The Prison Industrial Complex
One of the biggest problems facing America today – the Prison Industrial Complex - is being ignored by liberals and conservatives alike.
It’s bad enough that liberals with their self righteous claims of being interested in social justice and concern for the downtrodden don’t seem to care about the million or so people locked up in our prison system (most of them there for the crime of not being able to afford a decent lawyer) but do seem to care about the rights of terrorists more than those of the average Americans in our monstrous prison system. Now Conservatives compound the hypocrisy by failing to notice the abuse of government power, corruption and the waste of taxpayers’ money inherent in the prison industrial complex.
The vast growth in the prison industry represents a vast growth in the power and scope of government. Millions of Americans are now under the direct control of the government in the prison system. A vast new bureaucracy has been created to service the prison industry, and this new bureaucracy is largely beyond the control of our elected officials.
Each new prison costs millions of dollars taken directly from the taxpayer. Government owned prisons are financed directly by taxpayers while private prisons are indirectly financed by the money governments pay private prison operators to house convicts. Either way vast amounts of the taxpayers’ money is being flushed down a giant toilet never to be seen again. I don’t hear a single conservative complaining about this monumental rip off of the taxpayers.
Nor do conservatives seem to be concerned that the prison industrial complex is a vast expansion of the welfare state. Prisons are a form of welfare, poor people are forced into them where they are under the direct control of the state. Instead of supporting themselves the people in prison are fed and cared for by the state at taxpayers’ expense. This gives taxpayers a double whammy first vast amounts of money is spent to build and maintain the prisons and house and feed prisoners, second hundreds of thousands of people who should be working and paying taxes are locked up increasing the tax burden on the rest of us. Yes, I know a lot of those prisoners would be flipping burgers or mopping floors if they weren’t beyond bars but at least they’d be paying their own bills and some taxes if they weren’t in the joint. Even many professional crooks would be paying sales and property taxes on the proceeds of their thefts and drug deals if they weren’t locked up. The prison industrial complex is the welfare state at its worst it takes productive citizens off the street and turns them into wards of the state then taxes honest citizens to pay the bill.
To make matters worse the prison system has created a class of bureaucratic parasites who subsist off the taxpayers. Large numbers of poor mostly white people in rural areas are making a decent living as prison guards. Instead of moving away from dying small towns and finding real work in the cities these people get welfare jobs at prisons. Instead of going to school, getting an education and a real job these people get jobs babysitting poor minority in the prison system. In other words the rights of poor minorities are being trampled and productive citizens are being taxed to death so a bunch of ignorant hicks can get cushy jobs at the local prison. I can’t think of a worse betrayal of conservative values than that, self reliance and individual responsibility thrown out the window, the average person reduced to a drone in a system Lenin would have been proud of.
Then there’s the corruption prisons bring, I lived in two different small Colorado towns that relied heavily on prisons. In one local officials turned the jail into a private prison and promised hardened criminals wouldn’t be locked up there. Despite this within weeks murderers and hardcore gangsters were there. Worse they brought their corruption with them, I remember one local kid who found a job as a prison guard. Within weeks he was in the jail, charged with smuggling stuff to the prisoners.
In another town where I lived, I saw nothing that blatant but I did know one guy, a civic leader, city councilman etc. He worked as a janitor or something at the local state prison, he also owned a liquor store. This liquor store was never open and I never saw anybody buying anything from it but I saw lots of trucks delivering booze to it. Get the picture, the guy was selling the booze to the prisoners at inflated prices and making a good living off the backs of the poor. Everybody in town knew it and nobody said a thing. Lots of smart cookies in small towns all over the country now have big new houses, boats, and pickup trucks thanks to the cash they’ve raked in from the prisoners. Lots of high school drop outs from small town America will be retiring early with nice savings accounts. Nothing is said about this but it’s a sorry truth related to the prison industry.
Where are the conservatives, when I see this going on? Where are the Christian conservatives reminding the church goers about “turn the other cheek,” “thou shall not steal” and “ye shall not cast the first stone?” Where are the libertarians when rights are trampled and where are the fiscal conservatives when our tax dollars are flushed down the prison toilet?
Sooner or later some politician is going to ride to the top on the simple platform of no more prisons. Maybe he’ll be a liberal concerned about social justice, but I doubt it. The passion for “social justice” can be easily satisfied by writing a check to Amnesty International. Not so the practical demand for moral and fiscal accountability on the part of our leaders. My guess is the political leader who shuts down the prison industrial complex will be a good old fashioned conservative who asks the all important question: “what are those rats spending our tax money on?” and demands a few answers.
It’s bad enough that liberals with their self righteous claims of being interested in social justice and concern for the downtrodden don’t seem to care about the million or so people locked up in our prison system (most of them there for the crime of not being able to afford a decent lawyer) but do seem to care about the rights of terrorists more than those of the average Americans in our monstrous prison system. Now Conservatives compound the hypocrisy by failing to notice the abuse of government power, corruption and the waste of taxpayers’ money inherent in the prison industrial complex.
The vast growth in the prison industry represents a vast growth in the power and scope of government. Millions of Americans are now under the direct control of the government in the prison system. A vast new bureaucracy has been created to service the prison industry, and this new bureaucracy is largely beyond the control of our elected officials.
Each new prison costs millions of dollars taken directly from the taxpayer. Government owned prisons are financed directly by taxpayers while private prisons are indirectly financed by the money governments pay private prison operators to house convicts. Either way vast amounts of the taxpayers’ money is being flushed down a giant toilet never to be seen again. I don’t hear a single conservative complaining about this monumental rip off of the taxpayers.
Nor do conservatives seem to be concerned that the prison industrial complex is a vast expansion of the welfare state. Prisons are a form of welfare, poor people are forced into them where they are under the direct control of the state. Instead of supporting themselves the people in prison are fed and cared for by the state at taxpayers’ expense. This gives taxpayers a double whammy first vast amounts of money is spent to build and maintain the prisons and house and feed prisoners, second hundreds of thousands of people who should be working and paying taxes are locked up increasing the tax burden on the rest of us. Yes, I know a lot of those prisoners would be flipping burgers or mopping floors if they weren’t beyond bars but at least they’d be paying their own bills and some taxes if they weren’t in the joint. Even many professional crooks would be paying sales and property taxes on the proceeds of their thefts and drug deals if they weren’t locked up. The prison industrial complex is the welfare state at its worst it takes productive citizens off the street and turns them into wards of the state then taxes honest citizens to pay the bill.
To make matters worse the prison system has created a class of bureaucratic parasites who subsist off the taxpayers. Large numbers of poor mostly white people in rural areas are making a decent living as prison guards. Instead of moving away from dying small towns and finding real work in the cities these people get welfare jobs at prisons. Instead of going to school, getting an education and a real job these people get jobs babysitting poor minority in the prison system. In other words the rights of poor minorities are being trampled and productive citizens are being taxed to death so a bunch of ignorant hicks can get cushy jobs at the local prison. I can’t think of a worse betrayal of conservative values than that, self reliance and individual responsibility thrown out the window, the average person reduced to a drone in a system Lenin would have been proud of.
Then there’s the corruption prisons bring, I lived in two different small Colorado towns that relied heavily on prisons. In one local officials turned the jail into a private prison and promised hardened criminals wouldn’t be locked up there. Despite this within weeks murderers and hardcore gangsters were there. Worse they brought their corruption with them, I remember one local kid who found a job as a prison guard. Within weeks he was in the jail, charged with smuggling stuff to the prisoners.
In another town where I lived, I saw nothing that blatant but I did know one guy, a civic leader, city councilman etc. He worked as a janitor or something at the local state prison, he also owned a liquor store. This liquor store was never open and I never saw anybody buying anything from it but I saw lots of trucks delivering booze to it. Get the picture, the guy was selling the booze to the prisoners at inflated prices and making a good living off the backs of the poor. Everybody in town knew it and nobody said a thing. Lots of smart cookies in small towns all over the country now have big new houses, boats, and pickup trucks thanks to the cash they’ve raked in from the prisoners. Lots of high school drop outs from small town America will be retiring early with nice savings accounts. Nothing is said about this but it’s a sorry truth related to the prison industry.
Where are the conservatives, when I see this going on? Where are the Christian conservatives reminding the church goers about “turn the other cheek,” “thou shall not steal” and “ye shall not cast the first stone?” Where are the libertarians when rights are trampled and where are the fiscal conservatives when our tax dollars are flushed down the prison toilet?
Sooner or later some politician is going to ride to the top on the simple platform of no more prisons. Maybe he’ll be a liberal concerned about social justice, but I doubt it. The passion for “social justice” can be easily satisfied by writing a check to Amnesty International. Not so the practical demand for moral and fiscal accountability on the part of our leaders. My guess is the political leader who shuts down the prison industrial complex will be a good old fashioned conservative who asks the all important question: “what are those rats spending our tax money on?” and demands a few answers.
posted by great one at 7:05 PM
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