Capitalism Has Transformed the American Prison Industry.

Here are three comments about what Capitalism has done to the American prison industry.   They were taken from the book by John Womack, "Capitalism:  Servant or Master?"  
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1  As state owned prisons are converted to private prisons their lobbyists petition legislatures for stricter laws and longer sentences.  The more prisoners who are admitted into and kept in the prisons, the greater will be the profits the private prison industry will realize.  Page 20

2  The number of prisoners increased dramatically beginning in 1980, just as the deregulation of capitalism began, from under 500,000 in 1980 to 2,000,000 in the year 2000.  Page 36   FootNote:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_States

3  We pretend our criminal justice system is modern and leads the world in that skill.   Yet we are one of the very few nations left on earth who still execute some of its prisoners, and most of those we kill are black, poor, undereducated, mentally retarded or mentally ill.  America has more citizens in jail and prisons than any other nation on earth in both percentage and total number.  More and more, our prisons in America are built by and run by private industries who NEED more and more prisoners to continue to increase their profits. They lobby legislators and congress for minimum sentencing requirements, longer sentences, and now are beginning to use prison labor to produce products for the private prison’s profit while working for far less than minimum wage. Page 90 

FootNote:  http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8289

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