Mass Incarceration and for-profit prisons

In past posts I have discussed how our culture has come to the problem of mass incarceration and how it is a continuation of slavery. For a brief recap watch this video:

Also, here is some quick and stunning facts about prisons in America:

When America "freed" slaves, they included in the 13th Amendment that criminals can still be slaves. This allowed, post-civil war, white southerners to hold black people to slavery based on "crimes." This turned into convict lease systems, chain gangs, and debt peonage. The immediate criminalization of black lives after the 13th Amendment leaves nothing to the imagination when it comes to the racialization of the prison system. As I have mentioned multiple times, this never got better, only reshaped itself into segregation, Jim Crow laws, the War on Drugs, etc. etc. Now America has the highest number of people in prison in the world and we don't even have the largest population! Black and brown lives continue to be incarcerated at much higher rates than whites.

Believe it or not, America not only shows it's racist tendencies by mass incarceration, but also it's greed.

The privatization of prisons and the growth of the prison industrial complex has made the incarceration of the so called "disposable" lives in America a business! Many people and companies are getting rich off stealing the lives of millions of people! Angela Davis said, "Whether this human raw material is used for purposes of labor or for the consumption of commodities provided by a rising number of corporations directly implicated in the prison industrial complex, it is clear that black bodies are considered dispensable within the 'free world' but as a major source of profit in the prison world." - Are Prisons Obsolete

The prison system does a lot more harm than good.

The top 1% are getting free labor (getting richer while the poor get poorer). America gets to "silently" work towards a whiter America. Employees are getting away with sexual assault - especially to women during strip searches. Health Care providers working with the prisoners are getting away with malpractice. Solitary confinement and other prison structures make sure that the prisoner does NOT get rehabilitated or make positive change. Need I go on?

Real change needs to happen. The problem is huge and I have a feeling in the world of Trump, private prisons will become the majority. It's time to take action.

Look forward to tomorrows post on prison advocacy.