There has been an alarming trend developing over the past 20 years in regards to the skyrocketing prison populations. Prisons have been transformed from tools of the criminal justice system to segregate the most dangerous and offensive criminals from society at large, to large-scale detention centers aimed at controlling massive numbers of working class youth. We are called by some “the home of the free,” but a more accurate description is “the home of the incarcerated.”

Prior to the 1960s, prisons were harsh and dangerous places reserved for the most hardcore criminals, who committed serious and often violent offenses. It was hard-time – full of perpetual dehumanization and brutalization, with inhumane living conditions. Prisons were intentionally designed to be unpleasant places that would break the will and dignity of all who were unfortunate enough to experience them. They made little or no attempt to rehabilitate the inmate or prepare him or her for re-entry into society. As awareness of social injustice and progressive changes started to reshape American society – as a result of heroic sacrifices of some like George Jackson and those at Attica, who sacrificed their freedom and lives for the cause of prison reform – the philosophy of criminal justice also began to change.

Incarceration as rehabilitation not punishment became the new motto. Rehabilitation and vocational training programs began to be implemented. Also, alternatives to traditional incarceration, such as in-patient and out-patient drug and alcohol treatment programs for addicted offenders and correctional-based halfway houses were opened to soften the impact of those being released. Furlough and early release programs allowed inmates to reintegrate into a more normal lifestyle and encouraged compliance with correctional facility rules and regulations with good success rates.

Crime and the Ultra-right Other forces, however, were also looming on the horizon. Economic instabilities, which are inherent to capitalism, began manifesting themselves in social terms through rising crime rates during that same period of social upheaval. Though the true causes of the increase were rising inflation, unemployment (propelled by the collapse of the steel industry in the Northeast and manufacturing generally), swelling urban poverty, limited access to good education and exploding drug and alcohol addiction, crime was blamed on the very correctional programs that started to have a positive impact.

“Lock em’ up and throw away the key,” became the battle cry of the right wing. Many ultra-conservative politicians began campaigning against more progressive-minded Democrats, claiming that they were soft on crime. Unfortunately for the working class, the deception and fear mongering was successful in many local political races. That, coupled with voter apathy, which led to the Reagan years during the 1980s, marked a wholesale retreat in progressive prison reform. Rehabilitation was all but abandoned as a goal. From California to Maine, new laws and regulations were passed repealing many of those hard-won reforms.

Conservative legislatures across the country began responding to every social problem by criminalizing it. Mandatory minimum prison sentences began to be put in place, particularly for drug offenses, swelling prison population with individuals who suffer more from the disease of addiction than any form of criminality. Minors as young as 11 and 12 years of age are being tried as adults and are receiving adult sentences. Pennsylvania has returned to the antiquated and draconian practice of debtors’ prisons. Parents delinquent on child support payments can be placed into county jails for up to six months at a time. Once a hearing is scheduled on non-support, even partial payments are rejected in favor of jail time. This is the attitude in a state near the bottom in all economic ratings, employment, economic growth and the retention of highly skilled and educated citizens. One must ask, “How is placing a parent in jail for extended periods going to help the child who isn’t being supported financially?” The answer is that, it does nothing to help the child or other parent. In fact, it causes prolonged separation and alienation, which only harms the child.

In Ohio, where only felony offenses are punishable by sentences in state correctional facilities, many misdemeanor offenses were upgraded to felonies. A charge of vandalism, which used to be a misdemeanor of the first degree punishable by a $1,000 fine and six months in the county jail, is now a felony of the fifth degree and punishable by up to one year in a state prison. The same is true for possession of anything identified as drug paraphernalia and minute amounts of illegal drugs. Since the closing of all state mental institutions, many former mental patients are being incarcerated because there is nowhere else to house them. Today’s prisons have become a dumping ground for all of society’s ills. Break a window – go to prison. Get caught getting high – go to prison. Can’t make a support payment – go to prison. Be mentally ill with nowhere to go – go to jail. Three strikes in California – life or go to jail for life.

One warden of an Ohio penitentiary reports that when he started working in corrections in the late 1960s, the prison population was around 4,500 inmates in six state institutions. By the late 1990s, those numbers had ballooned to over 46,000 an increase of over 1,000 percent. Crime rates and population sizes are relatively unchanged in that state. These sorts of numbers have been repeated from coast to coast. In Pennsylvania, the prison population has reached an all-time high of over 40,000 and state facilities are at 115 percent of capacity.

Longer and more severe prison sentences for less serious offenses has another more subtle and perhaps more dangerous consequence. Once a felony conviction is rendered, the defendant loses part of their citizenship. No longer can that person vote, bear arms (recreation or self-defense), nor benefit from various other civil liberties. Ex-convicts lose much of their right to be protected from unreasonable search and seizure. At any time any law enforcement officer can use an individual’s prior conviction to search that person’s body, vehicle, or home.

Prison Boom Prison building became a boom industry during the 1980s and 1990s, and with it, came the private prison industry. Privatization of formerly publicly owned and operated facilities was another step backwards in the social development of this country. Several prisons for profit sprung up mainly across the south, such as Community Corrections of America (CCA) of Tennessee and others with operations in multiple states.

First, Republicans, and other Republicans masquerading as Democratic politicians, many of whom are attorneys, pass more stringent laws. Judges and prosecutors use those new laws to lock up ever increasing numbers of poorly educated, urban, working-class youth. Then the ball gets kicked back to the politicians who raise taxes and cut social programs and education in order to build more prisons. These same politicians claim that in order to cut the massive costs of expanding the departments of corrections, what is needed is to turn over hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer money to private prison corporations.

There are many laws and government regulations that grew out of the prison reform movement that guarantee a certain level of humane treatment of inmates, such as nutritional requirements, access to outside communication, medical attention, adequate heating and lighting, all of which adds to the cost of operations. So the only area where profitability can be increased is in the elimination of correctional employee labor unions and their commensurate living wages and benefits. The results are often disastrous. Racked by mismanagement and unsafe conditions, private institutions are much more dangerous places for inmates and staff alike than are their publicly owned and operated counterparts.

The city of Youngstown, Ohio spent millions of local and state taxpayer dollars to build a state-of-the-art prison on the city’s east side. They offered tax breaks and other incentives worth millions to entice CCA to operate the facility under a previously acquired contract. The facility was to hold high security level felony inmates from the Washington, DC area. Due to mismanagement and poorly paid, poorly trained correctional officers and staff, that facility experienced more stabbing and assaults on guards in its first six months of operation, than did all 36 publicly-run Ohio prisons for the previous year. After various other allegations of mismanagement, security scandals and the refusal of the prison administration to allow inspections by government officials and the press, the facility was forced to close. Surprisingly (or perhaps not), CCA didn’t lose any of their other federal contracts.

Progress Boomerangs The very vocational programs that were developed with rehabilitation of inmates in mind are now being used to undermine wages, benefits and working conditions of law abiding citizens. The Republican-controlled Ohio legislature recently enacted a law that requires all state contracts to first be offered to Ohio Prison Industries (inmate labor/slave labor). Most inmates are paid between $20 to $40 a month for their labor. Working conditions are often far less safe than commercial sites. Prison workplaces are unlike others in that, if an employee of a sweatshop is overworked, underpaid or ordered to do a particularly dangerous job, she or he can always refuse and be in little fear of losing anything more than a low-paying job. The inmate, on the other hand, faces losing access to his meager possessions and being locked into solitary confinement for weeks or months at a time if work assignments are refused. It is forced labor in its most nakedly brutal form. And it is aimed directly at the working class of this country. Not only are American workers forced to compete with non-union, cheap labor from overseas, but also from slave labor here at home.

In addition to providing cheap labor, the creation of a large prison population has other political consequences. The US has the highest prison population per capita, and the highest total number of prisoners. One-third of all African American males between the ages of 18 and 34 have either been incarcerated or are on probation or parole. Although African Americans comprise only 12 percent of the general population, they make up 60 percent to 70 percent of prison population varying from institution to institution. That is a lot of voting potential eliminated from the political scene. In fact, it was a bogus list of supposedly disqualified voters that kept thousands of African Americans from voting in Florida during the 2000 presidential campaign, and we know the outcome of that bit of trickery. It is obvious how important felony disqualification figures into the political strategy of the right wing. Just look toward the White House; that is how he got there.