MICROSERFS? MICROSOFT MEETS THE PRISON INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX

Phil Graham (pw.graham who-is-at student.qut.edu.au)
Fri, 29 Oct 1999 20:44:27 +1000

>Return-Path: <CyberSociety-return-252-13736427 who-is-at listbot.com>
>Date: Fri, 29 Oct 1999 09:25:45 +0000
>From: Cyber Society <CyberSociety-owner who-is-at listbot.com>
>Subject: MICROSERFS? MICROSOFT MEETS THE PRISON INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX
>To: Cyber Society <CyberSociety who-is-at listbot.com>
>Reply-to: Cyber Society <CyberSociety who-is-at listbot.com>
>Delivered-to: mailing list CyberSociety who-is-at listbot.com
>Mailing-List: ListBot mailing list contact CyberSociety-help who-is-at listbot.com
>
>Cyber Society - http://www.unn.ac.uk/cybersociety
>
>Date: Oct 29 1999 05:13:39 EDT
>From: John Armitage <john.armitage who-is-at unn.ac.uk>
>Subject: MICROSERFS? MICROSOFT MEETS THE PRISON INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX
>
>####################################################################
>FEATURE: The Prison Industry: Capitalist Punishment
>http://www.corpwatch.org/feature/prisons
>
>Did you know:
>
>* Corporations like Starbucks, TWA, Microsoft, Victoria's Secret and
>Boeing all use prison labor.
>* Corrections Corporation of America, the nation's largest private
>jailer, was dubbed "the theme stock of the 90's" by one investment firm.
>* There are currently more than 1.7 million prisoners in the United
>States--more than in any industrialized country.
>* 70% of US prisoners are people of color.
>
>Corporate Watch's new feature looks at the expanding "prison industrial
>complex" in the United States and the increasingly intertwined
>relationship between private corporations and the criminal justice
>system. We highlight writings by prisoners including:
>
>* An original column by death row journalist, Mumia Abu-Jamal, entitled
>"Privatizing Pain."
>
>* Writings from Prison Legal News, edited by two Washington State
>inmates
>
>In this Feature you'll also find:
>
>* Analysis by scholar/activists Christian Parenti and Angela Davis
>* Reporting by investigative journalists
>* Activist resources and corporate links
>* In-depth background
>* Activist alerts to help Mumia Abu-Jamal win a new trial
>
>*For the first time you can also download the Feature in PDF form to
>print out for friends, colleagues, students and family.
>
>Check it out, and pass on the word!
>
>
>Editorial
>Oct 28, 1999
>
>The assembly lines at CMT Blues look like those at any other US garment
>factory, except for one thing: the workers are watched over by armed
>guards. CMT Blues is housed at the Maximum Security Richard J. Donovan
>State Correctional Facility outside San Diego.
>
>Seventy workers sew T-shirts for Mecca, Seattle Cotton Works, Lee Jeans
>and other US companies. The highly prized jobs pay minimum wage. Less
>than half goes into the inmate workers' pockets--the rest is siphoned
>off to reimburse the state for the cost of their incarceration and to a
>victim restitution fund. The California Department of Corrections Joint
>Venture Program, and CMT Blues owner Pierre Slieman say they are
>providing inmates with job skills and work experience.
>
>But two inmates and former CMT Blues employees say Sleiman and the
>Department of Corrections are operating a sweatshop behind bars. What's
>more, they say that prison officials retaliated against them when they
>blew the whistle on corruption at the plant. Inmates Charles Ervin and
>Shearwood Flemming spent 45 days in solitary confinement after talking
>to reporters about an alleged label switching scheme in which they claim
>they were forced to replace "made in Honduras" labels with "made in USA"
>tags. They are suing CMT Blues and the California Department of
>Corrections for labor and civil rights violations.
>
>The CMT Blues scandal and the host of human rights and labor issues it
>raises, is just the tip of the iceberg in a web of interconnected
>business, government and class interests which critics dub the "prison
>industrial complex." Borrowing from the phrase "military industrial
>complex" coined by President Dwight Eisenhower during the Cold War, the
>term refers to the growing political and economic power that emanates
>from the increasingly intertwined relationship between private
>corporations and what were once exclusively public institutions. In
>short, incarceration has become big business. And it's booming.
>
>The prison industry now employees more than half a million people-more
>than any Fortune 500 corporation, other than General Motors.
>Mushrooming construction has turned the prison industry into the main
>employer in scores of economically depressed rural communities. And
>there are a host of firms profiting from private prisons, prison labor
>and services like healthcare and transportation.
>
>Today, there are over 1.7 million people incarcerated in the United
>States, more than in any other industrialized country. They are
>disproportionately African American and Latino (almost 70% of US
>prisoners are people of color) and two thirds are serving sentences for
>non-violent crimes. One in three African American men between the ages
>of 20 and 29 is either in jail, on probation or parole. 1.4 million
>black men-or 13% of African American men-- have lost the right to vote
>because they have committed felonies.
>
>Taxpayers foot the bill for "get tough" policies that treat a
>generation of young people-mostly young people of color-as expendable.
>New York and California, states that once had arguably the finest public
>university systems in the country, now spend more money locking people
>up than on giving them a college education. Meanwhile, prison gates are
>swinging wide open for corporations. Some like CMT Blues, Microsoft,
>Boeing, TWA, and Victoria's Secret, are using low cost prison labor for
>every thing from manufacturing aircraft components and lingerie to
>booking reservations.
>
>In addition to companies exploiting prison labor, there are eighteen or
>so private prison corporations that control about 100,000 prison beds
>across the country. The largest, the Nashville-based Corrections
>Corporation of America-whose securities were dubbed the theme stock of
>the nineties by one investment firm--also operates private prisons in
>Puerto Rico, Australia, the UK and will soon open one in South Africa.
>These private lockups cut corners on labor costs, often hiring
>untrained, inexperienced guards, leading to a dismal record of escapes
>and brutality against inmates.
>
>In a Texas prison operated by one company, guards were videotaped
>beating, shocking, kicking and setting dogs on prisoners. While private
>prisons hardly have a monopoly on such violence, critics argue that
>hiring low wage, untrained guards-some of them with criminal records of
>their own-makes brutality more likely.
>
>The prison industry is not a new phenomenon, but rather has some grim
>historical antecedents. As death row journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal argues
>in a special column for Corporate Watch, mixing the profit motive with
>punishment only invites abuse reminiscent of one of the ugliest chapters
>in US history. "Under a regime where more bodies equal more profits,
>prisons take one big step closer to their historical ancestor, the slave
>pen," writes Jamal.
>
>In fact, prison labor has its roots in slavery. Following
>reconstruction, former Confederate Democrats instituted "convict
>leasing." Inmates, mostly freed slaves convicted of petty theft, were
>rented out to do everything from picking cotton to building railroads.
>In Mississippi, a huge prison farm resembling a slave plantation later
>replaced convict leasing. The infamous Parchman Farm was not closed
>until 1972, when inmates brought suit against the abusive conditions in
>federal court.
>
>Today, criminal justice issues have become so urgent that organizing
>efforts by diverse communities around the country are beginning to
>pierce the deafening "tough on crime" drumbeat espoused by pundits and
>policy makers for the last 20 years. Community organizers, church
>groups, labor unions and progressive think tanks are coming together to
>fight prison privatization in the South. Organizations like Families
>against Mandatory Minimums are fighting discriminatory sentencing.
>Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch put prison issues at the
>top of their US agenda. In Concord, California 2,000 Latino students
>have taken to the streets to demand "education not incarceration," as
>part of a protest against the backlash against immigrant communities.
>
>Labor code and freedom of speech violations like those alleged in the
>suit against CMT Blues also resonate beyond prison walls. UNITE, the
>garment workers union, has joined inmates Ervin and Flemming in their
>suit against the clothing manufacturer and the California Department of
>Corrections. And the suit has caught the attention of first amendment
>advocates who would like to overturn California's ban on journalist
>interviews with state prisoners.
>
>Punishment endured by prisoners like Ervin and Flemming has "an
>incredible chilling effect on prisoners because, combined with the media
>access ban, they know they can't communicate (with the press) with out
>suffering retaliation," explains Joseph Pertel, an attorney for the
>inmates. Pertel says it was actually a prison employee, not his clients,
>who called a local television station. Nevertheless, the two men, both
>convicted of second-degree murder, spoke out against working conditions
>at CMT Blues jeopardizing their eventual parole.
>
>Because prisoners have so little voice on the outside, we highlight
>writings by prison journalists in this Feature, including an original
>column by Mumia Abu-Jamal and writings from Prison Legal News, edited by
>two Washington State inmates. Contributor Alex Friedmann, due to be
>paroled next month, was transferred out of a CCA private prison into a
>Tennessee state penitentiary, when his reporting behind bars angered
>company executives. We hope that by giving a voice to those inside
>prison walls we can contribute to a dialogue on redirecting criminal
>justice policy in this country.
>
>--Julie Light
>For Corporate Watch
>
>SUPPORT Corporate Watch:
>
>We depend on donations from people like you. Make a donation through the
>web at https://swww.igc.apc.org/trac/donation.html
>
>Or send us a tax deductible US bank check or international money order in
>US
>dollars make out to TRAC/Tides to PO Box 29344, San Francisco, CA 94129.
>
>
>______________________________________________________________________
>To unsubscribe, write to CyberSociety-unsubscribe who-is-at listbot.com
>Start Your Own FREE Email List at http://www.listbot.com/
>
>
Phil Graham
p.graham who-is-at qut.edu.au
http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Palms/8314/index.html