Date: Tue, 15 Feb 2000 11:17:37 -0800
From: Sid Shniad <•••@••.•••>
Subject: ANGER GROWS AS U.S. JAILS ITS TWO MILLIONTH INMATE -
Manchester Guardian
The Manchester Guardian Tuesday February 15, 2000
ANGER GROWS AS U.S. JAILS ITS TWO MILLIONTH INMATE
The land of the free is now home to 25% of the world's prison population
By Duncan Campbell in Los Angeles
Vigils are being mounted today in more than 30 major cities in
the United States to draw attention to the arrival of the two
millionth inmate in American jails. The US comprises 5% of the
global population yet it is responsible for 25% of the world's
prisoners. It has a higher proportion of its citizens in jail than any
other country in history, according to the November Coalition, an
alliance of civil rights campaigners, justice policy workers and drug
law reformers.
The coalition is co-ordinating protests across the US to draw
attention to what they feel is a trend for locking up ever more
offenders, most of them non-violent.
"Incarceration should be the last resort of a civilised society, not
the first," said Michael Gelacak, a former vice-chairman of the US
sentencing commission. "We have it backwards and it's time we
realised that."
"Two million is too many," said Nora Callahan of the coalition,
which is calling for alternatives to prison for the country's 500,000
non-violent drug offenders.
"We are calling on state and federal governments to stop
breaking up families and destroying our communities. Prison is not
the solution to every social problem," she said.
In New York city, the Prison Moratorium Project will focus on
the fact that one in three black youths is either in custody or on
parole. Kevin Pranis, of the project, said: "New York state is
diverting millions of dollars from colleges and universities to pay
for prisons we can't afford."
Criminal justice is already a campaign issue in the presidential
race. The Republican frontrunner George W Bush, governor of
Texas, is a staunch supporter of both the death penalty and stiffer
sentencing for drug offences.
Since he took over in Texas, the prison population there is up
from 41,000 to 150,000, much of this as a result of locking up
people for drug possession.
This is one of the reasons that commentators have pressed Bush
to be more open about his own alleged drug use in the past.
Second biggest employer
Of those held in federal rather than state prisons, 60% are drug
offenders with no history of violence. Aminah Muhammad, who is
organising the Los Angeles vigil, said: "My husband is doing 23
years for just being present in a house where drugs were found, so
my 10-year-old son doesn't have his father."
The vigil also coincides with the publication of Lockdown
America, a report by Christian Parenti analysing the US criminal
justice system. He notes the expansion of the private prison sector
- dubbed by one investment firm the "theme stock for the nineties" -
which now runs more than 100 facilities in 27 states, holding more
than 100,000 inmates.
A total of 18 private firms are involved in the running of local
jails, private prisons and immigration detention centres. It is
estimated that firms such as Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch
write between $2-3bn in prison constructions bonds every year.
This has led some commentators to suggest that the United
States is effectively creating a prison-industrial complex in much
the same way as the military-industrial complex operates.
Critics of the system suggest that so much money is invested in
incarceration that politicians would find it difficult to reverse the
trends against the wishes of their financial backers and lobbyists.
In his study Christian Parenti suggests: "In many ways the
incarceration binge is simply the policy byproduct of rightwing
electoral rhetoric."
With the economic restructuring of America, politicians found it
necessary to address domestic anxieties, Parenti suggests and this
"required scapegoats, a role usually filled by new immigrants, the
poor and people of colour".
The cost of building jails has averaged $7bn per year for the last
decade and the annual bill for incarcerating prisoners is up to $35bn
annually. The prison industry employs more than 523,000 people,
making it the country's biggest employer after General Motors.
Some 5% of the population growth in rural areas between 1980 and
1990 was as a result of prisoners being moved into new rural jails.
The national convention of the American Bar Association, held
in Dallas, Texas last weekend, was told there was growing
momentum for a moratorium on the death penalty. This follows the
recent announcement by the Illinois governor, George Ryan, that
the state will suspend executions pending an investigation into the
number of death row inmates who turn out to have been wrongly
convicted. There are 3,600 people awaiting execution in the US -
463 of them in Texas alone.
Today's vigils are being held near jails, courthouses and prisons
and span the US from Spokane in Washington state to Gainesville
in Florida, from Austin in Texas to Newhaven in Connecticut.
In 1985, the then Chief Justice Warren Burger said: "What
business enterprise could conceivably succeed with the rate of recall
of its products that we see in the 'products' of our prisons?"
The demonstrators today are hoping to make the same point
count, if not with the politicians, then at least with the voters who
will be called in to endorse such penal policies in the coming
months.
*********************************************************
Date: Wed, 9 Feb 2000 21:49:39 -0800
From: Randy Schutt <•••@••.•••>
Subject: Texas Leads the Nation
Friends,
I don't know if these statistics are correct, but they sound accurate
-- and chilling.
--Randy
==================================================================
Just thought you'd like to know...
The state of Texas, under the leadership of Governor George W. Bush, is ranked:
50th. Spending for teachers salaries
49th. Spending on the environment
48th. Per capita funding for public health
47th. Delivery of social services
42nd. Child support collections
41st. Per capita spending on public education
5th. % of population living in poverty
1st. % of poor working parents without insurance
1st. % of children without insurance
1st. Air and water pollution
1st. Executions (average of 1 every 2 weeks for Bush's 5 years)
Just think of what he could do for the country if he were president......
