Incorrect - “The problems Aboriginal Communities have with violence and alcoholism and especially child sexual abuse are massive…”

Correct, as usual - “...the solutions being used are colonialist and racist rather than addressing the real issues…”

Check these links, Kiwi http://womenforwik.freeforums.org/tracking-the-intervention-abc-four-corners-compass-etc-t21.html?sid=b05a30851a5227ba2bef5a579978ce58 and other “intervention” topics there as well. LOL

(Part 2)
>There was this article from a 1996 WI blog:

“At Oakhill Correctional Institution in rural Wisconsin, 17 inmates crank $1.15 million worth of office chairs a year out of a cramped basement factory, making anywhere between 20 cents and $1.50 per hour. The money is put toward release savings, victim restitution and court obligations such as child support. The inmates can spend what’s left.
The operation is part of Badger State Industries, Wisconsin’s prison industries program, which employs about 600 of Wisconsin’s 10,000 inmates to produce everything from coffee cups to furniture—and, of course, license plates.

Last year, Badger State earned $1.2 million in profits on $15.4 million in sales by peddling its products to state and local government agencies. To protect manufacturers and labor from unfair competition, Wisconsin places restrictions on the selling of prison-made goods to the private sector.

But that’s about to change. The new state budget includes a scheme to make prison facilities and labor available to commercial enterprises…...

Tennessee inmates produce jeans for Kmart and JC Penney and wooden rocking ponies for trendy Eddie Bauer (list price $80). Some states produce toys, and many produce mattresses. Until last year, 150 Ohio inmates made car parts for Honda. In Nevada, inmates convert luxury cars into stretch limousines. And nearly all of the programs produce furniture, the largest component of prison industries nationwide.

Inmates also book rooms for motel chains and take reservations for Trans World Airlines (yes, they do take credit card numbers—and yes, there have been embarrassing incidents). In Kansas, they process Social Security numbers. In Iowa, they work for the Department of Tourism’s Information Bureau, boosting the same state that locked them away. A number of states, among them Iowa and Nebraska, rent their inmates out as telemarketers…..

““Prison labor is one thing,” says Phil Neuenfeldt, legislative director for the Wisconsin AFL-CIO, “but prison labor that provides unfair labor to the outside world and keeps pressure on wages downward is not a good thing. When you look at what’s going on around the country, like some of the inmates that are being used to assemble PC boards for Lockhart industries, that costs 150 workers their jobs down in Texas.”

Other examples abound.

In Arizona, where a hog slaughtering plant closed down, putting United Food and Commercial workers out of work, prison industry looked suspiciously like a union-busting mechanism.
The plant subsequently reopened—as a joint venture between the Arizona Department of Corrections and the state’s Pork Producers Association.”

http://www.monitor.net/monitor/3-10-96/prisonlabor.html

>So… yes, there was a reason to “get tough on crime” and it’s why all those “certain politicians” endorse it.  They want their piece of the pie.  Wasn’t ol’ Slick Willy the one who started building all these prisons.  Looks like they had a privitization plan in the works for some time.  Slave labor, work camps, prison labor, where’s the difference…?  This remind you of anything…?  Just a thought.

(Part 1)
There are some underlying factors here that just don’t jive.  Have you ever heard of UNICOR?  As I was looking for some information to post concerning my state’s prison industry.  I did a few searches.  This came up, something I wasn’t aware of at all: 

“The profits from FPI sales would go into a revolving fund that would finance all industrial operations (including capital improvements) and also help subsidize programs for inmates. Thus, the financial basis for FPI had the advantage of requiring no additional burdens on taxpayers…

When legislation authorizing the creation of Federal Prison Industries, Inc., was introduced in Congress, however, the American Federation of Labor (AFL) immediately voiced its opposition. President Franklin D. Roosevelt took a h2, personal interest in the matter, and one rainy morning in 1934, called Director Bates and AFL President William Green to the Oval Office. According to Bates’ memoirs, Roosevelt greeted the labor leader with a hearty “Hello, Bill,” and said “we have a little problem here that we want you to solve for us.” Bates recalled that “I caught up my breath in amazement at this manner of approach.”

During the meeting, Bates and Roosevelt were able to draw out Green’s objections to the proposed legislation as well as his suggestions for improvement, and, ultimately, the American Federation of Labor withdrew its opposition. Emphasis on the “state-use” system had overcome the skepticism of organized labor. (Subsequently, AFL Vice President Thomas Rickert became a charter member of FPI’s Board of Directors. Later, William Green’s successor as AFL President, George Meany, also served as an FPI Board member.)

On June 23, 1934, President Roosevelt signed the law that authorized the establishment of Federal Prison Industries, and on December 11, 1934, he issued Executive Order 6917, which formally created FPI. FPI officially commenced operations on January 1, 1935.”

http://www.unicor.gov/about/organization/history/birth_of_fpi.cfm

>Was anyone else aware of this?  It says it subsidizes “some” of the programs for prisoners.  I’m curious.  Like what?  And also no ADDITIONAL BURDENS on taxpayers.  It also says it would fund “capital improvements”, aren’t we selling these things to private enities now?

Prisoners are working for PRIVATE COMPANIES.  As in this story 11/05:

“The average wage for Fox Lake inmates is about $9 per hour, depending on the type of work, Dipko said. The earnings go toward room, board and transportation reimbursement for the institution, and for child support payments, restitution and fines. Inmates can refuse to work.”
( That isn’t quite accurate.  The real way this works is that THE STATE charges $9.00hr for each inmate “worker” but the actual inmate recieves far less.)

“The building contractor that hired the inmates is Hansen-Rice, a nationwide general contracting company based in Idaho. Lafe Herrick, the project manager for the company at the site, said that Hansen-Rice was the only company using inmates there, but that he could not comment further without getting an OK from Wal-Mart, which is its own general contractor for the project. After doing so, he said that Wal-Mart had instructed him not to speak to reporters.

Calls to Wal-Mart headquarters in Arkansas were not returned.”

http://realcostofprisons.org/blog/archives/2005/11/wi_prisoners_he.html

which is quickly exceeding 40 million adults. Every year, over half a million are released back into us communities. These people are disenfranchised for life…why do we just focus on incarceration rates and loss of voting rights???

The prison population is exploding and so are the private jailers’ profits. It sure is job security. Have you seen what these so called correctional officers like like? They are scary nightmare looking and call them correctional is a ridiculous joke. They are animal handlers and I would not sleep at night if I treated any animal the way they treat the prisoners.
Yes, decriminalize drugs and see the drug dealers vanish as well as a huge percentage of related violent crime. We cant have that now, can we?
We cant get in the way of the NRA, either. Hey, we need assault weapons to mow down our fellow citizens. In Pa they cant even pass a law to limit handgun purchases to one a month. Gus can buy as many as he wants to.
Why does he neeed to buy more than one a month, What does he do, eat them?
The land of the imprisoned and the home of the Babbitts.

Well, our 5% of the population consumes roughly 1/4 of the world’s resources and produces roughly 1/4 of the world’s waste…and now we have roughly 1/4 of the world’s prisoners. 

We’ve got a whole lot of issues, but i don’t have time for them right now…there’s a Democratic nomination campaign going on.

Even for the formal unincarcerated, this country is becoming more of a prison as we cower before our employers and worry about whether we’re on on secret government lists.

“Minorities in Canada, Britain and Australia are also disproportionately represented in those nation’s prisons, and the ratios are similar to or larger than those in the United States….”  Dont forget New Zealand We have the same statistics with our Maori population.
“More recently, they have gone on to a kind of mini martial law in remote Native Australian communities although the real reason is to find someone else to blame and to point the finger at instead of addressing the same alcohol and violence issues in the towns and cities of white Australia.” Thats a bit harsh. The problems Aboriginal Communities have with violence and alcoholism and especially child sexual abuse are massive. However the solutions being used are colonialist and racist rather than addressing the real issues.
“But the real problem is their imperial/colonialist punishment mentality.” And the Putative Christian view that “Sin must be punished and we are doing Gods’ work” self-righteousness which seems much more prevanent in America than Canada, Britain and NZ where Christianity seems much more Socialist.
Or maybe it is just because we do not have any private prison system and there is no profit in having large numbers in jail.

This is a very well done report, and I’ve saved it to go over the numbers more carefully later. 

Something jumps out at me, just as it has in other similar discussions, and that’s the fact that as Americans, collectively, we are not as overwhelmingly APPALLED by this phenomenon, particularly as we compare to the rest of the civilized world.  How IS it that we have simply come to ‘expect’ this and even ACCEPT that we are imprisoning such a huge number of our own, and in most cases for crimes that are not violent or particularly harmful to society as a whole? Not only that, they are crimes that can BE EXPECTED, in the social environment that has been created.

In other words, ANY AVERAGE citizen (don’t need a PhD. In any of the social sciences) can figure out that if one is poor, hungry, unguided or otherwise unsupervised in a society that makes materialism the god of all gods, petty crime will come about. And, that’s what most of these are. Even violent crimes come about as a result of the frustration of the have nots, who ALWAYS fight the inequality among themselves, rather than directing their rage or retaliation against those who have perpetrated their circumstances.

And yet, as Americans, we somehow just accept this. Aegrus says he has family members that are or have been incarcerated. So do I. Many actually. Are any of them actually ‘bad’ people? Nope. They’re poor, and they’ve had zero to limited chances for any opportunities. And yes, while I can acknowledge that CY says this is REGARDLESS of RACE, that’s an oxymoron. It’s obvious that this affects the white population as well, because the white population is still the overwhelming majority population. The missed point (from CY) is that people of color start out in the hole in respect to the odds concerning this lack of opportunity and the caste system that keeps them in poverty. The numbers bear this out time and time again. EVERYWHERE that the demographics of this prison population are studied, people of color are DISPROPORTIONATELY represented, and have DISPROPORTIONATELY longer sentences. (Same with women on the sentencing, regardless of race.)

A current example finally making news now is this…Yuppie white boy gets busted with a couple of OUNCES of near pure cocaine, and gets a slap on the wrist and MAYBE, (after the 3rd or 4th time) some community service dictate that he never bothers to do, and nobody follows up. A black guy gets caught with a couple of tiny hail size pieces of crack cocaine, (the much cheaper version of such an ‘escape’) and he’s looking at 8 years at the minimum, off the bat. Once incarcerated, a criminal is created, even if they weren’t before. That’s what prisons do. So, let’s just keep this real, if we’re actually going to pay any attention to it.

But, my point: how is it that the rest of us can look at this so apathetically, and not even ‘wonder’ as long as we aren’t one of the 1 in the 100, or don’t personally know anyone who is? And then, even when we become one of the statistics, (or someone we know does), we somehow accept it as ‘well, that’s just the way things are?

So, is this what was happening in 1930’s Germany as the “good Germans” just watched more and more of their neighbors ‘disappear in the night’ (or even in broad day-light) never to be seen or heard from again? Did they not wonder why, or where the people were going, or what they had done to deserve the fate?

And the cruelest of all the ironies is that this “American Exceptionalism” (only industrialized nation that still has the death penalty, most incarcerated, most poverty, etc, etc) allows for REAL CRIMINALS to RUN THE FUCKING GOVERNMENT, and doesn’t do a thing about it!!!

We’ll accept throwing somebody in prison for 15 years for writing a bad check, but the fascists can murder millions, and steal trillions, and break every law that we’ve ever known, and do it with impunity!

Now THAT’S American Exceptionalism.

After spending about a week in a county jail years ago - for civil disobedience - I came away convinced that prison policy, at least in Orange Co CA, is designed to ensure a high rate of recidivism. Prisons have become big business, afterall, and a shortage of prisoners is definitely bad for the business.

Has that young Mexican-American (soldier) been extradicted yet?  That barbaric country south of us has said it won’t send him back here to face a murder charge unless we guarantee he won’t get the death penalty if convicted.

#Quote: “Many specialists dismissed race as an important distinguishing factor in the American prison rate….... Minorities in Canada, Britain and Australia are also disproportionately represented in those nation’s prisons, and the ratios are similar to or larger than those in the United States….”

Oh, race IS a “distinctive phenomenon” and you can be sure that Britain is essentially a pro-white society, and the French in Canada also have prejudices along with the Anglos.

For Australia, with the ongoing failures of white Anglo society to successfully address the high rate of deaths in custody of indigenous black Australians, nothing can persuade them that they are on the wrong course.

More recently, they have gone on to a kind of mini martial law in remote Native Australian communities although the real reason is to find someone else to blame and to point the finger at instead of addressing the same alcohol and violence issues in the towns and cities of white Australia.

#Quote: “Some scholars have found that English-speaking nations have higher prison rates…... “Although it is not at all clear what it is about Anglo-Saxon culture that makes predominantly English-speaking countries especially punitive, they are…”

Oh, it IS clear, alright, uhh! They see themselves as perfect in every way despite the fact that other societies and cultures may be more refined, sophisticated and advanced in many respects.

But the real problem is their imperial/colonialist punishment mentality and their having historically favored the simplistic imprisonment model since the Norman conquest of England 1,000 years ago. That really warped their mindes and all Anglos everywhere have that common viral taint.

A very depressing statistic indeed. Why none of the candidates, save Obama on a partial level, want to take on our judicial system (or even make it an issue) is sad. As someone who has incarcerated family members, I can certainly say nothing has changed and very few people get better in prison. It’s a waste of money, and part of the class warfare waged in America.