I live in the United States of America. We are not #1 in many things, but we are #1 in having the most people in prison. My discussion here will be coming from that perspective, and may not be applicable to everyone outside of the U.S.
They are stealing our jobs! Buy American!
We have all likely grown up hearing this. Due to market disincentives created by our government it has encouraged any businessman with half a brain to consider getting the work done outside of the U.S. This is not due to lack of workers, or lack of infrastructure, it is due to Government (aka The State) passing so many laws and putting up so much red tape, and taking taxes for stupid things. Why wouldn't a smart businessman look for a better deal?
Now the ramifications to that are that much of the infrastructure that was here to do these jobs has crumbled and decayed. If certain parts of our electrical grid break down, we cannot even manufacture a replacement for them in our country because facilities to do that no longer exist. We have to order them and have them shipped here.
Something I've never heard other people talk about.
I had a job in 1994 - 1996 time frame at a place in Denver, Colorado called Correctional, Products & Services, Inc. I have an extensive background in computing but had never up to that point used a spreadsheet. Let me tell you I became very good at spreadsheets very quick. I was involved in making all the parts lists, printing out the bills of lading, and packing lists of shipments, etc. All spreadsheets for the most part. This gave me a unique chance to see how much things cost, and how much material was being shipped where.
This business shipped furniture kits in various stages of construction from just shipping the parts, to shipping assembled but not finished furniture, to in rare cases shipping a fully completed piece.
Where did they ship this?
Prisons all over the country where they were assembled and then shipped to other places. I remember us making the desk for the Governor of Illinois. We shipped full trailer truck loads of furniture to prisons on a weekly basis. Pennsylvania, Colorado (Juniper Valley Products), Texas (UNICOR), Utah (Draper), and many other places. It was big money.
What were they doing with this?
They were having inmates assemble the furniture for less than $1/hr and then selling them. A lot of government departments are mandated they must purchase a certain amount of materials from these sources.
Colorado Correctional Industries
California Prison Industry Authority
UNICOR - Federal
Utah Correctional Products
Texas Correctional Industries
My father crafted hand made furniture
My father made great works of art in hand crafted furniture made to order. This type of business did not impact him, but it did start to make me wonder how many businesses that used to make desks, chairs, tables, credenzas, beds, etc were no longer in business due to it now being handled by inmates.
It's no longer pounding rocks, and making license plates
Prisons are not making just furniture. They are making clothing, food stuffs, doing technical IT contract work, etc. If you contract certain companies to make your website it might be an inmate who makes that website.
They make a lot of things.
So while you were yelling about outsourcing and buy American...
So while you were yelling about outsourcing and buy American...
The Prison Industrial Complex was ramping up and getting subsidized by the government while simultaneously building sweatshops right under our noses.
You wonder why they don't want to legalize Marijuana. It is one of their best sources for their slave labor. I strongly believe that the Prison Industrial Complex is a growing motivation for why many victim less crimes exist.
So next time you see them endorsing some new law out there due to someone being unhappy about something frivolous take the time to wonder if you too could become the next slave in the INSOURCING movement in our nation.
If we are going to fight the war on drugs, the war on terrorism aimed at our citizens, the crazy hijacking of the word Piracy, etc. We need to be very aware of this extremely large player in these acts.
Start paying attention to the Prison Industrial Complex. They are more important than I think most people realize, and if you wonder why we have a lot of the crazy laws we have, it is very likely they are a good part of that reason.
EDIT: For the Repost adding previous good conversations in comments
The number of people in American prisons are overwhelming. A quote from Hillary Clinton, which according to this article is pretty accurate:
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Yes, the numbers are accurate yet she isn't the only one that has stated it. I've heard that a number of times.
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I wonder what the root cause of this may be. I guess one reason may be that the detention facilities are run by private companies, which lobbies a lot to have more people put in jail.
Another reason may be that this is just a plain racist system. I heard somewhere that a black male in America has was it 17 times greater chance of being incarcerated during his lifetime than a white male. Many of these are incarceration based on laws specifically designed to target the black community.
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This is likely. They also commit more crimes. I believe a lot of that is cultural. They apparently took some Irish culture and took it as their own. Think about who they idolize. They tend to consider rappers with criminal records as having street cred. I would expect such idolization to result in more crimes and thus incarceration. I do not buy into the racism narrative. I personally believe it is total bullshit and being intentionally stirred up and fueled by the mainstream media.
Furthermore, there are many other statistics you can look at that also impact black males, and in some cases females that seem to back the idea that it is perhaps a cultural issue rather than racist.
Now I am not saying there are no racist. There are. I don't believe they are as big as the news is pushing. I actually believe BLM has inflamed racism with the help of media rather than helped with it.
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Based on what I've learned, the laws have targeted the black community, and thus making more of them criminal by law. It's not that they actually behave worse than the white community, it's just that they're fall victim of these underlying racist laws.
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Show me a law. I've heard this, yet I haven't found any such laws. I believe this is crap, and until I see actual laws that target blacks I won't believe it.
This is partially why I started thinking a lot of it may actually be cultural. If you admire and elevate the thug life then it should be apparent that this should lead to more conflicts with the law. Note: I am not saying black culture. I don't believe in a RACIAL culture. Cultures can be followed by any race. In fact, the culture I am referring to was in the Irish community before it became popular in many black communities. There are also many white people and other minorities that participate in the cultures that admire and elevate those who are essentially thugs.
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I haven't got any laws to refer to, and don't know enough about this topic to make up my own opinion, but I found the information I heard interesting, and opened up a new perspective to me. Not to mistake this for being facts (again, I have very limited knowledge on this), but a perspective that tell me that there may be structural reasons for the amount of black men being incarcerated in the US.
Maybe it's something else, like a cultural such as that you've touched upon. I don't know. I'm gonna step out on a limb here, trying to recall what I saw in some documentary, but here it goes: If I'm not way off, the documentary claimed that the use of crack cocaine was more widespread in the black community than in the white. The white did other drugs, but it was the war on crack cocaine that was chosen by the government. This was during Regan. The war on drugs, or more precise, the was on drugs used primearily in the black community, led to more black men in prisons. So the war on drugs was actually a continuation of black oppression.
I my memory was not way off, I think that what you wrote is quite the same as the claims put forward in that documentary.
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Before reading the article I thought in India we have the highest crime rate and prisoners but know about the US, my perspective about this fact has changed. In India inmates also do a lot of work for the companies as well as for the government projects.
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Glad to find this open-minded people. I love your ideas, continues like that
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Yup I have to share this one also! Another awesome post @dwinblood!
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Actually, you live in The United States of America.
United States of America is long dead and abandoned.
If I ever get grabbed by the po-po, I don't know how I will handle things. I will not aid the war effort of The US. And much of the prison industrial complex is to create war materials or other ways of supporting the govern-cement.
I won't do it. So, I will probably stand in front of a judge who has convicted me of a made up crime and tell him to shoot me.
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Yeah I've read up on the incorporation of the country, but it gets pretty deep and most people would have no clue what I was talking about and it would just confuse them more. I think I read it on some sovereign citizen blog years ago first, and have encountered it a few times since then.
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Definitely something to "Con"template.
I guess it's one way to keep the jobs in the USA. :-(
Prison is starting to look better than regular life, TV, education, employment, exercise and 3 square meal a day.
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Not to mention healthcare, and things like the fact drugs still get into prison too. You'd think if the War on Drugs were a true thing that this would be an easy place to stop drugs from getting. Yet, it doesn't happen. I believe the war of drugs is about getting slaves, creating black markets to exploit for funding of black/offbook endeavors, and making lobbyists for big pharmaceutical companies happy.
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Its good that there are so many rules and crazy laws. This blog brings a new light on the topic and give input for overthinking. My first comment is; when the labour in prison is available, we should sure use that labour. All will be better from that, just because of the fact that it "kills" ;-) time for the inmates and the items are produced at low cost. So a win win situation.
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Enough crazy laws and there won't be jobs for people outside of prisons. Some inmates actually try to get thrown back into prison after being out of it for awhile. Structured, Regular Meals, Health Care, Shelter, and work.
They even drive trucks delivering the products. Many of them are not even technically in prison while they are working.
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The system is wrong, a prison is a prison, and people actually should not would like to spent their days locked up,.. There is too much Freedom, and they feel at home, everything is arranged. Cant be the goal from a prison.....
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I have met some of these young men(one as young 21 yrs old) who plan to spend most of their life in prison. Mostly because they've been in the system since they were young and its the only place they had any structure or discipline. I thought it was such a shame that that was all they could imagine for their lives.
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Yes, prison tends to fail as a deterrent after people spend much time there.
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Among the criminal social milieu it can even be a reward of increased status.
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Very interesting post @dwinblood ...upvoted
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I love this!
LEARN IT!, USE IT! we are the final authority!
Namaste!
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