORY OF PRISON LABOR IN THE UNITED STATES Prison labor has its roots in slavery. After the 1861-1865 Civil War, a system of "hiring out prisoners" was introduced in order to continue the slavery tradition. Freed slaves were charged with not carrying out their sharecropping commitments (cultivating someone else's land in exchange for part of the harvest) or petty thievery - which were almost never proven - and were then "hired out" for cotton picking, working in mines and building railroads. From 1870 until 1910 in the state of Georgia, 88% of hired-out convicts were Black. In Alabama, 93% of "hired-out" miners were Black. In Mississippi, a huge prison farm similar to the old slave plantations replaced the system of hiring out convicts. The notorious Parchman plantation existed until 1972. During the post-Civil War period, Jim Crow racial segregation laws were imposed on every state, with legal segregation in schools, housing, marriages and many other aspects of daily life. "Today, a new set of markedly racist laws is imposing slave labor and sweatshops on the criminal justice system, now known as the prison industry complex," comments the Left Business Observer. Who is investing? At least 37 states have legalized the contracting of prison labor by private corporations that mount their operations inside state prisons. The list of such companies contains the cream of U.S. corporate society: IBM, Boeing, Motorola, Microsoft, AT&T, Wireless, Texas Instrument, Dell, Compaq, Honeywell, Hewlett-Packard, Nortel, Lucent Technologies, 3Com, Intel, Northern Telecom, TWA, Nordstrom's, Revlon, Macy's, Pierre Cardin, Target Stores, and many more. All of these businesses are excited about the economic boom generation by prison labor. Just between 1980 and 1994, profits went up from $392 million to $1.31 billion. Inmates in state penitentiaries generally receive the minimum wage for their work, but not all; in Colorado, they get about $2 per hour, well under the minimum. And in privately-run prisons, they receive as little as 17 cents per hour for a maximum of six hours a day, the equivalent of $20 per month. The highest-paying private prison is CCA in Tennessee, where prisoners receive 50 cents per hour for what they call "highly skilled positions." At those rates, it is no surprise that inmates find the pay in federal prisons to be very generous. There, they can earn $1.25 an hour and work eight hours a day, and sometimes overtime. They can send home $200-$300 per month. Thanks to prison labor, the United States is once again an attractive location for investment in work that was designed for Third World labor markets. A company that operated a maquiladora (assembly plant in Mexico near the border) closed down its operations there and relocated to San Quentin State Prison in California. In Texas, a factory fired its 150 workers and contracted the services of prisoner-workers from the private Lockhart Texas prison, where circuit boards are assembled for companies like IBM and Compaq. Oregon State Representative Kevin Mannix recently urged Nike to cut its production in Indonesia and bring it to his state, telling the shoe manufacturer that "there won't be any transportation costs; we're offering you competitive prison labor (here)." PRIVATE PRISONS The prison privatization boom began in the 1980s, under the governments of Ronald Reagan and Bush Sr., but reached its height in 1990 under William Clinton, when Wall Street stocks were selling like hotcakes. Clinton's program for cutting the federal workforce resulted in the Justice Departments contracting of private prison corporations for the incarceration of undocumented workers and high-security inmates. Private prisons are the biggest business in the prison industry complex. About 18 corporations guard 10,000 prisoners in 27 states. The two largest are Correctional Corporation of America (CCA) and Wackenhut, which together control 75%. Private prisons receive a guaranteed amount of money for each prisoner, independent of what it costs to maintain each one. According to Russell Boraas, a private prison administrator in Virginia, "the secret to low operating costs is having a minimal number of guards for the maximum number of prisoners." The CCA has an ultra-modern prison in Lawrenceville, Virginia, where five guards on dayshift and two at night watch over 750 prisoners. In these prisons, inmates may get their sentences reduced for "good behavior," but for any infraction, they get 30 days added - which means more profits for CCA. According to a study of New Mexico prisons, it was found that CCA inmates lost "good behavior time" at a rate eight times higher than those in state prisons. IMPORTING AND EXPORTING INMATES Profits are so good that now there is a new business: importing inmates with long sentences, meaning the worst criminals. When a federal judge ruled that overcrowding in Texas prisons was cruel and unusual punishment, the CCA signed contracts with sheriffs in poor counties to build and run new jails and share the profits. According to a December 1998 Atlantic Monthly magazine article, this program was backed by investors from Merrill-Lynch, Shearson-Lehman, American Express and Allstate, and the operation was scattered all over rural Texas. That state's governor, Ann Richards, followed the example of Mario Cuomo in New York and built so many state prisons that the market became flooded, cutting into private prison profits. After a law signed by Clinton in 1996 - ending court supervision and decisions - caused overcrowding and violent, unsafe conditions in federal prisons, private prison corporations in Texas began to contact other states whose prisons were overcrowded, offering "rent-a-cell" services in the CCA prisons located in small towns in Texas. The commission for a rent-a-cell salesman is $2.50 to $5.50 per day per bed. The county gets $1.50 for each prisoner. STATISTICS Ninety-seven percent of 125,000 federal inmates have been convicted of non-violent crimes. It is believed that more than half of the 623,000 inmates in municipal or county jails are innocent of the crimes they are accused of. Of these, the majority are awaiting trial. Two-thirds of the one million state prisoners have committed non-violent offenses. Sixteen percent of the country's 2 million prisoners suffer from mental illness.