SEEING THROUGH THE ILLUSIONS OF THE PRISON-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX

(Angela Y. Davis is History of Consciousness professor at the University of
California - Santa Cruz and an organizer of the upcoming conference
Critical Resistance: Beyond the Prison Industrial Complex. An earlier
version of this article appeared in Colorlines magazine.)

Imprisonment has become the response of first resort ot the problms facing
people living in poverty. Our prisons thus appear to perform a feat of
magic. But prisons do not disappear problems -- they disappear human
beings. And the practice of disappearing vast numbers of people from poor,
immigrant, and racially marginalized communities has literally become big
business.

Homeslessness, unemployment, drug addiction, mental illness and illiteracy
are only a few of the problems that disappear from public view when the
human beings contending with them are relegated to cages. To convey the
illusion of solving them, an enormous amount of behind-the-scenes work must
take place. This work, which used to be the primary province of government
- -- caging people, feeding them, keeping them busy or depriving them of
activity, transporting them in handcuffs and shackles from one facility to
another -- is now also performed by private corporations.

The proliferating network of prisons and jails can now be charaterized as a
"prison-industrial complex." And, as with investment in weapons production,
investment in the punishment industry reaps a dividend that amounts only to
social destruction.

Almost 2 million people - eight times as many as three decades ago -- are
locked up in the immense network of U.S. prisons and jails. In California
alone, the number of incarcerated women is almost twice the entire nation's
1970 female prisoner population.

Colored bodies constitute the main raw material in this vast experiment to
disappear the major social problems of our time. More than 70 percent of
those behind bars are people of color.

As prisons take up more and more space on the social landscape, other
government programs that sought to respond to social needs -- such as
Temporary Assistance to Needy Families -- are squeezed out of existence.
Even the deterioration of public education is directly related to the
prison "solution."

By stealing public resources, the prison-industrial complex has created a
vicious cycle. For prisons not only materially and morally impoverish
their inhabitants, they also devour the social wealth needed to address the
very problems that have led to the sprialing numbers of prisoners.

Because of their profit potential, prisons are becoming increasingly
important to and enmeshed in the U.S. economy. Privatization is the most
obvious instance. The stocks of Corrections Corporation of America and
Wackenhut Corrections Corp., the largest U.S. private prison companies, are
doing extremely well. From 1996 to 1997, CCA's revenues rost 58 percent,
from $293 million to $462 million. Wackenhut's revenues grew from $138
million to $210 million.

Profits, investment

These companies are only the most visible component of the corporatization
of punishment. Technology developed for the military by companies like
Westinghouse is marketed for use in law envorcement and punishment. Prison
construction bonds are a source of profitable investment for leading
financiers like Merrill Lynch. MCI charges prisoners and their families
outrageous prices for the precious telephone calls that are often the only
contact prisoners have with the free world.

Many corporations whose products we consume on a daily basis have learned
that prison labor -- purchased at rates well beneath the federal minimum
wage -- can be as profitable as Third World labor. Botd forms of
exploitation rob jobs from formerly unionized workers, throwing then into
the marginal classes from which prisons are filled. Companies using prison
labor include IBM, Motorola, Compaq, Texas Instruments, Honeywell,
Microsoft and Boeing.

Not only high-tech companies reap the beneits. Nordstrom sells jeans
marketed as Prison Blues as well as T-shirts and jackets made in Oregon
prisons. The advertising slogan for these clothes: "Made on the inside to
be worn on the outside."

Maryland prisoners inspect glass bottles and jars for Revlon and Pierre
Cardin, and schools throughout the works buy graduation gowns made by South
Caorlina prisoners.

Despite its profitability for corporations, the penal system as a whole
does not priduce wealth. It devours resources that could subsidize housing
for the homeless, ameliorate public education, open free
drug-rehabilitation centers, create a national health care system, combat
HIV, eradicate domestic abuse -- and, in the process, create well-paying
jobs for the unemployed.

Universities stunted

Since 1984, more than 20 new prisons have opened in California. At the
same time, only one new campus was added to the California State University
system and none was added to the University of California system.

In 1996-97, higher education received only 8.7 percent of California's
general fund. Corrections, meanwhile, swallowed 9.6 percent.

Now that affirmative action has been declared illegal in California, it
becomes obvious that education is increasingly reserved for certain people
while prisons are reserved for others. Presently, five times as many black
men are in prison as in four-year colleges and universities.

This new segregation has dangerous implications for the entire country. By
segregating people and labeling them criminals, the prison-industrial
simultaneously fortifies and conceals the structural racism of the U.S.
economy. Claims of low unemployment -- even in black communities -- make
sense only if one ignores the vast numbers of people in prison and assumes
they have disappeared and thus have no legitimate claim to jobs.

In the United States, the numbers of black and Latino men currently
incarcerated amount to 2 percent of the male labor force. Their
disappearance from the labor pool is an effective, if expensive, means of
enhancing the employment statistics.

Conversely, says London School of Economics criminologost David Downes,
"Treating incarceration as a type of hidden unemployment may raise the
jobless rate for men by about one-third, to 8 percent. The effect on the
black labor force is greater still, raising the (black) male unemployment
rate from 11 percent to 19 percent."

Though the historical record clearly demonstrates that prisons fail either
to solve social problems or to reduce crime, state policy is rapidly
shifting from social welfare to social control.

Surveillance is focused on communities of color, immigrants, the
unemployed, the undereducated, the homeless, in general, those with a
diminished claim to social resources.

The emergence of a U.S. prison-industrial complex within the context of
cascading conservatism, marks a new historical moment whose dangers are
unprecedented. But so are the opportunites.

Resistance

Am impressive number of grassroots projects are resisting the expansion of
the punishment industry. It ought to be possible to link these efforts to
create radical, nationally visible movements that can legitimize critiques
of the prison industrial complex.

It ought to be possible to build movements in defense of prisoners' human
rights and movements that persuasively argue that what we need is not new
prisons but new health care, housing, education, drug programs, jobs and
education.

To safeguard a democratic future, it is possible and necessary to weave
together the many and increasing strands of resistance into a powerful
movement for social transformation.

***************** STRATEGY SESSIONS AGAINST PRISONS

A national conference and strategy session, "Critical Resistance: Beyond
the Prison Industrial Complex," will be held Friday through Sunday at the
University of California - Berkeley. It will include workshops, films,
evening performances and speakers including Davis, feminist Gloria Steinem
and 1998 MacArthur "genius" award winner Ellen Barry of the San
Francisco-based Legal Services for Prisoners With Children. For more
information see http://www.igc.org/justice/critical or call (51) 238-8555.

Checked-by: Pat Dolan