The economic impact of the prison system in the United States
Economic impacts of the prison system in the United States.
Prison complex interweave with private business as well as the government interests. Its main objectives are to get profit and achieve social control. This seems to be a profitable way of fighting crime. Crime is not welcomed in any community and criminals are shunned by the society. They are isolated from the rest of the society to prevent the imminent danger they pose to the people. Prisons serve the purpose of being a center where criminals can get the chance to reflect on their activities, undergo rehabilitation and become better individuals while away from the society. However, when the prisoners are in prison, they have to get the basic needs that a human being should and other amenities which are necessary for sustaining a bearable life. They need to access medical care, all of which come at a price. The prisoners are normally unable to cater for any costs as they do not have the financial strengths. The burden is placed on the tax payer to cater for the needs of the prisoners in the course of their sentencing. The prisoners have to be given obligations to rationalize the huge amounts of dollars contributed by the tax payers for their upkeep. It is argued that most of the people who engage in criminal activities do so because of the financial need. They are poor, but poverty is not necessarily the reason for engaging in crime.
The first source of business in the prison system starts with their building as well as the maintenance. Investment houses, the construction companies, the architects as well as support services such as food, transportation, furniture and medical are the main beneficiaries of prison expansion. Other industries bound to benefit are those charged with the supply of fencing equipment, handcuffs, protective jackets, drug detectors among other essential security devices in prison. The phone calling charges for prisoners are usually exorbitantly high. Major communication companies such as MCI, ATT, as well as Sprint get high profits from offering such services to prisoners. Relatively smaller firms in the communication industry which specialize in phone services to the prison sector like Correctional Communication Corp. offer phone systems which are computerized and are designed to enable systematic surveillance. They are thus well placed in winning contracts from the government and in most occasions they give kick backs to these government agencies. Such companies are able to earn huge profits from prisoners as well as their families.
Another source of economic gain is the setting up of private correctional companies. An example is Smith Barney which is an investment firm that owns one prison in the state of Florida. A notable company in this sector is the Correctional Corporation of America, which boasts of 48 prisons in 11 states. These investors are mandated by the government to run these prisons and are paid a fixed amount of money on every prisoner they accommodate. These prisons are required to lower their charges as much as possible. They thus take advantage to pay low staff wages, no unions, they also offer very limited services to prisoners. Their contracts are private and hence little or no information about them reach the public domain. The private prison owners are making huge profits from their business by engaging in cost cutting measures at the expense of the prisoner. They offer substandard diets, overcrowding and mishandling of prisoners by their personnel, who are poorly trained (Huling, 2002).
Prisons are playing a very pivotal role in rural growth. Areas which are economically depressed are always competing for the establishment of a prison within their jurisdictions. Prisons are normally synonymous with job opportunities. The construction industry, local vendors as well as prison staff are bound to be recruited from their areas. The prisons also bring along tax revenues which can be used in the running and development of the regions of their establishment. An average prison consists of hundreds of employees with an annual pay of millions of dollars. Any industry requires raw materials, and in the prison economy, these raw materials are the prisoners. For the prison economy to grow, the number of prisoners should either be constant or keep on increasing. Even when crime decreases, the number of prisoners should be maintained or increased. Legal structures such as the Three Strikes and Mandatory Minimums, have been formulated to ensure the continued growth in the number of prisoners. These measures aim at achieving harsh and fixed sentences with no parole.
Many organizations in America and indeed all over the world have always opted for the cheapest labor possible. The workers are also human and as such need enough money to sustain their livelihoods. The result has always been an incessant conflict between these organizations and the unions formed by these workers to fight for their rights. Some companies have even gone to the extent of relocating their enterprises to regions where cheaper labor can be accessed. Such relocations have always left a number of people jobless. This has made some of the otherwise productive people engage in crime and drug-related activities. Private businesses have always engaged the prison authorities to allow their prisoners handle some responsibilities within these organizations. Labor from prisoners comes with a variety of advantages for organizations skewed towards maximizing their profits. Prisoners cannot strike or complain of underpayment as is most likely the case with free men. They are not allowed to subscribe into any union to fight for their rights. They do not require unemployment insurance or workers compensation. There is no language barrier as would be the case if such organizations relocated to countries speaking different languages in search of cheap labor. Leviathan prisons usually have factories within their huge tracts of land.
Some of the notable cases are Chevron which engages prisoners in data entry, TWA engage them in making telephone reservations and Victorias secret for making circuit boards. They are paid just a mere fraction of what free laborers would demand. Prisoners do not enjoy the right of choice as free men do and as such they can be forced to work for any amount of money. A number of prisons have introduced direct charges to inmates for the basic necessities like medical care, toilet paper, and even accessing their law libraries. Berks County Prison located in Pennsylvania charges 10 for every single day a prisoner spends at their premises. California is also considering the introduction of such charges. Some of these costs force the prisoners to engage in the lowly paid jobs in the industry to manage to buy some of these necessities, even if the working is made optional.
Conclusion
There are a number of prison enterprises which are run by the state. In the case of inmates who work at UNICOR (the federal prison Industry Corporation), they engage in making recycled furniture and are required to work for about 40 hours each week. Their pay is only approximated at 40 every month. There is also the Oregon Prison Industries which engages in the production of blue jeans. There has always been a very stiff competition between the prison industries and the private industries. The private sectors have always complained that UNICOR has always been at the forefront in receiving government contracts while they have comparatively very cheap labor hence unfair competition (Huling, 2002). Prisons have ceased to be correctional facilities they were originally meant to be and have assumed a new status of becoming a source of labor for economic gain. They have been a source of agony to the prisoners together with their families as they struggle to raise the necessary money to aid in their survival.