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Prison Industrial Complex: Historical Context
Prison Industrial Complex: Historical Context

The rise of the Prison Industrial Complex, the ("PIC"), is undeniably tied to the rise of mass incarceration in the United States. This is marked through historical racial inequality, the development of the Neoliberal movement, and the War on Drugs. Religion and social thought played a key role in the segregation and subsequent jailing of people of color and of inferior backgrounds following the Jim Crow Era. These included policies and social thought that lead to post-emancipation laws that were targeted to put slaves back into jail. Once incarcerated, they could be exploited as cheap labor in the community. While many policies that surround the Prison Industrial Complex act as means to combat social problems, they result in heavy entanglement in the finance and economics of jail systems. As such, since the jails in the United States Penal System are no longer costs that can be readily cut, many argue that while prison reform is necessary, economic reform through equality for people of color is first necessary before real change can come about. An in-depth look must be taken to see the historical rise of the Prison Industrial Complex.

It is important to note the events that led to the development of the Prison Industrial Complex over the last 30 years in order to better understand mass incarceration. A socioeconomic movement occurred in the US during the ’70’s that provided a perfect breeding ground for the infrastructure of the Prison Industrial Complex, Neoliberalism. Neoliberalism emphasized a more deregulated approach to business and trade, as well as the privatization of nationalized industries. With the Neoliberal movement in full swing prisons quickly became privatized and, therefore, their purpose changed from keeping society safe, to making a profit. Once the PIC began to make a significant profit for companies such as Wackenhut and others, these mega corporations sent their lobbyists to Washington D.C. These Lobbyists worked to create more stringent laws in order to keep those already incarcerated behind bars, for longer periods of time. These new laws lead to the imprisonment of hundreds of thousands of people and solidified prison as a staple in our society, without an actual decrease in crime.

Neoliberalism had another effect on the PIC, the displacement of jobs. Always looking at the bottom line, corporations in the US began to look for ways to lower their production and labor costs to increase their profits. This was done with the aid of new technologies and globalization, which replaced the worker with the machine. In the ‘90’s, we saw a significant amount of production being outsourced overseas, again to increase the profit earning potential of these mega corporations.4 This loss of jobs greatly affected the communities of people of color, and the streets began to become inundated with displaced workers. These displaced workers soon found themselves the target of legislation that would keep them behind bars. Faced with unemployment this group began to search for other ways to provide for their families and often found no other option than illegal activity.

The War on Drugs is another major contributor in the rise of incarceration of people ofcolor over the last two decades. The United States has increasingly pressured governments of other nations to impose its federalized and militarized drug war. At home, this drug war has resulted in an increase of people of color in the U.S. Prison system. Many people of color become involved in criminalized behaviour as a means of economic survival. The Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988 became effective on November 1, 1987, and implemented mandatory minimum sentencing guidelines which mostly eliminated judicial discretion. Although on its face, this Act would seem to level the sentencing for all who come before the courts, it has had a disproportionately affect on people of color. This act has also adversely affected women and has significantly increased their rates of incarceration. The Media has been at the forefront of the War on Drugs, constantly portraying the dangers of drug use on society. While it would be difficult to argue that hardcore drug dependence is helpful to society, the perception that drug users are the true enemy of civilized society must be examined. This criminalization takes place in a wide array of ways from displaying minorities, primarily, in their stereotype forms leading to false consciousness when it comes to other races.

Eric Schlosser (1998) wrote in the Atlantic Monthly that the prison-industrial complex is “a set of bureaucratic, political, and economic interests that encourage increased spending on imprisonment, regardless of the actual need”. The growth of prisons as economic cash cows has grown to incorporate the whole world. Services initially offered by Wackenhut and CCA such as food and health have now grown to the full management of prisons both in and outside the United States. These companies manage prisons not only in the United States but in other countries such as UK, France, Australia, and Puerto Rico; and are marketing their services to South Africa and Venezuela. Prison building outside of the U.S. has been sold as a “...way to replace the loss of manufacturing jobs and to revitalize economically depressed rural areas and small towns.” These companies, Wackenhut and CCA are managing incarceration on a global scale. The frightening conclusion is that the North has pushed its agenda on the South. This global policy has created an unequal partnership in trade and finance, curtailment of social and legal entitlements, diminished national sovereignty, and increased inequality within and between countries, and the dependency of the South on the North. Reynolds offers three areas in which resolution to this increase in incarceration can take please. These are: implementation of alternative policies to mandatory sentencing, drug treatment instead of incarceration; a policy of decarceration that would allow nonviolent female drug offenders to serve their sentences in the community-corrections options; and lastly activism - Julia Sudbury is quoted in emphasizing the "importance of recognizing the interconnections between mass incarceration, militarization, and the global economy, and of making connections between radical social movements."

LA County Jail
LA County Jail

Los Angeles County jail, run by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, is the largest jail system in the United States. The jail facilities in the Los Angeles County Jail include Pitchess Detention Center (East and North Facility), North County Correctional Facility, Mira Loma Detention Center, Men’s Central Jail, Twin Towers, and Century Regional Detention Facility, with Pitchess East Facility being the oldest. The Los Angeles County Jail incarcerates about 200,000 individuals each year, and with such large numbers, the jail has faced numerous problems with its facilities.

One of such issues is visitation controversy, exemplified by a recent event in the Men’s Central Jail. A 23-year-old male, Gabriel Carillo, was severely beaten up and pepper sprayed by a deputy in Los Angeles’ Men’s Central Jail on Saturday, February 26, 2012. Carillo was there with his girlfriend, Grace Torres, to visit his younger brother. Both Torres and Carillo brought their cell phones into the jail and were caught having the phones on them. Torres, out of fear of being fired from her job where she must remain on call, hid her cell phone in her boot and snuck it into the visitor’s lobby despite the signs prohibiting it, while Carillo forgot to remove his cellphone from his pocket. The deputies confiscated the phones shortly after, handcuffed Carillo, and took Carillo and Torres into the break room, where Carillo was assaulted.

Following the controversy, Los Angeles County Sheriff, Lee Baca, announced that the Men’s Central Jail could be closed. The closure of Men’s Central Jail can be made possible if 3,000 low-risk, nonviolent offenders are placed into community-based supervision and education program aimed at reducing the numbers of repeat offenders. Construction of a new jail has been proposed to replace the Men’s Central Jail. Another challenge that the Los Angeles County Jail faces is violence within the jail community. Many researchers assert that the violence seen in jails is in part due to males wanting to maintain a position of superiority. Because those who appear to be weak tend to become victims of sexual violence in jail, some men attempt to demonstrate to others that they are too strong to be taken advantage of. This level of heightened masculinity is also called hypermasculinity, and has the potential to manifest itself in the form of violence in a prison setting. Although men prove their masculinity in order to prevent sexual assault, some may also commit sexual assault on others as a mechanism for appearing dominant and masculine. As a result, sexual violence in prison has become a self-propagating spiral.

Related to this issue is Los Angeles County Jail’s K6G unit, which is intended to be a separate unit for gay-identified men and transgender women. Although it has been shown that this unit is successful through its lower rates of sexual violence, the creation and systematics of this unit have sparked controversy. In order to be admitted into the K6G unit, inmates must prove that they are gay. However, those who identify inmates as homosexual individuals eligible for the K6G unit rely on stereotypes constructed by society about gay men. This procedure prevents homosexual men who are not open about their sexuality, particularly those of color, from coming out as gay for fear of abuse if they do so. Finally, serious health concerns have begun to arise with the issue of mass incarceration in the Los Angeles County Jails. Several organizations and scholars have analyzed random samples of prisoners with illnesses and the healthcare that they receive while incarcerated. Although it is generally assumed that many prisoners have antisocial personality personality disorder, The American Public Health Association claims that some of these prisoners suffer from a variety of other disorders. They also state that more than 30% of their sample have a severe mental disorder or a substance use disorder (cite). The detainees that were diagnosed with severe mental disorders or substance use were often in jail because they had committed nonviolent crimes. An issue that arises with the incarceration of individuals with mental disorders is that they must be tested for competency before they can be put on trial, which can leave inmates in jail for longer than necessary.

Richard Lamb and Robert W. Grant conducted a similar study of 101 women that are imprisoned in the Los Angeles County Jail system. In this study, they concluded that 70% of them had traumatizing experiences of physical violence, 40% of these women were involved in prostitution, and 84% of the women with children were incapable of taking care of them. In addition, there were more mentally ill men in jail than there were women. In a study of male inmates, there appeared to have been issues of the “criminalization” of those whom were mentally ill. An issue that resides in these studies is that there is uncertainty when trying to determine if these prisoners receive any beneficial treatment. In response to this issue, Dr. Terry Kupers mentions that when considering the large proportion of prisoners with significant mental illness, few of these Los Angeles County Jail inmates receive adequate mental health treatment. However, mental illnesses have been and are currently being studied in the Los Angeles County Jail. For instance, several researchers studied Bipolar I disorder, and found that a way to decrease the number of inmates with Bipolar 1 disorder is by having them participate in longer psychiatric hospital stays. One solution to this issue could be opt-out screening and vaccinations for STIs and other infectious diseases, which has the potential to improve health conditions in jail and in surrounding communities. This can be accomplished by providing health care that many inmates, especially impoverished blacks and Latinos, would not receive otherwise. In addition, the implementation of this action would decrease the spreading of diseases from the jail to home communities. Using opt-out screenings and vaccinations can be used as a mechanism to reach out to inner city community health issues as well as provide a new area for research in the effectiveness in vaccinations and screenings.

While health has been one of the primary concerns within the Los Angeles County Jail, the Los Angeles County Jail system has also has a bad reputation of targeting minorities for its prisons. Victor Rios argues that a new era of mass incarceration has resulted in the development of a youth control complex. This complex resulted from a network of racialized criminalization, and the punishment arrived from institutions of authority that patrolled and incapacitated Black and Latino youth.