User:Kylaj/sandbox

Proposed Revisions To Prison-industrial Complex article:

Lead: The lead does a decent job of introducing the term “prison-industrial complex” (PIC) in its most technical definition. It does a quality job of describing the issue and agents involved with the economic side of developing the prison-industrial complex. I would remove a sentence that is not entirely nonbiased that refers to the NORML (National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws) advocating that the prison industrial complex promotes imprisonment as an effective solution to social problems. I would rather these sentiments be reflected in a category more centered around response/action/solutions.

I.	History

a.	I would want to include a greater in variety of sources in this section. Also, this section is not very oriented around actual history of the PIC and the first “historical” reference is dated back to 1997. I would expect more information revolving around the origin and evolution of PICs throughout a longer period of history. I will put in a paragraph referencing the start and rise of private prisons, including information of the motivation behind privatizing detention centers. I will also include a link to the Wikipedia article, “Private Prison”

References

a.	Mason, Cody. “Too Good to be True: Private Prisons in America.” The Sentencing Project, The Sentencing Project: Research and Advocacy for Reform, Jan. 2012, sentencingproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Too-Good-to-be-True-Private-Prisons-in-America.pdf. Accessed 1 Oct. 2017. b.	“Banking on Bondage: Private Prisons and Mass Incarceration.” American Civil Liberties Union, www.aclu.org/banking-bondage-private-prisons-and-mass-incarceration. Accessed 1 Oct. 2017. c.	Whitehead, John W. “Jailing Americans for Profit: The Rise of the Prison Industrial Complex.” The Huffington Post, TheHuffingtonPost.com, 10 Apr. 2012, www.huffingtonpost.com/john-w-whitehead/prison-privatization_b_1414467.html. Accessed 1 Oct. 2017. d.	“The War on Crime, LBJ and Ferguson: Time to Reassess the History.” Time, Time, time.com/3746059/war-on-crime-history/. Accessed 1 Oct. 2017. e.	Schlosser, Eric. “The Prison-Industrial Complex.” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 1 Dec. 1998, www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1998/12/the-prison-industrial-complex/304669/. Accessed 19 Sept. 2017.

I would want to reference the Crime Bill that was supported by the both the Clinton and Bush administration that played a large role in increasing the rate of incarcerated individuals. I would also like to link the Crime Bill to the Wikipedia article, “Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994”

References:

a.	Johnson, Carrie. “20 Years Later, Parts of Major Crime Bill Viewed As Terrible Mistake.” NPR, NPR, 12 Sept. 2014, www.npr.org/2014/09/12/347736999/20-years-later-major-crime-bill-viewed-as-terrible-mistake. Accessed 28 Sept. 2017. b.	Lussenhop, Jessica. “Clinton crime bill: Why is it so controversial?” BBC News, BBC, 18 Apr. 2016, www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-36020717. Accessed 1 Oct. 2017.

II. Economics

This section of the article does not reflect a very neutral perspective. I think more statistics and monetary evidence are needed to help support the claims made. The focus of this section should be on the currency and incentive/value of PICs and who benefits from the profits to be made.There are also many companies who profit off of the prison industrial system. I would like to include references that cite the specific corporations invested in the growth of PICs. I would also correct the wording and grammatically errors/awkward phrasing that occurs throughout the paragraph.

References:

a.	Masked Racism: Reflections on the Prison Industrial Complex, www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/davisprison.html. Accessed 19 Sept. 2017 b.	“Who's Getting Rich off the Prison-Industrial Complex?” Vice, 17 May 2013, www.vice.com/en_us/article/mvpzkp/whos-getting-rich-off-the-prison-industrial-complex. Accessed 1 Oct. 2017.

V.	Implications/Agenda

I would like to add in this section in order to reference the effects of PICs on society, specifically the detrimental effects regarding various ethnic groups. This section will include information about mass incarceration of African-Americans males and impact that their detention rate has on communities, racial inequality in the United States criminal justice system, and other factors affecting incarceration rates.

References:

a.	Thompson, Heather Ann. "Why Mass Incarceration Matters: Rethinking Crisis, Decline, and Transformation in Postwar American History." The Journal of American History, vol. 97, no. 3, Dec. 2010. JSTOR. b.	Roberts, Dorothy E., "The Social and Moral Cost of Mass Incarceration in African American Communities" (2004). Faculty Scholarship. Paper 583 c.	Forman, James Jr, "RACIAL CRITIQUES OF MASS INCARCERATION: BEYOND THE NEW JIM CROW" (2012). Faculty Scholarship Series. Paper 3599.

VI. Immigration

a.	The immigration section of this article spends a lot of emphasis on the fiscal budget increases to the INS (Immigration and Naturalization Service) as well as includes somewhat irrelevant information regarding the treatment of immigrants while they await administrative hearings. The paragraph also includes information about how the budget increases for ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) have doubled. I would like to remove some of the information in this section because it has no connection to the Prison-Industrial Complex. I also think that some sentences regarding budget could go under the section relating to Economics where I would explain how the ICE and INS have a vested interest in PICs.

References:

a.	Roxanne Lynne Doty, Elizabeth Shannon Wheatley; Private Detention and the Immigration Industrial Complex, International Political Sociology, Volume 7, Issue 4, 1 December 2013, Pages 426–443

The last paragraph concerns the yearly revenue that comes from immigrant detention centers and how this revenue has developed into a critical part of the economy in the Southwestern United States. I believe that this information belongs in the article and ties into the multifaceted structure of PICs more than information in this section concerning immigrant treatment and abuse, which can be seen as promoting a biased view. I would reword these sentences to shift the focus to the perceived relationship between immigration and crime, linking the Wikipedia article, “Immigration and crime”

References: 1.	Camarota, Steven A., and Jessica M. Vaughan. “Immigration and Crime: Assessing a Conflicted Issue.” Center for Immigration Studies, Nov. 2009, pp. 1–32.

VII. Response/Solutions/Reform

I think that specific events in response to the implementation of PICs should be grouped into one topic under the category of response to the issue. b.	School-to-prison pipeline This section needs grammatical work and wording corrections. The section also references that there has been a recent trend of articles that describe the school-to-prison pipeline as contributing and feeding into PICs but cites zero sources for this claim and does not explain the any of the references. I would add more information concerning in what ways school-to-prison pipelines play a role in supporting PICs and include methods to counteract their impact and effect in regard to juvenile detention rates.

References: 1.	“The School-to-Prison Pipeline.” Teaching Tolerance, 8 Aug. 2017, www.tolerance.org/magazine/spring-2013/the-schooltoprison-pipeline. Accessed 2 Oct. 2017. 2.	Libby Nelson & Dara Lind Published: February 24, 2015. “The school to prison pipeline, explained.” The school to prison pipeline, explained — Justice Policy Institute, www.justicepolicy.org/news/8775. Accessed 2 Oct. 2017.

Workspace: Lead The term "prison–industrial complex" (PIC) is derived from the "military–industrial complex" of the 1950s,[2] and is used to describe the attribution of the rapid expansion of the US inmate population to the political influence of private prison companies and businesses that supply goods and services to government prison agencies for profit.[3] The most common and prominent agents of the PIC are corporations that contract cheap prison labor, construction companies, surveillance technology vendors, companies that operate prison food services and medical facilities,[4] private probation companies,[4] lawyers, and lobby groups that represent them. The term "prison–industrial complex" has also been used to describe a similar issue in other countries' prisons of expanding populations.[5] The portrayal of prison-building/expansion as a means of creating employment opportunities and the utilization of inmate labor are cited as particularly harmful elements of the prison-industrial complex as they boast clear economic benefits at the expense of the incarcerated populace. The term implies a network of participants who prioritize personal financial gain over ensuring one's debt to society is adequately paid or rehabilitating criminals. Proponents of this view, including civil rights organizations such as the Rutherford Institute[6] and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU),[7] believe that the desire for monetary gain through prison privatization has led to the vast growth of the prison industry and contributed to the number of incarcerated individuals. Such advocacy groups would assert that incentivizing the construction of more prisons with the potential for profitability will doubtlessly lead to the unjust incarceration of millions more citizens, affecting people of color at disproportionately high rates.

History The Prison Industry Enhancement Certification Program (PIECP) is a federal program that was initiated along with the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and the Prison-Industries Act in 1979.[8] This program allows prison inmates to earn market wages in private sector jobs that can go towards tax deductions, victim compensation, family support, and room and board. [9] The PIECP, ALEC, and Prison-Industries Act were created with the goal of motivating state and local governments to create employment opportunities that mimic private sector work, generate services that allow offenders to contribute to society, offset the cost of their incarceration, improve inmate idleness, cultivate job skills, and improve the success rates of transition back into the community after release. [10]

"The Prison Industrial Complex" is the title of a recorded 1997 speech by social activist Angela Davis, later released as an audio CD that served as the basis for her book of the same title. Davis also co-founded the prison abolition group, Critical Resistance, which held its first conference in 1998. Her article entitled "Masked Racism: Reflections on the Prison Industrial Complex," published in the Fall 1998 issue of ColorLines, stated: "Homelessness, 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," Davis says. "Taking into account the structural similarities of business-government linkages in the realms of military production and public punishment, the expanding penal system can now be characterized as a 'prison industrial complex.' "[11] A few months later, Eric Schlosser wrote an article published in Atlantic Monthly in December 1998 stating that: "The 'prison-industrial complex' (PIC) is not only a set of interest groups and institutions; it is also a state of mind. The lure of big money is corrupting the nation's criminal-justice system, replacing notions of safety and public service with a drive for higher profits. The eagerness of elected officials to pass tough-on-crime legislation – combined with their unwillingness to disclose the external and social costs of these laws – has encouraged all sorts of financial improprieties." Schlosser defined the prison industrial complex as "a set of bureaucratic, political, and economic interests that encourage increased spending on imprisonment, regardless of the actual need."[12] Another writer of the era who covered the expanding prison population and attacked "the prison industrial complex" was Christian Parenti, who later disavowed the term before the publication of his book, Lockdown America (2000). "How, then, should the left critique the prison buildup?" asked The Nation in 1999: "Not, Parenti stresses, by making slippery usage of concepts like the 'prison–industrial complex.' Simply put, the scale of spending on prisons, though growing rapidly, will never match the military budget; nor will prisons produce anywhere near the same 'technological and industrial spin-off.'" Sociologist Loïc Wacquant of UC Berkeley is also dismissive of the term for sounding too conspiratorial and for overstating its scope and effect. However Bernard Harcourt, Professor of Law at Columbia University, considers the term useful insofar as "it highlights the profitability of prison building and the employment boom associated with prison guard labor. There is no question that the prison expansion served the financial interests of large sectors of the economy."[3] Others argue that while prison reform is necessary, economic reform through equality for people of color is first necessary before real change can be realized.[13] In 2011 The Vera Institute of Justice surveyed 40 state correction departments to gather data on what the true cost of prisons were. Their reports showed that most states had additional costs ranging from one percent to thirty-four percent outside of what their original budget was for that year.[14] Hadar Aviram, Professor of Law at UC Hastings, suggests that critics of the prison-industrial complex (PIC) focus too much on private prisons. While Aviram shares their concerns that "private enterprises designed to directly benefit from human confinement and misery is profoundly unethical and problematic," she claims that "the profit incentives that brought private incarceration into existence, rather than private incarceration itself, are to blame for the PIC and its evils." In the neoliberal era, she argues, "private and public actors alike respond to market pressures and conduct their business, including correctional business, through a cost/benefit prism."[15] A 2014 report by the American Friends Service Committee, Grassroots Leadership and the Southern Center for Human Rights claims that recent reductions in the number of people incarcerated has pushed the prison industry into areas previously served by non-profit behavioral health and treatment-oriented agencies, referring to it as the "Treatment Industrial Complex," which "has the potential to ensnare more individuals, under increased levels of supervision and surveillance, for increasing lengths of time – in some cases, for the rest of a person’s life."[16] Sociologist Nancy A. Heitzeg and activist Kay Whitlock claim that contemporary bipartisan reforms being proposed "are predicated on privatization schemes, dominated by the anti-government right and neoliberal interests that more completely merge for-profit medical treatment and other human needs supports with the prison-industrial complex."[17]