Prison Industrial Complex

The Human Cost of the Prison Industrial

The Human Cost of the Prison Industrial Complex

Tuesday, October 30th

Time : Doors open @5:00 PM – Film Starts @5:30 PM

Location: UDC Student Center

The Kalief Browder Story

The documentary recounts the story of Kalief Browder, a Bronx high school student who at age 16 was arrested and was imprisoned for three years, two of them in solitary confinement on Rikers Island without being convicted of a crime. He was accused of stealing a backpack, and his family was unable to afford his bail, set at $3000. Kalief Browder fought the system, prevailed, and became an American hero, despite unimaginable circumstances.

Summary

The term prison-industrial complex refers to the economic interrelation between prisons and the various public and private job sectors that have become dependent on the expansion of the prison system. A partial list of these sectors includes construction, pharmaceuticals, and law enforcement, including probation and parole. The prison-industrial complex also provides a cheap labor force for various corporations.

The growth of the prison-industrial complex in the United States has come at the expense of predominantly black and Latino communities. Angela Davis observed in Are Prisons Obsolete? that “more than two million people (out of a world total of nine million) now inhabit US prisons, jails, youth facilities, and immigrant detention centers” (2003, p. 10). A 2005 report for the US Department of Justice (Harrison, 2005) noted that, in June 2004, there were 1,717 Latino inmates, 4,919 black inmates, and 717 white inmates per 100,000 residents of each group.

According to national data from the US Department of Justice (2011), “In 2009, over 7.2 million people were on probation, in jail or prison, or on parole at year end—3.1% of all US adult residents or 1 in every 32 adults.” Furthermore, according to Robert (Perkinson, 2010), “the US criminal justice system consumes $212 billion a year and employs 2.4 million people, more than Wal-Mart and McDonald's combined, the nation's two largest private employers” (2010, p. 2).

The growth in prison populations is a worldwide phenomenon, with the numbers of incarcerated people increasing in 71 percent of nations between 1999 and 2003 (Walmsley 2003). According to the World Prison Brief (Walmsley 2010), as of 2009 the United States had the highest incarceration rates, with 743 inmates per 100,000 people. Russia was second highest, with 559 inmates per 100,000 people. In a 2003 report, Roy Walmsley noted that “more than three-fifths of countries (60.5%) have rates below 150 per 100,000. (The United Kingdom's rate of 141 per 100,000 of the national population places it above the midpoint in the World List; it is the highest among countries of the European Union)” (Walmsley 2003, p. 1). These global figures indicate that US incarceration rates are not common among Western nations, and the reasons for the country's high prison population require careful review. According to Davis (2003), a common denominator between the United States, Europe, South America, and Australia is the racialization of the prison population, which is predominantly nonwhite.

Gutierrez, A. (2013). Prison Industrial complex. In P. L. Mason (Ed.), Encyclopedia of race and racism (2nd ed.). Farmington, MI: Gale.

Books

Abolition Now! by CR10 Publications Collective Staff (Editor)
ISBN: 1904859968
Publication Date: 2008-11-01
"As new and more virulent articulations of imprisonment, policing, and surveillance have grown over the past decade, one thing remains clear: the prison industrial complex must be abolished. Critical Resistance is a leading voice in the movement for abolition and the pieces in this collection are powerful tools for both long-time activists and those brand new to the movement for abolition now!"--Angela Y. Davis, author ofAre Prisons Obsolete? The number of people in prison in the United States has risen 400 percent in the last twenty years--the world's highest incarceration rate. Over seven million people currently live under the control of US jail, prison, probation, or parole systems--the vast majority of them people of color and young people. Policing at all levels is increasingly militarized and demands more and more resources. For a decade, Critical Resistance has organized to abolish the reliance on imprisonment, policing, and surveillance, seeing the prison industrial complex (PIC) not as a broken system to be fixed, but a well-oiled machine that must be eliminated entirely. Published in honor of Critical Resistance's tenth anniversary,Abolition Now! reflects the organization's themes: Dismantle, Change, and Build. It presents bold strategies to create a stronger movement of people committed to PIC abolition and building stronger, safer, healthier communities, not more elaborate forms of repression. The CR10 Publications Collective is a national grassroots organization with thousands of members and supporters working toward reducing the current prison population, stopping construction of new prisons, and developing alternative public safety models.
The Challenge of Crime by Henry S. Ruth; Kevin R. Reitz
ISBN: 067400891X
Publication Date: 2003-04-15
The development of crime policy in the United States for many generations has been hampered by a drastic shortage of knowledge and data, an excess of partisanship and instinctual responses, and a one-way tendency to expand the criminal justice system. Even if a three-decade pattern of prison growth came to a full stop in the early 2000s, the current debate will be by far the most punitive in US history, hitting some minority communities particularly hard.
Challenging the Prison-Industrial Complex by Stephen John Hartnett (Editor)
ISBN: 9780252090165
Publication Date: 2010-01-01
Boldly and eloquently contributing to the argument against the prison system in the United States, these provocative essays offer an ideological and practical framework for empowering prisoners instead of incarcerating them. Experts and activists who have worked within and against the prison system join forces here to call attention to the debilitating effects of a punishment-driven society and offer clear-eyed alternatives that emphasize working directly with prisoners and their communities. Edited by Stephen John Hartnett, the volume offers rhetorical and political analyses of police culture, the so-called drug war, media coverage of crime stories, and the public-school-to-prison pipeline. The collection also includes case studies of successful prison arts and education programs in Michigan, California, Missouri, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania that provide creative and intellectual resources typically denied to citizens living behind bars. Writings and artwork created by prisoners in such programs richly enhance the volume. Contributors are Buzz Alexander, Rose Braz, Travis L. Dixon, Garrett Albert Duncan, Stephen John Hartnett, Julilly Kohler-Hausmann, Daniel Mark Larson, Erica R. Meiners, Janie Paul, Lori Pompa, Jonathan Shailor, Robin Sohnen, and Myesha Williams.
Criminal Justice by Eleanor Hannon Judah (Editor); Michael Bryant (Editor)
ISBN: 9780789000613
Publication Date: 2004-06-16
There are nearly two million inmates in America today. Are there better alternatives to incarceration? Criminal Justice: Retribution vs. Restoration presents new answers and unconventional suggestions addressing America's overcrowded prisons and jails, high recidivism rates, and weakened family and community relationships with ex-prisoners. Experts in the field discuss the benefits and failures of America's criminal justice system at various times in history and today, then explore possibilities to improve on that system. This groundbreaking book introduces encouraging, therapeutic approaches to criminal justice that include treatment, rehabilitation, and the direct involvement the victims, the families, and the communities. Criminal Justice looks at America's over-reliance on punishment and retribution as the means of responding to prevalent social problems and examines the justice system's tendency to incarcerate--rather than treat--minority, mentally ill, poor, and drug-dependent offenders. The authors--who are all active in some field of criminal justice--argue for a restorative model of correction that is more humane to both offenders and victims. This model opens up dialogue between offenders and their victims, families, and communities by promoting hallmark programs, including victim offender mediation, conferencing, peacemaking circles, restitution, and community projects and services. Criminal Justice includes such intriguing topics as: the social costs and moral economy of incarceration drug policy--should drug users be incarcerated or rehabilitated? the potential of restorative justice--a first-hand account from a prison inmate restorative justice and faith communities the practice and efficacy of restorative justice the path from fury to forgiveness--the emotions of the mother of a murdered child strategies for creating safe and just communities women in prison--their special needs both during incarceration and after re-entry social work and criminal justice--how they work together grassroots advocacy for criminal justice reform--a look back over the last 30 years by the founders of CURE (Citizens United for Rehabilitation of Errants) This book's foundation rests on the Biblical concepts of restoration, healing, forgiveness, reconciliation, and responsibility. Criminal Justice: Retribution vs Restoration is an eye-opening look at the negative effects of our current system of blame and punishment and offers hope for better, more humane methods in the future. This holistic, empowering, and strengths-based perspective offers insight and suggestions that are valuable for students, social workers, policymakers, and criminal justice professionals.
Falling Back by Jamie J. Fader
ISBN: 0813560756
Publication Date: 2013-04-15
Jamie J. Fader documents the transition to adulthood for a particularly vulnerable population: young inner-city men of color who have, by the age of eighteen, already been imprisoned. How, she asks, do such precariously situated youth become adult men? What are the sources of change in their lives? Falling Back is based on over three years of ethnographic research with black and Latino males on the cusp of adulthood and incarcerated at a rural reform school designed to address "criminal thinking errors" among juvenile drug offenders. Fader observed these young men as they transitioned back to their urban Philadelphia neighborhoods, resuming their daily lives and struggling to adopt adult masculine roles. This in-depth ethnographic approach allowed her to portray the complexities of human decision-making as these men strove to "fall back," or avoid reoffending, and become productive adults. Her work makes a unique contribution to sociological understandings of the transitions to adulthood, urban social inequality, prisoner reentry, and desistance from offending.
Global Lockdown by Julia Sudbury (Editor)
ISBN: 9780415950565
Publication Date: 2005-01-09
Global Lockdownis the first book to apply a transnational feminist framework to the study of criminalization and imprisonment. The distinguished contributors to this collection offer a variety of perspectives, from former prisoners to advocates to scholars from around the world. The book is a must-read for anyone concerned by mass incarceration and the growth of the prison-industrial complex within and beyond U.S. borders, as well as those interested in globalization and resistance.
Locked In by John Pfaff
ISBN: 9780465096916
Publication Date: 2017-02-07
A groundbreaking examination of our system of imprisonment, revealing the true causes of mass incarceration as well as the best path to reform In the 1970s, the United States had an incarceration rate comparable to those of other liberal democracies-and that rate had held steady for over 100 years. Yet today, though the US is home to only about 5 percent of the world's population, we hold nearly one quarter of its prisoners. Mass incarceration is now widely considered one of the biggest social and political crises of our age. How did we get to this point? Locked In is a revelatory investigation into the root causes of mass incarceration by one of the most exciting scholars in the country. Having spent fifteen years studying the data on imprisonment, John Pfaff takes apart the reigning consensus created by Michelle Alexander and other reformers, revealing that the most widely accepted explanations-the failed War on Drugs, draconian sentencing laws, an increasing reliance on private prisons-tell us much less than we think. Pfaff urges us to look at other factors instead, including a major shift in prosecutor behavior that occurred in the mid-1990s, when prosecutors began bringing felony charges against arrestees about twice as often as they had before. He describes a fractured criminal justice system, in which counties don't pay for the people they send to state prisons, and in which white suburbs set law and order agendas for more-heavily minority cities. And he shows that if we hope to significantly reduce prison populations, we have no choice but to think differently about how to deal with people convicted of violent crimes-and why some people are violent in the first place. An authoritative, clear-eyed account of a national catastrophe, Locked In transforms our understanding of what ails the American system of punishment and ultimately forces us to reconsider how we can build a more equitable and humane society.
Prison Industrial Complex for Beginners by James Braxton Peterson; John Jennings (Illustrator); Michael Eric Dyson (Foreword by)
ISBN: 9781939994325
Publication Date: 2016-09-15
Prison Industrial Complex For Beginners is a graphic narrative project that attempts to distill the fundamental components of what scholars, activists, and artists have identified as the Mass Incarceration movement in the United States. Since the early 1990s, activist critics of the US prison system have marked its emergence as a "complex" in a manner comparable to how President Eisenhower described the Military Industrial Complex. Like its institutional "cousin," the Prison Industrial Complex features a critical combination of political ideology, far-reaching federal policy, and the neo-liberal directive to privatize institutions traditionally within the purview of the government. The result is that corporations have capital incentives to capture and contain human bodies. The Prison Industrial Complex relies on the "law and order" ideology fomented by President Nixon and developed at least partially in response to the unrest generated through the Civil Rights Movement. It is (and has been) enhanced and emboldened via the US "war on drugs," a slate of policies that by any account have failed to do anything except normalize the warehousing of nonviolent substance abusers in jails and prisons that serve more as criminal training centers then as redemptive spaces for citizens who might re-enter society successfully. Prison Industrial Complex For Beginners is a primer for how these issues emerged and how our awareness of the systems at work in mass incarceration might be the very first step in reforming an institution responsible for some of our most egregious contemporary civil rights violations.
Punishing Race by Michael Tonry
ISBN: 9780199926466
Publication Date: 2012-07-01
How can it be, in a nation that elected Barack Obama, that one third of African American males born in 2001 will spend time in a state or federal prison, and that black men are seven times likelier than white men to be in prison? Blacks are much more likely than whites to be stopped by thepolice, arrested, prosecuted, convicted, and imprisoned, and are much less likely to have confidence in justice system officials, especially the police. In Punishing Race, Michael Tonry demonstrates in lucid, accessible language that these patterns result not from racial differences in crime or drug use but primarily from drug and crime control policies that disproportionately affect black Americans. These policies in turn stem from a lack of whiteempathy for black people, and from racial stereotypes and resentments provoked partly by the Republican Southern Strategy of using coded "law and order" appeals to race to gain support from white voters. White Americans, Tonry observes, have a remarkable capacity to endure the suffering of disadvantaged black and, increasingly, Hispanic men. Crime policies are among a set of social policies enacted since the 1960s that have maintained white dominance over black people despite the end of legaldiscrimination. To redress these injustices, Tonry offers a number of proposals: stop racial profiling by the police, shift the emphasis of drug law enforcement to treatment and prevention, eliminate mandatory sentencing laws, and change sentencing guidelines to allow judges discretion to takeaccount of offenders' life circumstances. Those proposals are all attainable and would all reduce unjustifiable racial disparities and the collateral human and social harms they cause.A damning indictment of decades of misguided criminal justice policy, Punishing Race takes a crucial look at persisting racial injustice in America.
Repositioning Restorative Justice by Lode Walgrave (Editor)
ISBN: 9781843920175
Publication Date: 2003-09-01
Restorative justice has become an increasingly important element in reform and change to criminal justice systems throughout the western world, and there are many reasons for satisfaction with the progress that has been made --from the point of view of victims, offenders, the level and incidence of reoffending, and in terms of public opinion. At the same time there has been cause for concern, not least to do with the confusion on aims that has accompanied the rapid spread of restorative justice practices, an over-estimate of its possibilities, a blurring of concepts and a lack of attention to legal rights and processes. This book, based on papers presented at the 5th international conference held at Leuven, Belgium in 2002, aims to provide an overview of recent experience of restorative justice in the light of these concerns. The central theme is the positioning, or repositioning, of restorative justice in contexts where it can offer hope to communities both fearful of crime and looking for more socially constructive responses to crime. At the same time restorative justice practitioners seek definition in relation to the kinds of crime it is appropriate to apply restorative justice to, how it relates to different forms of punishment, to rehabilitation, and how it fits in with criminal justice systems and the law of different countries --how to reconcile the informal, participatory philosophy of restorative justice with formal legal processes and the need for legal safeguards.

Databases

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Criminal Justice Database This link opens in a new window
A comprehensive database supporting research on crime, its causes and impacts, legal and social implications, as well as litigation and crime trends. As well as U.S. and international scholarly journals, it includes correctional and law enforcement trade publications, dissertations, crime reports, crime blogs and other material relevant for researchers or those preparing for careers in criminal justice, law enforcement and related fields.
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Guide to Law Online This link opens in a new window
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Military Database This link opens in a new window
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Firebird Film Festival 2018 - Justice