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About Portland observer. (Portland, Or.) 1970-current | View Entire Issue (March 1, 2000)
(The B la c k COhseruer H M istorv March 1, 2000 Focus Page 3 The Prison Industrial complex Ionth The Prison Industrial Com plex actually has its roots in history, particularly the system o f economic slavery in the South. It evolved from a variety o f constructs that has become a system where millions o f young men and an increasingly large amount o f young women in their c h ild b e a rin g y e a rs a re b ein g processed through a system that is c re a tin g a new n o rm fo r dysfunctional family life. So many young people have been through the justice system that the middle class attitude against imprisonment is changing by necessity. THE E V O L U T IO N O F THE POVERTY IN D U S T R IA L COMPLEX The end o f slavery in the South after theCivil War meant vast changes in the economy o f the conquered land. After the end o f slavery and the occupation o f the rebellious South, the econom y o f the rebellious agricultural region o f America was wrecked. Now, compounding the money woes were their former slaves who now had to be paid for their work instead of having a touch o f the lash to motivate them. But they found a way out. After the Union troops went back the southern power holders fell on the ex-slaves with a vengeance. The South, using what came to be called the “Black Codes” instituted North American Apartheid and just made it easier to collect up able bodied men for petty crim es, vagrancy or being shift-less and convert them into workers for the state. They were now put to work with chains clink-clinking along as they picked, hoed, chopped and baled cotton just as if nothing had ever changed. The roads were rebuilt, the rivers levees erected, the soil tilled andlaterthehighwayscleaned and paved. The Southern chain gangs are the lingering heritage of those times. This is why the biggest, baddest prisons are in former slave holding agricultural and especially sugar cane producing states, such as Louisiana. Chain gangs are now being considered for N orthern states, with the high-tech twist o f having electro n ic incapitators instead o f chains. TH E CORPORATE, CORRECTIONS TIE-IN Indeed a new caste is being created, with the Formerly Incarcerated being so numerous in some urban Blackcommunities that high school to jail or juvenile corrections, to street (for awhile), thence to jail again, out and back is part o f the Rites o f Passage o f growing up for in creasin g num bers o f young people. Coupled with the absence o f fathers in the home a vicious cycle has been set in motion that keeps the raw material forthe Prison Industrial Complex humming along, grinding up more and more people whose productivity is lost to their communities, WHO BENEFITS FROM THE POVERTY P R ISO N INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX? Corrections Corp of America aren't the only ones who are making bank o ff the rise in prisoners. There is a discernible cadre who directly benefit from this state o f affairs on the civilian end. T he m ore c h ild re n w ho are classified “Learning Disabled” or "A t Risk” means m ore federal m oney flow ing into a district. Teachers who become so certified are also paid a good deal more, so it’s also like a jobs program that doesn’t have to come out o f the local school budget. More people sentenced mean more probation agents, and more prisons. This means more builders and concrete, electronics, and prisons sited in rural communities to replace the falling agricultural economy. W hy? T h ese so c ia l w o rk e rs, educators, and p o litic ia n s are supposed to be fighting for the On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white man on a Montgomery’, Alabama bus. She was charged for violating the city's transportation laws. Her subsequent arrest, pictured here, resulted in a mass boycott o f city buses and brought the civil rights movement and Martin Luther King to national prominence. downtrodden. Sure, many in the Black Middle Class seemed to have “pulled up the rope" after they stood on our backs to get over the racial barriers, and since then have been curiously slow about throwing down (Please see ‘Prison’ page 5) On Black History Month "The contributions African Americans have made throughout history’ needs to be told over and over again. O f Specific note — there is no memorial to the multitudes o f African American soldiers who fought in the American Revolution. Many o f those soldiers were still slaves when they fought and died fo r the so-called 'War fo r independence'. We need reminders, such as Black History Month, to keep us actively thinking about the immemorial contributions all African Americans have made to the community’ and to our country" Commissioner Dan Saltzman