Texas Prisoners’ Plan Work Strike, April 4th

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Prisoners in Texas are planning a work strike, to commence this April 4th. Their top five demands are:

Meaningful Work Time – Applied retroactively, when our Flat Time and accrued Good/Work Time equals 100% we should be ENTITLED to Mandatory Supervision I Parole.
We want a “Presumptive Parole System” which requires the release of a Prisoner at their earliest release date, unless there are valid objective reasons not to do so. Those reasons might include poor institutional behavior or refusing to participate in programming. The nature of the crime or any other “Static Reason” (things prisoners can NOT change) would NOT be a valid reason to deny parole.

Repeal/Overturn the $100 Medical Copay – The underlying motive for enacting the $100 Medical Copay was to discourage prisoners from seeking medical care. Medical is a basic Human Right and since Texas prisoners are NOT paid for their labor, it is fundamentally unfair and counter productive to charge such an excessive Copay to wards of the State.

Right To An Attorney on Habeas Corpus – We want the law changed to provide a Right to an Attorney on Habeas Corpus. The current structure, design, and operation of the Texas Procedural System dictates that no indigent prisoner in Texas will have the benefit of counsel in raising a valid claim of ineffective assistance of counsel.
After the Supreme Court rulings in Martinez and Trevino the lack of appellate counsel for raising such claims raises serious questions of Constitutional Magnitude.

TOCJ Oversight Committee – This is a Bill that has been proposed over the past few legislatures but has not been made into law. This Bill will restructure our Grievance Process and create an independent committee to review our Grievances off the Unit. The committee will have special investigative powers – like doing a walk-in inspection without prior notice.

Humane Living Conditions and Treatment – We are Humans. We have the right to be treated with dignity and respect. We have the Right to safe living conditions. We are DEMANDING that TDCJ make the necessary changes to ensure that we have A/C during the Summers, Adequate Medical Care, Sufficient and Nutritious Meals, Limited Use of Solitary Confinement, Education for Ad Seg Prisoners, a four stage process to release confirmed Seg Prisoners from Solitary, Freedom of Religion and Association, Fix leaking roofs and roach infestations – and all other conditions and treatment which violates our Human Rights.

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As a flyer being circulated in this regard explains:

Monday April 4th 2016, Texas prisoners will begin a SERIES of Statewide Work Stoppages, Strikes, and Slowdowns to force the Texas Legislature to address much needed Reform to the Parole, Medical, Grievance, and, Legal System in Texas. Prisoners are also DEMANDING Humane Living  Conditions and Treatment.

The above FACEBOOK PAGE is for your Freeworld Friends and Family to join – Their support is essential to show that these issues can no longer be ignored. The Facebook Page is also a place where you can report about the Work Stoppage and make YOUR voice heard – get them to post your testimony/stories about why our DEMANDS (see above) must be met. This is a valuable resource for the MEDIA to see what is really going on in Texas Prisons.

It is also a tool for COLLECTIVE ACTION, if, for example, the Guards on your Unit retaliate against you for exercising your Right to peacefully protest unjust laws and treatment, you can write or call home and get your family to post on Facebook for everyone to call the warden, ombudsman, or the Media and DEMAND the retaliation STOP.

This work stoppage has Freeworld Support, including from IWW – The Industrial Workers of the World. It is a part of a larger MULTI-STATE Work Stoppage planned for 2016 to put strategic pressure on the Prison Industrial Complex and to End Mass Incarceration and Prison Slavery (Uncompensated Servitude).

Our Justice System is broken. 1 out of every 100 Americans is now behind bars.70 Million Americans have a criminal record. We are NOT alone. We have a critical moment of opportunity. But we must TAKE A STAND!

There is a Huge Movement in the Freeworld to reduce America’s Prison Population by 50% over the next 10 years. Get your Friends and Family involved by asking them to join our FACEBOOK PAGE to support our Work Stoppage. They can also join the Texas Support Group by emailing iwoc@riseup.net or calling 816-866-3808. They can get involved in the National Movement at #cut50 and signing their petition by going to change.org

Please pass this information on to other prisoners and try not to get caught with it as the authorities will deem it a threat to the security of the facility. When passing information to your Friends and Family please do so in a way to reduce suspicion. Our FACEBOOK PAGE is searchable under “F.T.S.”

“Revolution Begins From Within” -F.T.S.

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An open letter to the media is being circulated, written by someone whose brother is in the Texas system, which is also worth reading:

Feb./2016

I would like to inform you of a very important and serious incident that is about to take place in Texas prisons very soon, and will go unnoticed if the media don’t report on it.

There is not much said on the news about prisons, specifically Texas prisons. The government tells the public, “We are waging a war on crime and on drugs.” They use and manipulate crime rates for political reasons. Truth is, people don’t understand or care about crime rate statistics or prisoners. All they care about is unemployment and taxes; not knowing that the “prisons” issue affects these very problems. The public see prisoners as a burden for the law-abiding tax paying citizen. What they fail to see is the root of the problem, who creates it? and the reasons behind it.

AMERICAN FACTORY

The roots of the American Factory System of Criminal Justice, as with so many developments in American political life, lie with Richard Nixon and his pursuit of Southern conservatives, particularly the followers of George Wallace, as a path to long-term political success for the Republican Party.

President Nixon’s “War on Crime” and his subsequent “War on Drugs” had a transformative effect on our criminal justice policy.

Between 1970 and 2005, incarceration rates in the United States rose by 700%. Today, the U.S. locks up almost one-quarter of the prisoners in the entire world. Of note, while crime rates were increasing at the time that the War on Crime began, the explosion in the prison population has continued unabated in the ensuing decades through periods of falling crime rates.

Due to the current economic turmoil in America, numerous states are experiencing tremendous difficulties meeting their fiscal budgets. Federal, State and local government agencies are cutting programs in numerous departments (i.e. Department of Education, Defense, etc.). Numerous states are even forced to consider releasing thousands of prisoners and closing select prisons in an effort to combat the current economic recession and make progress towards closing their budget gaps.

Several states have authorized or have pending legislation for the release of prisoners as a method for meeting their budget shortfalls. Instead of covering the massive cost of imprisonment, states are relying on electronic monitoring and community-based programs to supervise and correct those who have committed crimes.

These methods are being employed throughout our nation. From state to state, coast to coast, states are considering the release of prisoners as a viable option to lowering and meeting their budgets, EXCEPT TEXAS! The state with the second largest prison system (120 prisons, 180,000 prisoners) in America, is actually looking to expand its prison system and population, even during these dire financial times, because the prison system in Texas is a cash-laden Industrial Complex!

TCI

Under the guise of being “self-sufficient,” Texas prison officials created an industry called “Texas Corrections Industries” or “TCI” in 1963, where free prisoners’ labor is utilized to make all types of products, from hand soap to bed sheets, from raising livestock to making iron toilets and portable buildings, all for sale. Free prisoners’ labor also maintains the water recycling and purification system for all Texas prison units.

TCI is a “Publicly Traded Stock” on the New York Stock Exchange, making Texas Prison System the only prison system you can buy stock in. Throughout Texas’s 120 prisons, TCI operates numerous furniture factories that make all sorts of residential, commercial and office fixtures (i.e. sofas, tables, desks, cabinets, etc.) that goes directly to the open market. In addition, the metal fabrication factories that exist throughout Texas prisons, build metal residential and commercial furnishings that mostly go straight to the open market.

The garment and textile factories that are also operated by TCI’s free prisoners’ labor, make all types of clothing attire (shirts, socks, jackets, uniforms, etc.) as well as bedding materials that are sold on the open market as well. There are slaughter houses, meat packing plants, where all the livestock that are raised on the grounds of Texas prisons are taken to be slaughtered, prepared and packed for selling on the open market. The meat is sold while prisoners are being fed with the leftovers mixed with soybean. All these factories and plants are operated on the backs of prisoners who are not paid.

An investigation that was conducted by the Dallas Morning News a couple years ago, revealed that the furniture factories alone, produce nearly 90 million dollars (annually) of revenue (income) for TCI. Now consider the grand total of all revenue income when combining TCI’s industries altogether, 700 million?? 1 billion?? And all on the backs of prisoners who are not being paid nor given credit for that labor.

Considering these facts, no wonder why Texas doesn’t want to decrease its prison population. Why downsize a thriving and lucrative cash-laden business? I haven’t mentioned the other entities of TCI, like out-sourcing prisoners’ labor to other open market companies, which I’m sure produce millions more dollars annually. This explains why more than 50% of Texans have a friend or family member in prison, or have done time themselves.

Texas is not full of criminals, it’s full of corruption in its “Criminal IN-Justice System.” From cops all the way to District Attorneys and Judges, the criminal system is corrupt. They keep a high conviction rate at any cost, all for the well-being of the multi-million dollar Prison Industrial Complex.

Immediately after the creation of TCI and the “Publicly Traded Stock,” Texas’s prison population exploded. I wonder how many Judges, District Attorneys and government officials (or their family members) own stock in TCI?

One would think there exists a conflict of interest or even “insider trading” when the people who hold stock in a prison industry company, are the very ones who control prison sentences and populations? Wouldn’t you think it’s a criminal act to convert a place that was designed for punishment and correction, into a multi-million dollar industry?

HOW DOES THIS PROBLEM AFFECT US?

• Many Texans complain about the burden of prisons when they should be asking, who is profiting from inmate free-labor? Certainly all those millions of dollars end in the pockets of just a few.
• What about the unemployment in Texas? Sixty percent of the 180,000 prisoners work. That’s about 100,000 jobs. Texans should be demanding that the state give those jobs to citizens. Those 100,000 new jobs would alleviate the unemployment rate in Texas.
• What about the corruption? Law abiding citizens don’t care about corruption or criminals until we or a family member becomes one. We usually think that cops, D.A.s and Judges are honest, when the reality is otherwise.

Texas has more innocent people behind bars than any other state. The Texas criminal system kills more people than any other state. It has been proved beyond doubt that Texas, time after time, had wrongly-convicted, incarcerated and put to death more people than any other state. Former Texas governor Rick Perry killed more than 30 people on death-row, some of them innocent citizens that were victims of this corrupt system. Rick Perry is a true serial killer.

These are the things we should be worrying about. Most people think that they are on the safe-side because they are not committing any crime; well, they are wrong, Texas can make a criminal out of a saint.

Cameron Todd Willingham, Gary Graham, Ponchai Wilkerson, Kevin Kincy, Derrick Frazier and Francis Newton, just to name a few, were wrongly convicted and still yet put to death by the Texas Criminal IN-Justice system. And what about the thousands of wrongly convicted people that are currently serving long sentences in Texas prisons, now working as slaves? That could be me, you or anybody!

HUMAN AND CIVIL RIGHTS vs. SLAVERY

Human and Civil Rights are not allowed in Texas prisons. There are so many violations to these rights on a daily basis, but we don’t hear about it because those violations, if fought against, rarely make it to the court.

What about the slavery case? We don’t hear about it in the media because it’s politically incorrect to talk about it. The truth is that “slavery” it’s very much alive and thriving in Texas. It is being disguised by the TDCJ. Texas has the largest slave trade in the world.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights specifically states that “NO ONE shall be held in Slavery or Servitude.” It does not say “No one, except prisoners.” Critics often argue that the 13th Amendment abolished slavery “except as a punishment for crime.” It is true the 13th Amendment allows that – but that doesn’t mean involuntary servitude of a prisoner is morally right or justified. While the 13th Amendment allows slavery only “as a punishment for crime,” we should note that not a single prisoner currently incarcerated in Texas, has being sentenced to “hard labor, or involuntary slavery – servitude” but they are being enslaved on top of their sentences.

Every convicted felon goes through the judgement process; if found guilty, then he/she goes through the “punishment” phase. The punishments go from probation, community service, restitution, etc., to more harsh punishments like jail or prison time, or death penalty.

Judges and juries have the leeway (according to the 13th Amendment) to punish a criminal with “slavery or servitude,” but nevertheless, not a single criminal presently incarcerated in Texas has received such a sentence. TDCJ has taken upon itself the authority of punishing prisoners with slavery ON TOP OF THEIR SENTENCES, violating therefore, their Human and Constitutional Rights.

In 1948, the International Community adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and recognized in Article 4, that involuntary servitude was a violation of “the inherent dignity and the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family.”

It is about time the United States, and especially Texas, honor these Human Rights.

WHAT IS COMING?

The reason why I am today mentioning this issue to you is first, to create awareness with Texas citizens of the abuse, corruption and danger that the Texas Criminal System presents to all of us, free and slave. And secondly, to let everybody know that Texas’s prisoners are the slaves of today, and that slavery affects our society economically, morally and politically.

They are forced to work on a daily basis, if they refuse to work a single day, they are punished in many different ways. They work without any payment. They don’t get any credit for their work neither for their good conduct.

I have a brother in prison and will not mention his name for his safety. Even in 21st century America, prisoners still get beat up and even killed by prison guards, and they make it look like an accident or a suicide. Don’t fool yourselves thinking that this is not your problem; this issue affects all Texans.

Since Texans are not aware of this situation, prisoners are doing their part; they have been organizing since last year, a peaceful State-Wide Work Stoppage. Beginning on April 4th, 2016, all inmates in Texas will stop all labor in order to get the attention from politicians and Texas’s community alike.

This work-stoppage will affect the pockets of all those who benefit from prison slavery. We need to be clear about one thing, prisoners are not looking for a lazy life in prison. They don’t want to spend their sentences sitting in a cell, eating and sleeping. They still will attend every education-rehabilitation and training program available. They are not against work in prison – as long they receive credit for their labor and good conduct that counts towards a real parole-validation. I said “real parole” because the present Texas Parole Board is a joke.

The Texas Parole Board does not care about the rehabilitation of prisoners; all they want is to keep a high prison population in order to keep their slavery business rolling. What we see and hear on the news media and what TDCJ advertises on its web site is far away from the truth.

Please report on this issue! Thank you.

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These documents in their original form can be downloaded from http://ift.tt/1U53oaz

A good resource for reporting from within the Texas prison system, about conditions facing prisoners, is Kevin Rashid Johnson’s website: http://ift.tt/1QOZOvm

on the main Kersplebedeb website: http://ift.tt/1U53lvd

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Mailroom Censorship at Attica

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On October 7, political prisoner Jalil Muntaqim was denied 4 books which arrived for him at Attica Correctional Facility. Muntaqim is a former member of the Black Panther Party and Black Liberation Army, and one of the longest held political prisoners in the world today; he has been incarcerated since 1971, when he was only 19 years old.

In the case of the Attica book-ban, Muntaqim was initially told he could have the books, but when a guard noticed that one of the titles in question was actually written by Muntaqim himself, he simply said “No way”. Muntaqim requested the books be sent to media review pursuant to Directive 4911(H)(1)(b), however the officer refused, stating that the books would either all have to be destroyed or else sent to some outside address. Muntaqim opted for the latter, however three weeks later, no books have arrived at the address given, and the prison has not issued any slip or official explanation for the book ban.

Mail censorship is of course nothing new in U.S. prisons. Prison regulations vary, in some jurisdictions (like New York) the standard having to do with the safety and smooth operation of the prison system; in others, the rules are more obviously Orwellian, for instance in California where recently adopted regulations refer to “propaganda” of groups that are “oppositional to authority and society” and/or “deviant in nature.” But in practice, mailroom censorship is arbitrary and capricious, with a strong bias against radical left-wing, anti-racist, and anti-prison publications. Given the degree to which prisoners are already cut off and isolated from their communities on the outside, mailroom censorship can constitute an important obstacle to communication, education, and personal growth, for those held in the world’s largest prison system.

At Attica, mailroom censorship already made headlines earlier this year, when a front page New York Times article was heavily redacted before being allowed to prisoners who subscribed to the newspaper. The article in question detailed ongoing guard brutality at Attica, focussing on the case of George Williams, a prisoner who was severely beaten by guards for the “crime” of allegedly cursing at them, on August 9, 2011. Initially, the prison had attempted to simply censor the entire newspaper; it was only following appeals that they relented.

Mailroom censorship and manipulation of the mail are forms of harassment that can also be used to target specific individuals. Indeed, this is something Muntaqim knows from first-hand experience. In 2012, Muntaqim was sent to the SHU (solitary) for six months, after photographs of children wearing t-shirts with the Black Panther logo, were confiscated from his cell. The photographs had been taken at the recent funeral of Michael Cetewayo Tabor, another former Panther, and had been approved by the mailroom. Only to then be confiscated in Muntaqim’s cell, and used as an excuse to send him to the SHU.

The current case is simply a more petty example of harassment, directed against someone who is hated for what he represents, as an unbroken and unrepentant former Black Panther and Black Liberation Army member. Regarding the fact that his book has seemingly been banned, Muntaqim has noted the arbitrary nature of the process: “We have apartheid in Attica. No reason has been given for why this book is being banned, why an author cannot even receive his own book.” Given the personal nature of many of the poems in question, Muntaqim has noted the irony of the situation, rhetorically asking, “Why is my book being kept out of apartheid Attica, but I am not?”

As Muntaqim notes in his written formal complaint to Superintendent Dale Arbus, “Needless to assert here, there is a plethora of legal cases and Court rulings that deny violation of First Amendment guarantees as pertaining to free speech and receipt of literature for prisoners. This includes the procedural due process right for the handling of literature for prisoners. In this case, those procedural due process rights are promulgated in DOCCS Directive(s) #4911, #4572 and Employees Manual §14.4.”
Indeed, Muntaqim is correct: DOCCS Directive #4572 reads that “It is Departmental policy to encourage inmates to read publications from varied sources if such material does not encourage them to engage in behavior that might be disruptive to orderly facility operations,” and that “Publications properly received at the facility for an inmate in mail or packages shall be delivered to the inmate in the ordinary course of mail or package delivery, unless referred to the Facility Media Review committee upon a reasonable good faith belief that the publication violates one or more of the Media Review guidelines… Publications referred to the Media Review Committee shall be delivered promptly to the Media Review Committee. Notice to the inmate is made by using Form #4572A, which must be placed in the institutional mail at the same time as the publication is referred.”

Directive #4572, which was violated by Attica mailroom in this case, is in conformity with the Supreme Court’s 1974 ruling, in Procunier v. Martinez, 416 U.S. 396, which “required that an inmate be notified of the rejection of correspondence, and that the author of the correspondence be allowed to protest the decision and secure review by a prison official other than the original censor.”

The books in question, banned by the Attica mailroom in defiance of the aforementioned legal requirements, were Billionaires: Reflections on the Upper Crust, by Darrell M. West; Plutocrats: The Rise of the New Global Super Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else, by Chrystie Freeland; Clandestine Occupations—An Imaginary History, by Diana Block; and Escaping the Prism … Fade to Black, this last being written by Muntaqim himself.

Escaping the Prism … Fade to Black was published in September of this year, and is Jalil’s second published book. It includes 51 of his poems and 13 short texts which initially appeared on his website freejalil.com. Also included in the book is art – including many drawings and collages by prisoner-artists Kevin “Rashid” Johnson and Zolo Agona Azania – a preface by Walidah Imarisha, and a detailed essay by Ward Churchill, recounting the NEWKILL frame-up (a COINTELPRO-style operation) which led to Muntaqim’s imprisonment. Also included are a number of reproduced United States government memos detailing the involvement of the FBI in railroading him along with his codefendants Herman Bell and Albert “Nuh” Washington. None of the aforementioned could conceivably constitute “a possible threat to orderly facility operations,” the standard that is supposed to be used when deciding to disallow material in the NY State prison system.

Jalil has asked that people contact NYS Department of Corrections Acting Commissioner Anthony Annucci to request an investigation of arbitrary and capricious book-banning at Attica. When contacting Annucci, please note that Muntaqim is being held under the name Anthony Bottom #77A4283:

Anthony J. Annucci
Acting Commissioner
New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision
Harriman State Campus
1220 Washington Avenue, Bldg. 2
Room 315
Albany, New York 12226
To learn more about Jalil Muntaqim, see the website www.freejalil.com

Jalil’s book Escaping the Prism … Fade to Black can be ordered from leftwingbooks.net, akpress.org, or amazon.com.

on the main Kersplebedeb website: http://ift.tt/1N5itoJ

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“diversity of the offender population”

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The most visible change during my tenure as Correctional Investigator has been the growth in the overall size, complexity and diversity of the offender population. It is not a new observation that some of Canada’s minority, vulnerable or disadvantaged groups are disproportionately involved in the criminal justice system. These trends are accelerating within federal prisons. Since March 2005, the federal inmate population has increased by 17.5%. Over the same period, the Aboriginal population grew by 47.4% and Black offenders by over 75%. These groups now comprise 22 8% and 9 8% of the total incarcerated population respectively. The federally sentenced women population has increased 66%, with the Aboriginal women count growing by 112%. Over the same period, the number of Caucasian offenders has actually declined by 3%.

Source: The Correctional Investigator of Canada’s Annual Report 2013-2014

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Prison Guards Face Civil Suit in Attack on Virginia Prisoner Frank “Outlaw” Reid

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“We will have to earn, if not demand, respect for our rights through sacrifice and struggle just like the masses of other politically, socially and economically marginalized people on this planet. And that’s where out best chances for justice lie—in struggle, not in a civil lawsuit.” –Frank “Outlaw” Reid

Friends, Comrades and Allies,

Frank “Outlaw” Reid, a comrade imprisoned in Red Onion State Prison, and co-author of Defying the Tomb, is bringing four guards before a jury on October 28-30 in Wise County, VA for a brutal beating he suffered at their hands in 2009. Please read the press release and his public statement attached for more details, and follow the trial on Twitter at @justice4outlaw and on Facebook at Justice Outlaw.

JUSTICE FOR OUTLAW!!!

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Date: October 22, 2013

Contact: Kate Piper (202) 718-7043

PRISON GUARDS FACE CIVIL SUIT IN ATTACK ON VIRGINIA PRISONER FRANK “OUTLAW” REID

Big Stone Gap, VA: On Monday, October 28, a jury will begin hearing testimony in a civil suit filed against four prison guards in Wise County, Virginia for an alleged attack on Wallens Ridge prisoner Frank Reid in July 2009. Reid filed the suit after defeating prison officials’ charges of aggravated assault in the same incident. Reid is charging the guards with violating his constitutional rights as a prisoner of the Virginia Department of Corrections (VDOC), including the right to due process, equal protection, and the right to be free from unlawful search and seizure.

On July 10, 2009, Reid was brutally attacked and beaten by guards at Wallens Ridge State Prison, when three officers and a sergeant yelled racist slurs as they tackled him to the ground, kicked and punched him repeatedly, then bashed his head into the concrete floor. After the attack, Reid was denied medical care and his right to the prison grievance process. He was also denied access to photos and other documentation of injuries he sustained.

Reid has long been a target of political repression and racial discrimination and is recognized as a fierce critic of U.S. prisons. He has written extensively about abuses perpetrated by guards employed by VDOC and works to organize fellow prisoners for better treatment and living conditions within Wallens Ridge and Red Onion State Prisons. He co-authored a book titled “Defying the Tomb” with Kevin ‘Rashid’ Johnson, another former VDOC prisoner who has been politically targeted and singled out for severe abuse by Virginia prison guards.

Reid beat charges of attempted aggravated assault and battery on July 21, 2009 in an official prison hearing. “[The charging officer’s] testimony does not support his charge. Therefore my decision is to dismiss the charge.” Despite being found not guilty by the Hearing Officer, Reid was stripped of his accumulated Good Time. If they hadn’t taken that time from him, Reid would have been released already.

After charges against him were dismissed, Reid filed a grievance through prescribed channels. When asked what remedy he sought, rather than requesting individual relief, such as money, good time, or a transfer to a less brutal prison, he requested that “all VDOC employees who abuse and brutalize prisoners be terminated as a standard policy and practice of the VDOC.” His grievance was ignored all the way up to the Director, in violation of VDOC policy requiring that all grievances be investigated and responded to by officials.

Reid filed the civil suit in US District Court against the guards who beat him, as well as the Wallens Ridge State Prison warden and VDOC officials who were complicit. The warden and VDOC officials have since been dismissed as defendants, but the four officers will still face a jury trial on the 28th of October.

on the main Kersplebedeb website: http://kersplebedeb.com/posts/prison-guards-face-civil-suit-in-attack-on-virginia-prisoner-frank-outlaw-reid/

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Hunger Strike Begins at Wallens Ridge State Prison

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http://virginiaprisonstrike.blogspot.ca/2013/04/hunger-strike-begins-at-wallens-ridge.html

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Snapshot of Genocide

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An excerpt from Loic Wacquant’s Punishing the Poor: The Neoliberal Government of Social Insecurity (Duke University Press 2009), pages 59-73:

The Gaols of the Subproletariat: An Experimental Verification

It suffices, to discern the extrapenological functions served by the outsized extension of the US carceral apparatus even as crime plummeted for over a decade, to sketch in broad strokes the sociological profile of the “clientele” it accommodates at its entry point. Whence it turns out that the half-million detainees who glut the country’s 3,300-odd jails on anyone day–and the fourteen million bodies that pass through their gates in the course of a typical year–are essentially drawn from the most marginalized fractions of the working class, and especially from the subproletarian families of color in the segregated cities ravaged by the conjoint transformation of wage labor and social protection.(( The statistics in this section are taken from a survey, conducted by the federal Department of)ustice from October 1995 to March 1996, of a representative sample of 6,ooo detainees in 431 county jails. Caroline Wolf Harlow, Profile of Inmates 1996 (Washington, D.C.: Bureau of justice Statistics, 1998). For comparisons over time, these earlier studies were relied upon: Profile of jail Inmates, 1989 and Profile of jail Inmates: Socio-Demographic Findings from the 1978 Survey of Inmates of Local jails (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1991 and 1980, respectively), while various Census Bureau publications were used for comparisons with the national population. Statistical data of this kind have a high coefficient of uncertainty owing to the conditions under which the interviews are conducted, the characteristics of the population questioned, the sensitivity of some of the items asked, and a lack of precision in the coding of responses. However, the orders of magnitude they establish in the respects that interest us here are sufficiently clear that we can tre,p.t them as reliable, especially since other, local investigations suggest that this study tends to underestimate the material insecurity and sociocultural destitution of the carceral population.)) Thus, recovering its historical mission of origin, incarceration serves above all to regulate, if not to perpetuate, poverty and to warehouse the human rejects of the market. In this regard, the gargantuan operation of punishment houses converges with and complements the aggressive rolling out of workfare programs.

Indeed, six in ten occupants of county jails are black or Latino (41 percent and 19 percent, respectively), as against 48 percent in 1978, whereas these two communities put together represent barely one-fifth of the national population. Just under one-half held a full-time job at the time of arrest (49 percent), while 15 percent worked “part-time or occasionally” and the remainder were looking for work (20 percent) or economically inactive (16 percent). This astronomical jobless rate is hardly surprising considering the educational level of this population: one-half had not graduated from high school, even though this requires no examination, and barely 13 percent said that they had pursued vocational, technical, or academic postsecondary education (compared to one-half of this age category in the country as a whole).

As a result of their marginal position on the deskilled labor market, two-thirds of detainees lived in a household with under $1,000 in income per month (and 45 percent in households with under $600), corresponding to less than half the official poverty line for a family of three that year–although two-thirds said that they had received wages. This indicates that the vast majority of the occupants of county jails do come from the ranks of the “working poor,” that fraction of the working class that does not manage to escape poverty although they work, but who are largely ineligible for social protection because they work at poverty-level jobs.((On the one hand, these jobs generally provide neither medical insurance nor social coverage (which depends on the goodwill of the employer). On the other, having a job, and thus an income, however meager, disqualifies them from public assistance and medical coverage for indigent households (public benefits which, in any case, are now very hard to obtain and provide only for strictly limited periods, as we shall document in the next chapter).)) Thus, despite their penury, barely 14 percent received public aid (payments to single parents, food stamps, food assistance for children) on the eve of their arraignment. If we include the 7 percent receiving disability or retirement benefits and the 3 percent on the unemployment rolls, it turns out that less than one-quarter of jail detainees received some government support. The twofold exclusion from stable wage work and public assistance that affects widening sections of the American proletariat explains the lengthening of careers in the illegal economy, and thus the pronounced aging of the jail population: in 1996 one detainee in three was older than 35, twice as many as in 1978. This aging directly parallels that of persistent offenders and the entrenching of criminal commerce in the inner city, where established street gangs have taken an entrepreneurial turn and included more members in their thirties and forties as opportunities in the regular economy dried up.

The material insecurity of detainees in American jails is matched only by their social denudement: only 40 percent grew up with both parents (as against a national average of 77 percent) and fully 14 percent spent their childhood in an orphanage or group home. Nearly half were raised in households receiving public assistance, and over one-quarter grew up living in public housing-the most reviled sector of the urban housing market due to its extreme dilapidation, dangerousness, and the double class and caste segregation that stamps it. Moreover, more than one-third of jail inmates confided to having a parent or guardian who is an alcoholic (30 percent) or drug addict (8 percent). Confirming the fragility of their social ties, a bare 16 percent of them were married, compared to 58 percent for men in their age bracket nationwide.

Besides, incarceration is quite familiar to detainees in the strict sense that more than half of them have or had a close relative in prison (a brother, 30 percent; their father, 16 percent; a sister or mother, 10 percent). The same goes for physical violence and especially gun-related violence. One in nine men and one in three women said that they had suffered physical or sexual abuse during their childhood; three percent of men and one woman in three reported being raped as adults. Everything suggests that these percentages are low estimates, especially for the men, since most inmates have already done time behind bars and homosexual rape is quite common in American houses of detention, where it is estimated that as many as one inmate in four is subject to serious sexual abuse every year. According to a 1994 survey carried out by the head physician at the Cook County Department of Corrections, half of the men admitted to Chicago’s jail had previously been hospitalized as a result of an assault and one in four had been wounded by gunshots at least once. In addition, 60 percent of shooting victims had personally witnessed shootings during their childhood.

A germane study of detainees entering the jails of Washington, D.C., in 1997 found that one in four had suffered serious injuries unrelated to their incarceration. In-depth interviews with a subsample of these men found that 83 percent had been at the scene of a shooting incident; 46 percent had had a family member killed with a gun (in most cases during a robbery, assault, or crossfire); and 40 percent still carried some disability related to an earlier gunshot wound.

Material insecurity, cultural deprivation, social denudement, physical violence–the deplorable health of the denizens of America’s jails is in tune with their degraded class position and condition: more than one-third (37 percent, compared to one-fifth of the general population) report that they suffer from physical, psychic, or emotional problems serious enough to curtail their ability to work. This diagnosis is confirmed by the fact that half of the new entrants into the carceral system had to receive treatment upon admission, aside from the superficial medical examination to which all “fish” are subjected during the procedures initiating them to their detainee status.((The mass processing of detainees at the Los Angeles County jail is depicted in the two ethnographic vignettes of jail intake (drawn from fieldwork carried out in the summer of 1998) offered in chapters 4 and 5 (pages 146-50 and 186-91) [of Punishing the Poor: The Neoliberal Government of Social Insecurity by Loic Wacquant, Duke University Press 2009].)) (To this percentage one can add the 13 percent of jail inmates injured while behind bars as a result of assaults, riots, and accidents.) And detainees are not only more likely to be in ill health upon being put under lock; they are also at inordinately high risk of becoming ill while there, as America’s jails and prisons have become gigantic incubators for infectious diseases, with prevalence rates of the major afflictions far exceeding those of the general population. It is estimated that 20 to 26 percent of all persons infected with HIV-AIDS in the United States, 29 to 43 percent of those detected with the hepatitis C virus, and 40 percent of all those struck by tuberculosis in 1997 had passed through a correctional facility.

It is moreover well established that American jails have become the shelters of first resort for the mentally ill who were thrown onto the streets by hospitals in the wake of the massive “deinstitutionalization” campaign of the 1960s and 1970s and for those who simply cannot access a grossly defective public health system. It is hardly surprising then that over one-quarter of jail inmates have been treated for mental health problems, while 10 percent have been previously admitted to a psychiatric facility.((The proportion of inmates identified as suffering from mental afflictions during admission is deliberately lowered in keeping with the lack of resources available to treat them. As one psychiatrist working at the clinic of the Twin Towers, the reception center of the Los Angeles jail system, explained to me: “We have an instrument [a psychological test] that gives us 6 to 10 percent of serious cases, but the percentage diagnosed really depends on how many beds we have. If we had the room and the staff, we could easily up that figure to 15, 20, or 30 percent.”)) This is consistent with clinical studies conducted by medical researchers reporting that 6 to 15 percent of the clientele of city and county jails suffer from severe mental illness (rates for convicts in prison range from 10 to 15 percent), and this rate has increased over the past two decades as a result of the downsizing of the medical sector of the state, more rigid criteria for civil commitments, and increasingly negative attitudes among the public and the police. The disproportionate rate of street arrests of mentally ill persons combines in turn with the explosive growth of computerized criminal records [...] to fortify the tendency of the authorities to divert their treatment from the public health to the penal wing of the Leviathan.

As they come almost exclusively from the most precarious strata of the urban proletariat, the denizens of American jails are also, by (socio)logical implication, “regulars” of the carceral system: 59 percent have already experienced detention, and 14 percent were previously put on probation, leaving just under one-quarter who are “novices” to the jailhouse. For, as shall be discussed shortly, the carceral institution has grown more autophagous. This is attested by the rising share of inmates who have been repeatedly convicted: fewer than one detainee in four had served three custodial sentences in 1989; seven years later, that figure reached one-third. Finally, it is significant that 8o percent of those sentenced to at least one year of prison time were defended–if one can call it that–by public defenders. Only half of the detainees shorn of the means to hire their own lawyer were able to speak with counsel within two weeks of being locked up. In fact, it is routine for public defenders to meet their clients for the first time a few minutes before they hastily appear together before a judge, since state-appointed lawyers are typically in charge of hundreds of cases at a time. Thus in Connecticut members of the public attorney’s office, who officiate in three-quarters of the state’s felony trials, each handle an average of 1,045 cases in the course of a year. As in many other jurisdictions, they have filed suit against the agency that employs them in order to compel the state to disburse the funds needed to meet its constitutional mandate to provide all the accused with minimal means of defense in criminal court. Over the past decade, the costs of indigent defense services have ballooned out of control, exacerbating the chronic crisis of legal services for the poor, due not only to the multiplication of punitive statutes such as mandatory minimum sentences and long narcotics related sanctions, but also to “an overall increase in criminal filings and a larger percentage of defendants found to be indigent.”

on the main Kersplebedeb website: http://kersplebedeb.com/posts/snapshot-of-genocide/

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