Internment camps for profit

1. Introduction

“Quis custodiat ipsos custodes” (Who guards the guards) — Decimus Iunius Iuvenalis, from his Satire VI, lines 347–8, written over 2000 years ago

The U.S. system of incarceration has become the norm for a growing number of nations. This is a tragedy of immense proportions. For as I suggest in this little article, this system produces extremely high recidivism rates, with little empirical justification for its practices. There is a mounting body of research to suggest that it is a system which perpetuates, and in some cases generates, crime. There is additional research which appears to show too, that it is a class based system, where justice is not at all equally dispersed amongst different socio-economic groups. And finally, that it not a system which appears to arise from compassion but rather in so many ways, its antithesis.

2. A country of prisons

The United States has the highest percentage of its population in prison of any country on earth [19].
It imprisons more than seven times as many people per capita as China [23].
Appallingly, a full 25% of all people incarcerated on the planet, are incarcerated in the United States [3].
The prison population in the U.S. is so large that it ranks as the third largest city in that country [14].
It has the highest rate by far of capital punishment (murder by the state) of any developed country [4].
The U.S. prison system teaches prisoners how to be criminals - the U.S. recidivism rate is the world’s highest [14]
The U.S. has the highest rate of female incarceration on the planet [152]
The U.S. has the highest rate of imprisonment of non-white people of any country on the planet [153

Prisons dot the U.S. landscape [4], prisons built by private for-profit corporations in an ever burgeoning prison industrial complex.

In fact the United States is one of the only countries in the world where prisons are for-profit facilities [ibid]. New ones are constantly being added [56,57]. Huge corporations dominate the process (Corrections Corp of America and Wakenhut have been alleged to be two of the largest). To maintain profit centres for shareholders, many for-profit incarceration facilities need of a constant supply of new inmates. With the co-operation of law makers [77], this has indeed occurred. For example in the three decades from 1970 onwards the number of prisoners in that country increased exponentially [3], requiring an increase of more than 700% in the number of (rather profitable) prisons[1].

“The demand for our facilities and services could be adversely affected by the relaxation of enforcement efforts, leniency in conviction or parole standards and sentencing practices or through the decriminalization of certain activities that are currently proscribed by our criminal laws. For instance, any changes with respect to drugs and controlled substances or illegal immigration could affect the number of persons arrested, convicted, and sentenced, thereby potentially reducing demand for correctional facilities to house them. “ — from the Annual Report to the Securities and Exchange Commission by one of the largest private for-profit prison corporations [143]

“... changes with respect to the decriminalization of drugs and controlled substances could affect the number of persons arrested, convicted, sentenced and incarcerated, thereby potentially reducing demand for correctional facilities to house them. Similarly, reductions in crime rates could lead to reductions in arrests, convictions and sentences requiring incarceration at correctional facilities. Immigration reform laws which are currently a focus for legislators and politicians at the federal, state and local level also could materially adversely impact us.” — annual report of another large private for-profit prison corporation [144]

In other words a more humane criminal justice system is a large potential threat to the existence of these for-profit prison corporations. Having more and more laws which result in more and more arrests with jail time is a very good thing for the CEOs and shareholders of these prison corporations.

And so this for-profit system can boast that the United States more than 1000 new inmates are imprisoned per week [3]. A world record unsurpassed in history. In fact, the rate of imprisonment in the United States has long since far outstripped that country’s rate of population growth. an image - please see terms of use

3. Ghettoisation

One in every thirty-one adults (almost 8,000,000 people) in the United States is behind bars or on parole, (even higher if total counts of private prisons, non-state funded prisons, military prisons, and similar are included). This is by far the highest rate of incarceration in the world [3,4,5,6,19]. That country also has the highest rate of skin colour-based incarceration in the world - the Pew centre has indicated that with 1 in every 9 persons with darkly pigmented skin in that country is incarcerated [7,8,9].

There is also in that country a highly disproportionate imprisonment of non-majority ethnic groups. But this is common around the world as well: The Maori [11] of New Zealand, Australian Aboriginals [12], Natives in Canada [13,14] and natives in the U.S. [15], Algerians under French rule [16], Caribbean immigrants in England [17], foreign immigrants in Holland [18] and in Sweden [19], the Lapps in Finland [20], the Burakumin in Japan [21], Arabs in Israel [22], and so on. What is different in the United States however, is that the disproportionate rates of imprisonment of non-dominant ethnic or pigmentation-based groups is far greater in the United States [3,14,9,20,21,22] than in any other country in the world. The disproportion is so great in fact, that some academics (notably [20,23]) have alleged that racism in the United States is an entrenched part of the the legal system.

A small example: There are as many young African-American males detained by the U.S. criminal justice system as there are African-Americans of any age in four-year U.S. college programs [24]. A staggering 40% of young African-American males are either incarcerated or wanted by the California police [24]; only 5% of white males are similarly treated [24,25]... yet African-Americans make up only 7% of the Californian population [ibid]. Data from twelve similar U.S. states indicate that African-Americans are incarcerated at least ten times as frequently as those with light skin colour but with similar economic and social backgrounds [26]. A full 51% of U.S. executions of U.S. citizens are of African-Americans – a group comprising less than 12% of the U.S. population [27]. These differences hold over time, and are not the product of a particular generation [19,27,28]. Interestingly however, in longitudinal polling most white U.S. citizens believe the law is applied equally to all, regardless of ethnicity [29]. A society whose prison population is dominated by those with particular skin pigmentation far, far out of proportion to socio-economic status, regardless of area, may perhaps be wanting.

4. Incubating AIDS

Further, prisons in North America are primary incubators for AIDS. The probability of contact in AIDS for black citizens in the United States became, in the space of less than a decade, nine times that of white males. Why did they so suddenly contact a disease formerly associated primarily with gay white men? The data strongly indicates prisons and rates of black male incarceration as the primary line [26, 30].

“Our results reveal that the higher incarceration rates of black males... explain the lion’s share of the racial disparity in AIDS infection... rates between racial groups.” [ibid].

Not only is race a factor in incarceration, but it is a fact in acquisition of fatal disease. Sentencing a black male to prison may also mean sentencing him to an early death.

5. Sexual abuse

Sexual abuse in U.S. prisons is appallingly high - roughly 220,000 prisoners per year are sexually abused, frequently by guards and prison officials [69]. Additionally, 18,000 juveniles were sexually abused in juvenile detention facilities [ibid]. These numbers grow every year.

Rape, coercion to perform sexual acts, and intimidation for sex are common in United States prisons, with guards being amongst the worst perpetrators [69,70]. As Kaiser and others have pointed out [69], this is by any standard, a human rights crisis of epidemic proportions.

One small example: U.S. prisons have a general policy of housing transgender prisoners according to their birth gender. Hence those born men but are now women with surgically created breasts and vaginas may be housed with men. The resulting violence, sexual assault, and abuse is not surprising (see for example the well known U.S. Farmer v. Brennan case [146]. But the cruelty of not only allowing this, but making it prison policy [147], speaks volumns about the deterioration of ethical treatment in the world’s most highly militarized country. Overall, the treatment of lesbian, gay, and transgender people in U.S. prisons [147, 148] is reminiscent of the middle ages, not of the 21^stcentury. Amnesty International calls such treatment a hate crime [149], a sentiment with which the academic literature on the issue largely concurs [ibid; 147].

Yet while organizations such as Amnesty International have highlighted some of these human rights abuses in U.S. prisons [82] legislators and government in that country continue to expand this system, ignoring factual evidence in apparent favour of ideology (and perhaps, profit since some of said legislators invest heavily in the corporations running these prisons [83]).

6. Tough on crime?

In general politicians have supported high rates of incarceration as a well developed “tough on crime” mythos. For example, take the U.S. state of California. Its erstwhile governor was a former Hollywood actor, adulterer, and alleged mysogenist, under whose direction poverty in the state rose to the highest levels in history. He essentially bankrupted the state with ludicrous projects and spending. Yet he happily ordered $7,800,00,00 U.S.D [31] be spent to expand that state’s prison system. But The less than 1% of this amount was be spent on “rehabilitation” [2,26]. That is to say, more than 99% of the money went toward further imprisonment. This despite the fact that California already had a prison system larger than that of any other country in the world other thank the U.S.

This expansion was sold to the citizenry, who of course were the ones paying for it, as a means of relieving overcrowding in jails. For in that state, as with most other states in the U.S., most prisons held more than double their designed capacity [86]. Yet expanding a prison system does not relieve overcrowding [26,32]. Instead it has always led to progressively higher rates of incarceration.

In other words, imprisonment and more jails - lip service only to rehabilitation and preventing recidivism. This was typical of the United States as a whole, of course. For despite an almost exponential increase in incarceration and expanding the prison system, that country proportionally spends the least amount of money on rehabilitation than any other industrialized nation [27].

It has been pointed out by many researchers that the fairness of the U.S. legal system is somewhat questionable in regard to then manner in which those of lower socio-economic background are incarcerated. For example [28] presents well researched and compelling evidence on a case by case bases of a chaotic legal system bereft of fairness [29] or even conformity with the UN Charter of Human rights [30].

It is an indisputable fact that many innocent citizens are in U.S. jails, as evidenced by thorough research in peer reviewed journals [28,29,31] and in particular the number of Amnesty International cases for that country [32]. In fact, a high percentage [31] of the U.S. prison population had mental illness prior to arrest [ibid] - something exacerbated by their incarceration [29].

A particularly unfortunate aspect of this is that many of the U.S.’s client states are conforming to this model. For example, Canada which under its ruling Republican Pary enacted a host of U.S. copycat laws as well as putting forth “tough on crime” legislation virtually identical to that of the United States. This despite overwhelming scientific and sociological evidence that such legislation does not work [29, 2, 26]. The literature has conclusively shown moreover [ibid] that “tough on crime” laws worsen, not lessen, crime rate and recidivism. And indesputible forensic data showing crime rates of all types had been dropping and was in fact [138], at the lowest percentage in Canadian history [137]. an image - please see terms of use

But as I discuss below, such legislation does rather nicely work to fill the coffers of the private for-profit corporations which increasingly run the prison system. And contribute large amounts [133] in “campaign contributions” to those politicians which support such legislation.

Bill C-10, 100 pages of small print, rolled laws from organized and drug crime, to pardons, drug crime, to child sex offenders, to migrants entering Canada and young offenders into a single omnibus law, with mandatory minimum sentencing [135]. For example, under the new mandatory minimum sentencing guides passing (not using) a tab of say, ecstasy, at a part in a university frat house automatically put a student into federal penitentiary of two years. The bill also removed Aboriginal rights (the Gladue decision [134]). But it did, as was its fundamental purpose, “harmonize” U.S. and Canadian law, and nicely fill the new prisons the government had had built by the same private for-profit corporations [136] which ran the U.S. Prison system.

Consider that this type of legislation focuses exclusively upon punishment. Internment is used as penalty, not rehabilitation.

Further mandatory minimum sentences tend to treat major and minor offences the same. For example they tend to increase prison time for bank robbers and for those convicted of illegal parking by the same amount. And as a by-product give police ever increasing discretionary powers whilst at the same time curtailing the discretion of judges. This makes it easier to arrest someone for (as has happened in the United States) wearing a tee-shirt critical of that country’s president, while at the same time failing to allow judges to fit the penalty to the circumstances or to address mitigating factors. (For example, women in that country have been imprisoned for apparently horrific crime of breast-feeding their infants in public [49], something requiring jail time under their mandatory minimum sentencing laws.) Tough on crime legislation also tends to remove house arrest as an option, something which one might be preferable to jail time for the crime of breast feeding one’s baby in public. Tough-on-crime laws also make pardons for good behaviour very difficult to obtain, while at the same time making surveillance and secret spying on the citizenry without warrant both simple and easy.

In other words, "tough on crime" legislation tends to be punitive for punishment’s sake alone. There is little to no scientific evidence that it reduces crime (see previous citations). Prisons are recidivism incubators, hence this type of legislation tends to increase crime of all types as discussed later. There is considerable forensic and academic evidence that lowering incarceration rates and instead properly funding social and educational programs lowers crime across the board (see particularly [128, 129] as well as references below in the “Three Strikes” section).

Tough-on-crime legislation does not attempt to to lead citizens to higher ground. Instead it panders to the worst sentiments cruelty, deriding science and evidence. It is a two toned no shades of grey view of the world - evil vs. good, heroes and villains. It is a black and white view of the world, or as Klapp’s research has shown, a view of “hard-working, law-abiding tax payers” versus villains, criminals, terrorists and would-be terrorists, and fools [87]. It divides the world up into effeminate elites and experts who are soft on crime versus those clever people who know better than these researchers and who eschew science in favour of viscious punishment for its own sake.

It is an interesting coincidence that such legislation is often put into law by those who claim to be evangelical Christians (eg. Canada [88], Britain [89], Australia [90], and the U.S. [91].) Ceratinly such policies see to be in direct contradiction to Jesus’ teachings. Compassion, kindness, forgiveness, helping the needy... these seem to be lacking most in the very politicians who claims so fervently to be Christian. Very sad. But then, creating criminals can be a useful path to power and riches:

“...when there aren’t enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What’s there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced nor objectively interpreted--and you create a nation of law-breakers--and then you cash in on guilt. Now that’s the system … and once you understand it, you’ll be much easier to deal with." — Rand [106]

7. Inhumane, murderous

Once in the prison system, there are a plethora of examples such as [32,33,34] that prisoners are poorly treated, routinely facing what many researchers have termed "inhumane conditions" and torture. Or even being denied such simple things as books brought by their loved ones, being forced to read only the Christian Bible (e.g. in as was the rule in South Carolina prisons [83]). Prisoners are under constant surveillance - video cameras [138] (which often strangely malfunction when they are given “disciplinary” beatings [142]), robot patrols [137], snitches [138], and so on. Their basic human need for privacy is utterly removed. They are subjected to bright lights, overcrowding [141], lack of sunlight and clean air [140], proper food (dietary considerations are often minimal to non-existant [139]), proper medical help [139], and so on. Their basic humanity and human needs are often ignored [138].

Other obvious innocents, such as Damien Wayne Echols, were essentially tortured by holding them in solitary confinement for over a decade, never seeing sunlight, deprived of human contact, and so on [130]. When DNA evidence showed Mr. Echols was not at the scene of the crime and other evidence showed flawed jury practices [131], he was eventually released. That is to say, Mr. Echols was proven to have been innocent. As of this writing, the U.S. still refused to officially exonerate Mr. Echols (i.e. still viewed by the law as a criminal), presumably to prevent him from suing for compensation for his torture at the hand of the “justice” system. But Mr. Echols was lucky - others in similar circumstances have been killed. Take the U.S. state of Texas for example:

In a single five year period Texas ranked first in the number of prisoners executed in the entire world [20,28]. A number of these prisoners were later proved innocent of all crime [ibid]. This dubious distinction was not the only honour achieved - it was also rated last in social services for the poor of any state. The governor of that state opposed legislation banning the execution those with IQs under 65 - thus making his state one of the only places in the civilized world where the government condoned murder of severely mentally handicapped humans. (Update: Now the only place in the world baring dictatorships such as Burma, Nigeria, and China where this occurs.) The fine government of that state - where every member calls himself a Christian - did however show some compassion: They mandated that prisoners’ arms be brushed with an alcohol swab moments before they were administered (while strapped immobile and gagged to a chair), with a lethal injection. Presumably because the compassionate lawmakers there would not want the prisoner to contact an infection moments before he was murdered. an image - please see terms of use

"I have yet to see a death case among the dozens coming to the Supreme Court on eve-of-execution stay applications in which the defendant was well represented at trial. People who are well represented at trial do not get the death penalty." - U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg

A report by Amnesty International [35] found that "at every step in the death penalty process in Texas, a litany of grossly inadequate legal procedures fail to meet recognized minimum international standards for the protection of human rights." There have been a variety of methods used by the state to kill - gas chamber, hanging, lethal injection, and the ever popular but often slow - it can take two hours or more at times of excruciating pain and agony - electrocution.

Those who died where often assigned attorneys (since they could not afford their own) who were allegedly incompetent – in one or two cases even falling asleep during the trials [36]. According to the Washington Post, "With few public defender offices in Texas, most indigent defendants must rely on court-appointed lawyers. Interviews with lawyers and other experts, as well as a review of 16 Texas death penalty cases, revealed instances in which lawyers in capital trials slept though key testimony, failed to file crucial legal papers correctly or on time, or had been cited for professional misconduct repeatedly in their careers" [37].

However it would be remiss to single out just one U.S. state - many others are almost as culpable. Take for example, the self-avowed “Christian” state of Mississippi: The Walnut Grove Youth Correctional Facility is a private for-profit juvenile prison. On average it has 1,200 young males between the ages of 13 and 22. The vast majority were incarcerated for non-violent offences [145]. It has been alleged by a number of rights groups [145, 146, 147] that these teenagers are kicked and punched while handcuffed, placed naked in solitary confinement for weeks, brutally raped by prison staff, and so on. Some have allegedly acquired permanent brain damage after been multiply stabbed and beaten allegedly by prison staff. At the last audit [146], the prison was making $100 million USD [ibid] in revenue for its shareholders - a very successful enterprise indeed.

8. Criminalizing immigrants

Of course there are many types of prisons in society. Some countries have concentrations camps were children and known innocents are tortured just to make a point to anyone who might want to dissent [71,72]. Other countries have slave camps were rare metals are mined by forced labour for use in the electronic gadgets and toys [73].

And there there are immigrant detention facilities. In these centres routine abuse, maltreatment, denial of medical aid, and more are rife [74]. Some are held for many years with no recourse to the courts, and no aid [71]. Some have died while being held. Undocumented arrestees are often moved from detention centres to maximum security prisons were they are forced to mix with, and frequently be abused by, real criminals [74].

Further, those immigrants who are refugee claimants are often directly placed into these detention centres. Particularly if racial profiling targets them as the ’wrong’ colour or ’wrong’ religion [75]. This is completely illegal under the Geneva Convention on Refugee Rights. But the practice continues throughout several industrialized nations none the less [76].

9. Three strikes and other fallacies

Yet despite overflowing prisons and solid research that prisons result in massive recidivism (see below), politicians continue to create increasingly harsh laws guaranteed to exacerbate the situation. Some of these I have already touched upon when discussing tough on crime’ legislation, above. But there is the additional consideration of so-called "three strike" legislation in the United States and other copycat or subject nations from Britain to Australia to Canada. Such laws remove discretion from judges [75, 45]. The result is an assembly line incarceration process [ibid, 41], a black and white legal system bereft of the discretion required for justice. (Some examples of the heart rending results of this cruel system are given below in the sections entitled ’Checkbook Justice’.)

The excessive incarceration rates, and high numbers of death sentences have been shown repeatedly [19,32,38,39,40,41] to have little or no deterrent value. As criminology studies, history, and common sense show, locking people up in a multi-billion dollar system of over crowded and often violent incarceration has no deterrent value upon crime. Yet such is the Weltanschauung of ignorance amoungst law makers that science and compassion are damned in favour of feeding the maw of this giant for-profit incarceration system [32, 42].

Perhaps if the billions had been spent elevating poverty, improving education, improving aid and retraining to those in prison, and eliminating the gap between rich and poor (which proportionally in the United States is the highest on the planet [42,43,44]) rather than building the largest prison system on the planet, crime and the corresponding need for prisons might have indeed been lessened? But that of course, might damage the profiteering taking place by the private for-profit corporations [32,42, 75] which run this vast prison system.

"I have yet to see a death case among the dozens coming to the Supreme Court on eve-of-execution stay applications in which the defendant was well represented at trial. People who are well represented at trial do not get the death penalty." — Supreme Court Justice R. B. Ginsburg [38]

10. Free labour force

In the U.S. prisoners are exempt from minimum wage laws, as well as union and other legal protections such as many health and safety laws [78,79]. With so many in that country’s jails, this is clearly a sizeable, exploitable, and virtually free workforce. And so prisoners being paid as little as $0.23 USD per hour to manufacture many items for U.S. businesses, including the business of war, making missile components, aircraft fighter cables, attack helicopter parts, and so on [80, 81].

The argument that this give prisoners a skill is highly questionable. For example, should prisoners refuse to do this work, they may be beaten [81] or brutalized in other ways [78, 32]. Further, since the prisoner cannot negotiate a fair wage, free-market wages are devalued, lowering wages in non-prison economies - i.e. the outside world. Moreover there is a real incentive to increase incarceration rates since this provides an virtually free labour force for corporations, elusive of union, safety, and other considerations. Private for profit corporations are increasingly using this virtually free, easy, enforced labour market in preference to their former predilections for Chinese, African, Indonesia, Haitian, and Mexican forced labour and sweat shops [113]. All sanctioned by the government, and beyond the scrutiny or even awareness of the public at large.

Moreover the U.S. government actually encourages this forced labour in the form of subsidies to corporations [114] through tax write offs, and up to 40% of the inmate wages (which, remember, are at or below 3rd world levels) under the Work Opportunity Tax Credit fund [115]. That is to say, taxpayers give money to corporations to use inmates as forced labour in the manufacture of goods which are then sold back to the taxpayer. A profit making scheme for corporations which currently no other western country allows.

Thirty-six (and climbing) U.S. states have enacted laws allowing the use of convict labour by commercial businesses. At an average pay rate of less than $0.21 per hour [84]. Conditions are often harsh, with no breaks. Not to be outdone Canada, which as mentioned previously has been implementing U.S. laws as part of its ’harmonization’ to U.S. laws vis a vie the Norht American Union, has begun to introduce laws to implement U.S. style forced labour chain gangs [92]. In these chain gangs human beings are shackled together with chains. This includes pregnant women [132]. Just as in the days when it was legal to own slaves.

At any rate, prisoners who refuse to work under these any of these conditions have ’uncooperative’ affixed to their records, which results in them loosing privileges such as library access and recreation. It also adversely effects their chances of early parole [85].

The abolition of slavery in the United States dealt a huge economic setback to the U.S.’ southern states. As cure, these same states implemented an extensive incarceration system which imprisoned (mainly) those with dark skin pigmentation. The so-called Black Codes criminalized activities specific to those with dark skin. The result was a burgeoning prision system filled with newly freed slaves [116]. These people (as well as the minority white-skinned prison population) was then leased out to private corporations to perform forced labour [ibid]. The corporations paid a flat fee to the government in return. This lasted until the 1930s. When it was rebranded again by chain-gang forced labour, which was so filled with human rights abuses that public outcry eventually stopped it in the 1950s. This was in turn replaced by the current system of prison factories. These are operated by and for multi-billion dollar corporations in every part of the United States, using prisoners are leased as cheap forced labour. As I discuss here, there is a revolving door between corporate board rooms and government in most western democracies. But the relationship is strongest in the United States where corporate leaders and government leaders are essentially interchangable, regardless of party affiliation. The incentive of enacting criminalizing legislation to enhance cheap forced labour in prisons which in turn aids the corporate bottom line, is a strong one.

And so defence contractors [117], lingerie manufacturers [118], leisure wear companies [ibid], aircraft manufactures [119], oil companies [120], automotive manufacturers [121], office equipment corporations [ibid], telemarketers [122], and even janitorial service companies [123] in the United States use cheap, non-unionized, forced prison labour. As I said previously, those prisoners who complain or refuse find themselves in solitary confinment [124], their sentances extended [ibid], or worse [125].

11. Chequebook justice

I have indicated the lack of fairness in this incarceration system at several points above. Now I would like to point out that when the wealthy, powerful, or well-connected break laws, they often are sentenced much more lightly (if at all) than those without money or influence who commit an identical crime.

An example: The heir to considerable wealth [93], pleaded guilty to leaving the scene of a fatal crash and allegedly committing vehicular homicide while driving his $120,000 USD Porsche 911 Turbo, which killed two British businessmen. The man already allegedly had more than 50 traffic violations, some serious. However he avoided prison after agreeing to pay an undisclosed sum to the two widows and paying their attorney fees [ibid]. Sentencing guidelines in the U.S. state of Florida where he was charged, called for up to 45 years behind bars. The man declined to apologize to the court, the widows, or the children left without fathers for his actions.

Another example: In the United States, Paul Allen was allegedly found guilty of heading an allegedly fraudulant mortgage scheme and allegedly misappropriating roughly $3 billion and allegedly causing considerable suffering to thousands of people from whom the money had allegedly come. He received a three year jail term. Around the same time, Roy Brown was found guilty of theft of $100 dollars from a bank. Mr. Brown allegedly walked into a bank with his hand in his coat pocket, approached a teller, and told her this was a robbery. The teller handed Mr. Brown a large amount of money, but he took only $100 saying that he was homeless and starving. The following day Mr. Brown went to the police and confessed, saying his mother did not raise him to be a theif. Mr. Brown received a fifteen year jail term.

Or: Ninteenth century U.S. President Franklin Pierce ran over a women while drunkenly riding a horse. No charges were laid against him. President Pierce was the great⁴uncle of another U.S. President, G W. Bush.

Or: Two U.S. TSA screeners [150] admitted to grand larceny, obstructing governmental administration, official misconduct, and stealing almost $40,000 from airport luggage. These crimes invariably result in between fifteen and twenty years prison time in the country [151]. They received however, six months in prison (less with good behaviour), and five years of probation, leaving the courtroom and the public with the distinct impression that government-connected received special treatement.

There are many, many more examples: A person from a poor part of a city is far more likely to be arrested for minor drug infractions than a person residing a wealthy neighbourhood of the same city who commits exactly the same crime [94]. Violations of tax laws by poor people tend to be charged at a rate far higher than identical violations by the wealthy [95]. Those who can afford top lawyers tend to be dealt far easier or no sentences than those who cannot, for identical crimes [96]. And so on ...

So-called ’chequebook justice’ in the United States and similar countries means that those who can pay to avoid jail time, usually do so. The poor on the other hand, fill the jails.

12. Jail time for no reason

Most privilaged persons are convinced that the only people in prison are those that deserve to be there. And of course, many do. But many do not. There are a plethora of examples of how people who should never have been jailed, have been. The legal literature is replete with them. People have been arrested and incarcerated sometimes for long periods, for peacefully and legally protesting [100], for the crime of being deaf (not hearing a police command) [101], for being mentally retarded [102], for the crime of being physically disabled [103], for the crime of home schooling a child [105], for the crime of having inappropriate skin pigmentation [104], for the crime of having a speech impediment [107], for the crime of having cancer [108], and so on.

Here is a case in point: George Norris in his retirement years allegedly operated a very small, part-time orchid business as part hobby and part small money earner. One day his wife, close to retirement herself, allegedly received a call from a neighbour – her house was allegedly being ransacked, her husband held prisoner, and allegedly federal officers were walking around the neighbourhood asking about the federal crimes her husband had committed. The ostensible crime committed? Mr. Norris had allegedly legally imported a few completely legal to own and legal to sell, orchids. But being mainly a hobbyist, he had allegedly incorrectly filled some of the paperwork. The details [99] are truly horrific. Mr. Norris, a law abiding senior citizen with no criminal record was allegedly incarcerated in a federal prison, placed into solitary confinement, and deprived of the prescription medications he needed to live (a crime against humanity under international law, for which none of Mr. Norris’ jailors have yet been tried).

He and his wife allegedly lost their life savings trying to free him from jail. He was 71, his wife 66. Mr. Norris was allegedly diabetic, with cardiac complications, arthritis, glaucoma, and worst of all, Parkinson’s disease. To repeat, he was allegedly denied essential presecription medication whilst incarcerated. And so prison as you can well imagine, allegedly exacerbated his health challenges. The Norrises allegedly lost everything, including their health, destroyed by this unecessary but sadly allegedly not unusual ordeal:

“...The most difficult of all the consequences is that I lost the man I married. He came home from prison and ate and slept and sat on the couch, staring at the TV—not really watching it. He would not water a plant, invite a friend over … Nothing. […] Meanwhile, my world shrank as well. During the time George was in prison my life consisted of scrimping to pay bills, keeping our home going, and travelling to the prison [...] to visit each week. Every time, I came home to all the chores, a full time job, and no husband. I was going through all the stages of grief with no support. My cousin, who was like a sister to me, died while George was in prison, and then I had real grief. At night, I could manage only two to three hours of sleep. During the day, I was exhausted. ” – Kathy Norris [ibid]

All for the horrific crime of allegedly neglecting to fill in a couple of boxes on a form for his part time hobby/business of growing orchids. A 71 year old man in ill health, jailed.

Finally, consider briefly the case of Patricia Spottedcrow [145], a twenty-six year old single mother of four. She was sent to prison by in the U.S. state of Oklahoma for twelve years, leaving her children without a parent. She had had no prior arrests or encounters with the law. Her crime? She was charged with selling $31 in marijuana to a police informant. Twelve-years of prison.

When the prison system is used in this manner, it is difficult to discern the boarder between justice and brutal vindictiveness.

13. Preventative Detention

“Preventative arrest is useful and necessary” — Canadian Prime Minister and clairvoyant, Stephen Harper [357]

Finally, a word about “preventative detention” (also known as pre-emptive arrest). The United States has introduced the idea of preventative indefinite detention [126], which is another term for imprisonment without having been convicted of a crime. The U.S. President has said arresting someone on suspicion that they may one day commit a crime is an “essential power” for the police in order to protect the public [127]. Protect them from the democratic right of trial and justice, perhaps? Whilst this has been the norm throughout history in the most egregious of dictatorships, it is something new for an ostensible democracy.

Other examples and a more complete discussion of preventative detention as antithetical to democracy can be had from my article on prisons , particularly Section 6.3 which illustrates how the very concept of preventative arrest is based upon pseudo-science. As well as having been historically used by a number of dictators to suppress dissent.

And of course as exemplified by the Norris case just discussed, we can be assured that there is no possibility of abuse of this power.

14. Alternatives used in more civilized societies

There are so many alternatives to imprisonment that one may wonder why the wealthiest nation on the planet does not use any, preferring to lock up so many for so little reason. A few of these alternatives:

Ankle monitors - Used extensively in Sweden [45] even for fairly serious crimes these allow a person to be a home, albeit with limit boundaries of movement. Repeat offences under this system are much lower than in the United States where imprisonment is highly correlated with further criminal activity once the person has served her time [46].
Sentencing Circles - Used in Canada, New Zealand, and Australia, primarily for native offenders. This is a traditional system whereby the criminal must face and be sentenced by her victims. The result is almost never imprisonment, but rather community service on the part of the perpetrator, of one form or another, removal of access to drugs or alcohol, set boundaries on movement, daily meetings with community members, and the like. Although reliable data is still being acquired, there is indication in the literature that repeat offences are far lower than for similar periods of imprisonment [47].
Matching punishment to severity of crime - In the United States people have been imprisoned for stealing food for starving children [19,48]. Women have been imprisoned for breast-feeding their infants in public [49]. Students have been imprisoned for politely asking awkward questions of politicians at rallies [50]. Grandmothers have been imprisoned for marching with signs antithetical to some politicians. And so on. All whilst political war criminals, industrial polluters, and the like walk free or garner minimum sentences sans imprisonment. There is a considerable literature [51,52,53,54] on this issue, and on the inequality of laws in that country particularly in regards to matching criminal severity to degree of punishment. In the United States imprisonment is often the de facto rule for even minor crimes, particularly should the criminal in question be so foolish as to have few fiscal resources [53,54].
Supervision - In New Zealand the youth court system has had considerable success in diverting youth from the criminal justice system via methods developed to make youth accountable without the need for imprisonment. In particular heavy use of supervision both human and technological have been shown [55] to reduce youth criminal activity at lower cost to the state. All without use of the prison system.
End the “War on Drugs”. Some time ago Portugal decriminalized the use of drugs, including cocaine and heroin [97]. Anyone caught using or possessing these substances was prescribed treatment by a panel of experts in addiction. They were not sent to jail; they were not tried in court. After more than a decade, incidence of drug-related crime in Portugal has declined to the lowest levels in Europe [98]. “Problematic” addiction has been cut in half, and is still dropping. The costs of the program are a tiny fraction of former enforcement and jail costs [ibid].

There are many, many more. Please peruse the references (particularly [19, 48-56]) for far more examples. Most of these are far less expensive and have shown much lower recidivism than the United States model of mandatory sentencing, three strikes, and long term imprisonment of more and more people for even minor offences. A model every reputable study has shown quite to simply not not work in reducing crime or repeat offences. It is in fact, a model which has never worked other than in elevating costs to the public purse and profits to the corporations and government systems which enable it.

15. Ensuring recidivism

There is also the issue of mandatory minimum sentencing so beloved by officials in the government of that country as part of the theatre security of being "tough on crime" (non-corporate, non-government crime only, of course). A study prepared for the Justice Department in 2005, said that several jurisdictions, including South Africa, Australia, England, and the state of Michigan, have retreated from minimum sentences in recent years because of evidence that they do not deter crime. For example, the Correctional Service of Canada has done a longitudinal study [55] showing no deterrent effect resulting form minimal sentences. The U.S. JFA Institute in Washington has called such policies costly, harmful, and a complete failure [62].

Yet despite this and similar studies done by the University of Toronto [58,59,60] the head of the fundamentalist Christian Republican Party of Canada (and Prime Minister of the country) recently announced identical "tough on crime" legislation. This person sought to increase length-of-stay mandatory sentencing for a host of crimes [61]. But interestingly without increasing police, research, social work, aid and training to prisoners to decrease recidivism, or similar. In other words, to continue punishment without hope. Identical initiatives were announced the same week by the head of Britain’s Republican Party.

Remarkably such announcements exactly mimic legislative initiatives in the United States toward longer imprisonment for even minor crimes. All without more policing, more social work to prevent recidivism, without improving prison conditions, without introducing fairness such as non-ethnic profiling, without better training for prison guards, without any research or scientific support showing that there was diminution in crime from such laws. And most of all perhaps without compassion. Perhaps the legislators in question were unaware of the teachings of their Christian faith or indeed, of Jesus?

It is far easier for politicians to ignore research and fact and simply legislate. Such theatre security gives the appearance of progress against criminality, but does very little or nothing toward actually solving any of the issues involved - or of protecting the public. Quit the opposite in fact - such laws significantly reduce funding available for crime prevention and similar social programs [ibid]. Further, the United States’ Department of Justice has also produced several studies, notably [56, 57] indicating that recidivism is increased with the longer imprisonment durations mandated by these compulsory sentencing laws.

To some extent too, the mandating of these longer sentences for minimal crimes leads is highly correlated not merely to recidivism but to more violent recidivism than the original crime entailed.

16. Conclusion

In sum, prisons and imprisonment has become a private for-profit business in the United States and its client countries. Tougher laws are being passed which coincidentally ensure these profits as more and more prisons are built, and more and more people are imprisoned, often in overcrowded, violent, drug-filled institutions. Again - a full 25% of all people incarcerated on the planet, are incarcerated in the United States with no proof that this model of incarceration decreases crime. All in a country proclaiming itself "the land of the free".

Perhaps one may be allowed to question the efficacy such a system of justice, and who such a system really serves?

"With the law books filled with a great assortment of crimes, a prosecutor stands a fair chance of finding at least a technical violation of some act on the part of almost anyone. In such a case, it is not a question of discovering the commission of a crime and then looking for the man who has committed it, it is a question of picking the man and then searching the law books, or putting investigators to work, to pin some offence on him." - Robert H. Jackson [63]

If you are interested in this subject, as well as information on how prison systems are signifier to the rise of fascism as well as tells for the erosion of democratic rights, might I suggest the following references which provide an enjoyable introduction to this field of study:

Bauman, Zygmunt. Life In Fragments: Essays in Post-Modern Morality. Blackwell, Oxford
Beck, Allen J.; Guerino, Paul. Sexual Victimization Reported by Adult Correctional Authorities, Bureau of Justice Statistic, Washington
Christie, Nils.. Crime Control as Industry: Towards Gulags Western Style, Routledge, London
Mathiesen, Thomas.. Prison on Trial: A Critical Assessment. Sage Publications, London
Miller, Jerome G.. Search and Destroy: African American Males in the Criminal Justice System. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, Mass

17. Addendum:

Someone wrote to ask about military prisons such as the giant $100 million dollar U.S. built prison in Afgahnistan [109], as well as the growth industry of incarceration and torture of human beings by private for-profit firms working for military [110]. In answer I would suggest that those interested refer to Amnesty International, Médecins Sans Frontières [111], and similar human rights NGOs. As well as the various in absentia war crimes commissions around the world. The quotation from Juvenal given at the top of this page is of as timely now as then. And finally, you may enjoy the Justice Policy Institute’s comprehensive report "Gaming the System," for an eye opener into the lack of justice concerning imprisonment.

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