There is plenty to know about prison expansion in general and specifically about what is taking place in Canada as we speak. Below I've included a link to "End the Prison Industrial Complex's" information regarding the companies which are profiting from prison expansion in Canada.
http://endthepic.wordpress.com/profiteers/
I've also included a link to a short piece by Rittenhouse on the same issue which relates to the complexities around prison building, human suffering, and the need for fair income opportunites.
http://joanr73.wordpress.com/2012/07/10/end-the-prison-industrial-complex-epic/
Then you will find a link by the California Prison Moratorium project to a handbook entitled, "How to Stop a Prison in Your Town". A timely resource for everyone living with a future prison overshadowing your town and potentially your own freedom. Whether contractors have broken ground in your community yet or not this booklet provides some real insight into all of the many impacts which prisons are apt to bring with them and provides strategy ideas, as well as responses to some of the most widely used misinformation intended to soften opposition to prison building.
www.calipmp.org/media/docs/2011_pmphdbk1-22.pdf
And finally you can read a copy of an article I've written on prison expansion and prison profiteer lobbying for the same on both sides of the Canada/US border, chock full of information on expansion plans across Canada and resources where you can learn more.
Cross Border Lobbying and the Reality
Behind Conservative Enthusiasm for Bill C10
by sheryl jarvis, July, 2012
by sheryl jarvis, July, 2012
Is Bill C10 really about "Safe Streets and Communities" as its name implies or are there ulterior motives. Many suspect Bill C10 really lays the
groundwork for generating new sources of revenue, a warped vision of economic
repair, by opening our prisons to private markets. This allows corporations here in Canada to
rake in the big bucks which capitalists to the south have been enjoying for
years. Rapacious capitalists have finally
found a way to transform those they consider burdens to the state, into
profit for the rich. The bodies of the poor, those who use drugs,
and the mentally ill are sourced out to third parties for profit through
privatized prisons.
three ways in which incarceration
bolsters capitalism: government economic stimulus for stagnant communities the
privatization of prisons and prison-related services, and the exploitation of
prison labor by private firms.”
The mainstream media has only recently begun discussing the
profit motive (i.e.: privatization) behind conservative support of Bill C10. When plans to privatize imprisonment (a function of class war) have been in the works for years, and
visibly on the books since at least November of last year.
Critics opposing the Bill have focused on the
direct impacts that C10 sanctions will likely have on those to be targeted by
the Bill, such as longer prison terms and criminal records. While these issues are important, critical even, they only scratch the service and fail to look at the ideology beneath increased calls for the use of criminalising tactics. Ideology which includes the
isolating effects of blaming only the individual and failing to look at lawbreaking
within the larger context of the surrounding social structures. Structures such as poverty, inequality, violence against women, colonization, and ableism
(think neo-liberal push for lower wages, fewer worker protections, drug war, and the defunding of womens orgs.....and for that matter, everyone else who speaks out), much of which has long been
institutionalized through policy, practice, and belief.
Day of action to support workers on strike at Electro-Motive facility in London, On. Employers threatened to pull the plant out of Canada if workers did not accept a 50% wage cut. Workers refused, Electro left, and the neo-liberal Canadian government which had gifted the company millions of dollars in tax deductions and other forms of corporate welfare did nothing.
Day of action to support workers on strike at Electro-Motive facility in London, On. Employers threatened to pull the plant out of Canada if workers did not accept a 50% wage cut. Workers refused, Electro left, and the neo-liberal Canadian government which had gifted the company millions of dollars in tax deductions and other forms of corporate welfare did nothing.
If public safety and accountability of individuals were the
true motive in these massive policy changes, the conservatives would be going
at this from a completely different direction.
After all expert after expert have pointed to provisions of safe,
affordable housing, and childcare, access to opportunity, jobs, education, and
substance use treatment as being far more likely to increase public safety than
the biased and exclusionary practice of criminalisation has ever been or will
ever be.
Profit and not public safety is more likely the true
conservative motivation behind the crime agenda.
Exploitation of our most vulnerable people by turning individual
bodies into sources of revenue - profit for private hands, through imprisonment
and forced prisoner labour is the most egregious form of bullying practices,
and a terrifying stance for any nation leader to be implementing. The belief systems driving these forms of classist,
and racist policy change are so socially entrenched, that the effects are invisible to all but the
vulnerable people targeted. People
begin to believe that retribution, hate, and exclusion are not only warranted
and deserved, but a natural consequence to lawbreaking or for that matter, any breach of the current "moral" order. Only through decades of struggle has the face
of such deep seated intolerance ever been up rooted, and shown for what it really
is – hatred, fear, and ignorance. Think
of the centuries long struggles of aboriginal, African, and female bodied
peoples. The fact is, that we are
nowhere near close to exposing the truth behind the true causes of community
harm – that which we refer to as crime.
We are simply not ready to talk about it in a wide spread and critical
way. Because of this, prisons are likely
to be a part of the social landscape for a very long time to come.
Private
Prison Profiteers in the USA
Private
interest groups have 3 means for influencing and convincing government to
support their efforts. Lobbying, direct
campaign contributions, and networking. Networking
includes revolving door techniques such as moving private prison owners between
prison ownership and government jobs in corrections.
One journalist had this to
report on the lobbying efforts of private prison profiteers in the US, “For
one thing, they’ve forked over a fair share on lobbying Congress. While netting
$133 million in income between 2006 and 2008, the CCA spent nearly $3 million
lobbying; during that decade, the number of dollars spent in Washington
amounted to around $17.6 million. Corrections Corporation of America officers have been linked to the
American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC, which has in turn lobbied for
increased sentencing for inmates convicted of non-violent crimes across the
country and helped pass the controversial immigration law in Arizona.
Corrections Corp. themselves have lobbied for Arizona’s Senate Bill 1070, and
the reasoning is simple: an more stringent immigrant laws means more arrests
and, thus, more jam-packed for-profit prisons.” (thinkprogress.org)
Journalists at the online “404 System
Error”, a relatively new and completely cool independent news source, report a
system which encourages the increase of prison populations through a per head
funding system which benefits players all down the criminal legal system line. “In 2009 reports obtained by
National Public Radio found that the Corrections Corporation of America
conceded in a report that they expected “a significant portion of our revenues” to come from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.
According to Bloomberg BusinessWeek, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement
pays around $90 every day for each detainee that their work helps land behind
bars.”
So not only do those working in the criminal
legal field benefit financially through the work they do – criminalising mostly
working class people, but they have designed the system in such a way that it
pays out “bonus’” per arrestee.
US Prison
Profiteers Seek Capitalist Expansion in Canada
2 of the largest privatized prison profiteers in the US, Geo
Group Inc. and Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) have been busy lobbying
our Canadian government around Bill C10, firearms, and other criminal law issues. And more recently US based Management and
Training Corp has joined the tough on crime fray, looking to Canada to replace
the bucks they are currently losing in the states where they have virtually
been pushed including Mississippi, due to multiple court actions suing MTC for
sexual misconduct, failing to maintain safety for prisoners, assault, and even wrongful
death. In fact this track record is
hardly individual to MTC, all of the private prison profiteers mentioned here
have similar histories. These are the
players currently laying the ground work for expansion of this dirtiest form of
capitalist profit onto Canadian soil.
CCA's record of
hiring untrained guards who brutalize prisoners is notorious. In fact these histories are rampant
throughout the prison system period.
However the conditions (poor salaries and training for staff which lead
to constant staffing shortages, which in turn ensures a near constant state of
lockdown. Compounding these issues are the limited access to healthcare,
insufficient food, tampons, and other toiletries for prisoners) at private
institutions are conducive to higher tension and stress levels for both prisoners
and guards, ensuring the number of violent incidents within privately
owned/managed facilities are through the roof, over and above any numbers at
publically run facilities.
Geo reported income of 61 million in 2008, increasing to
over 98 million in 2011. They imprisoned
80,000 people in state, federal, and international prisons, immigration holds,
and mental health facilities in the US, the UK, Australia, and South Africa
last year. And have several expansion
projects in the works this year. If
those impressive records didn’t stir you maybe their human rights record will. Geo has managed to rack up substantial
numbers here too. Charges of negligence, civil rights
violations, abuse, and even death.
Civil
Rights lawyer, Scott Medlock
had this to say, “GEO cuts corners by hiring poorly trained
guards, providing inmates with cut rate medical care, and running their
facility in a grossly unprofessional manner.” (This is perhaps the number one criticism in regards to for
profit prison profiteers generally.
Cutting corners, and risking prisoner health all in the name of the
bottom line.
Canada –
US Lobbying
This idea of cross border lobbying is actually far more
common than many of us might be aware.
Canadian markets lobby the US congress and US markets lobby the Canadian
parliament, often pushing for changes to policy, and law, with profit being a top motive. According to The
Centre for Responsive Politics (2012), Canadian corporations have contributed about 2.5
million to candidates in the congressional
elections so far this year. “Big hitters”
are Microsoft and the Royal Bank of Canada.
US to
Canada Lobbying – Prison Privatization
Conversely, when American capitalists detect the possibility
of profit this side of the border, they lobby our government intensely with the
hopes of influencing policy decisions. A
contradiction of capitalism is its need to seek out and expand into new
markets, to find ever new profits outside of itself. One method for achieving ever greater market
shares is to look to new lands, to convince new people (governments,
corporations, the public, the media) that we need a particular product or
service that we don’t yet have – private, for profit prisons are what’s missing
from the Canadian landscape. Thus an
opportunity for American bread capitalism and corporatists to expand outside of
their own borders, into Canada and elsewhere.
The GEO Group for
instance is a registered
lobbyist with active dealings among the following branches of the Canadian
Federal Government:
- Correctional Service of Canada (CSC)
- Public Safety Canada (PS)
- Public Works and Government Services Canada (PWGSC)
- Public-Private Partnerships Canada, Solicitor General Canada (SGC)
The news of USA based prison profiteers
lobbying here in Canada has remained pretty hushed within the mainstream media
and most reporting has been through online independents.
So
what did consultants employed by Geo have to talk about with the Canadian
government? In fact there were 2
separate consultants, Ronald Bilodeau and Patrick Gagnon hired by Ronald Champion,
Vice President of Geo, from March 2011 – Currently
for similar purposes Notes made by Ronald and Patrick on the Government of
Canada web page state the following, “Assist the client about
the possibilities of public markets for the operation of institutions of
correctional services, Discuss the possibility to establish a public-private
partnership for the operating of correctional institutions in Canada, contracts
to modernize correctional facilities in Canada.” “We are assisting the client regarding procurement
opportunities pertaining to the operation of correctional services institutions”
Prison Privatization in Canada
Canada has
attempted prison privatization twice.
Currently with a youth facility in New Brunswick, privately managed by U.S. prison firm, Management and Training Corp (MTC), and once previously in
Ontario under the conservative Harris regime of the time. Management and security was provided by MTC for that facility as well. The Ontario facility was a horror to those
imprisoned there, to their families, and it was a dismal failure for the tax
payer who footed the bill for inferior management outcomes, and human rights abuses.
Fasken Marineau posted this comment on their webpage in regards to expectations of the private CNCC
facility at the time, “This public-private
partnership is part of the Government's commitment to transform the Province's correctional system to one
that is more safe, secure, effective, efficient and accountable.”
Unfortunately
the CNCC under Utah based Management & Training Corp. was less safe for
prisoners and staff alike with chronic staff shortages, contributing to an increase in violence, a decrease in security both cause and effect
of increased violence, prisoner healthcare services were decimated,
and recidivism increased.
One
of the claims around privatisation of public services is that private entities
will be more accountable. My
understanding is that when the money is coming out of their own pockets, one is
likely to be more responsible with it.
But the truth is that the upfront operating costs are paid for by
the tax payer via the government. The
question for the prison operator then, is, how much money can I rake back for
my own pockets, not how much must I pay out from my own pockets.
According
to a John Howard Society staffer, “Any decision to continue or even expand privatization
initiatives would be based on the results of the comparison of CNCC, the
privately-operated facility and CECC which would continue to be
publicly-operated.”
On
Sept. 19, 2002 corrections guards at CNCC voted to unionize in response to
terrible working conditions. Staff
number was 350 and they were to receive the same training as those in the
publicly-operated facilities. After unionization
(represented by OPSEU), their salaries and benefits were similar to public
employees. Most staff were new to
corrections, having just been hired by MTC since its opening. (John Howard,
2006)
Specific
Incidents at CNCC:
·
In September 2002, a riot
occurred Around 100 prisoners using a battering ram were prevented from
escaping and a cordon of armed Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) including the
tactical rescue and canine units had to be stationed around the perimeter.
·
The death in August 2003
of former CNCC prisoner Jeffrey Elliot. Mr.
Elliot died of blood poisoning after being forced to wait three weeks to be transferred from the prison to
hospital after being wounded. An incident at CNCC on 4 September
left two prisoners with stab wounds.
·
Dr Martin McNamara of
Midland says a patient was in agony for three weeks, waiting for medical
attention for his broken jaw.
After
having to fight for her son Ryan’s well-being during his eight month
incarceration at CNCC,
Sharon Storring-Skillen formed Families Against Private Prison Abuse, (FAPPA).
Ontario and indeed
Canada have never again pursued the idea of privatization. Until now that is. The current federal conservative government
are determined to steer Canadians back down the dark road to prisons for
profit.
Conservative
Bill C10 Laying the groundwork for Prison Expansion and privatization
John W. Whitehead, author of Jailing Americans for
Profit: The Rise of the Prison Industrial Complex, and published by the Huffington
Post, April10, 2012 had this to say; “Among the laws aimed at increasing the prison
population and growing the profit margins of special interest corporations like
CCA are three-strike laws (mandating sentences of 25 years to life for multiple
felony convictions) and "truth-in-sentencing" legislation (mandating
that those sentenced to prison serve most or all of their time).” th of these – mandatory minimums and so called truth
in sentencing provisions have been enacted in Canada under the conservatives despite
conservative warnings from the US not to take the failed road that they have.
Prison related P3’s US
Giant
Wall St. firms such as Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch write between two and
three billion dollars in prison construction bonds every year. Swimming along-
side the big fish of incarceration are schools of for-profit caterers, prison
HMOs, private transport companies, architecture firms and other subcontractors
that feed at the margins of the prison industrial complex.
Prison Related P3’s Canada
As of April 1, Brookfield LePage
Johnson Controls will take over property management services from the B.C.
Building Corp., the real-estate wing of the provincial government. The
contract, awarded last December, covers almost half of the B.C. government's
real estate arm and includes 10 correctional facilities. Brookfield LePage Johnson Controls, values the
deal at $90 million annually. The Crown
corporation expects to realize savings of up to $40 million per year. The new re-build of the Surrey Detention
Centre is expected to be one of the facilities under private building
management.
The
Toronto South Detention Centre, to replace the Don Jail, carries a price tag of
over $1 billion and is being built as a “Public-Private-Partnership” (P3) with
a private company to build, design and operate the 1650 bed facility for 30
years. Retrieved from: http://basicsnews.ca/2011/12/the-mass-incarceration-agenda-in-canada-the-view-from-vancouver/
Prison Labour US
Microsoft,
Starbucks, Victoria's Secret and TWA, Unicor, Dell are all known to use or have
used prisoner labour in the past for penny’s a day and sometimes prisoners are
not paid anything at all. Most of these
are strictly private profiteers, save Unicor which is a government corporation
which profits from prisoner labour. One
particularly disgusting example of the US government using forced prisoner
labour was the cleanup of the BP oil spill in Louisianna. BP was provided tax exemptions for charitably providing work experience to these untrained
prisoners to clean up a dangerous, toxic, waste dump for pennies a day.
Meanwhile, practically the entire fishing economy in the area was put out of
work thanks to the oil contaminated ocean.
Prison Labour Canada
To
my knowledge there is no central database keeping track of the multiple human
misery profiteers in Canada. I know of
two explicit prison labour contractors.
One, Corcan is operated by the federal government with a mandate to
provide prisoners with paid work experience while on day passes and
parole. I have no idea how much
prisoners are paid in that programme.
Though prisoners working on correctional grounds within the few
industries located inside are typically paid a few dollars a day. The federal government has recently cancelled
a special incentive programme intended to provide bonuses to some workers.
Located
on Ontario government property, adjacent to the Maplehurst prison in Milton, ON
is the Cook-Chill Food Preparation
Centre. It’s operated as a P3 using prisoner
labour, and run by private contractor, Eurest
Dining Services
which is owned by Compass Group Canada Ltd. Cook-Chill has the contract to provide 3 meals
a day for prisoners at all 3 super jails in Ontario.
Fasken
Martineau posted the following information about this P3 contract on their web
page:
“The agreement also requires the contractor to provide
skills training opportunities for inmates as part of an industrial work program
during times when meals are prepared for Ontario's correctional system. Qualified
inmates involved in a temporary absence program will also be able to work at
the CCFPC as part of an employment initiative. All inmates involved with the
CCFPC will be low risk and carefully screened. The Ministry expects that its
demands will not fully use the CCFPC's production capacity. Subject to meeting
the Ministry's requirements as its first priority, the contractor will be
permitted to use the CCFPC's excess capacity for the production of third party
sales and the province will receive a share of the revenues.” Retrieved from http://www.fasken.com/ministry-of-correctional-services-of-ontario-enters-public-private-partnership-with-compass-group-canada/
Profiting From Our Misery
In
considering the ideology which allows public responsibilities such as the
operation of prisons to be privatized for profit we must also consider the
larger capitalist system which gave birth to it. Consider the many ways in which poverty is
criminalised for instance. Anti
panhandling laws, welfare fraud, and anti-sex work law. All of these can be considered survival
income – or survival “crime”. And
perhaps none of them would be necessary if the capitalist system wasn’t set up
to intentionally maintain some substantial rate of unemployment, thus keeping
some people in a constant state of desperation and in survival mode, keeping
others afraid to ask for more money at work, or better benefits, lest they be
forced into the criminalised workforce too.
Of course these factors keep wages low, at poverty levels, allowing more
people fewer choices, leading to wide spread desperation, depression, and
trauma which in turn leads people to seek out means for coping, which in turn
can lead to substance use issues, and to a greater use of criminalised survival
strategies, which of course leads to criminalization and imprisonment. And
there we have it class war, providing profits for the owning class at our
expense.
How
do they get away with it? And why do we
let them? I believe that intelligent
propaganda through corporate media is key.
There are many means and methods within the misinformation campaign
strategy. The most successful tactics
are perhaps those which seek to turn people from the same classes against each
other by playing on fear and hate. Turn
friend against friend and neighbour against neighbour. Lies which set the working poor against those
on welfare, judgment against those who engage in survival crime by those who do
not and blaming those who use drugs for all that is wrong in the lives of those
who don’t. This is a huge part of how
they get away with it. How we let them
has much to do with limited access by the poor, to progressive ideas and
challenges of conservative myths and ideology.
Limitations in both time and money keep many people from ever attaining
access to the ideas which would set us free.
References/Resources
Canada to us lobbying
Us to Canada lobbying
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2011/06/23/251363/cca-geogroup-prison-industry/?mobile=nc
Petition sponsored by
404systemerror
General
Rosa, E., (2009).
Retrieved April 8, 2012 from: http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=15308)
Parenti,
Christian, (1999). Retrieved April 12,
2012 from: http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=852
Reports
Prison
Privatization Report International (PPRI)
Report
#64 detailed concerns about CNCC (John
Howard, 2006 appendex)
Amanda Hiscocks
Vanier Centre for Women
655 Martin Street
Box 1040
Milton, ON
L9T 5E6
For an explanation of why letters are important to Mandy, what she would like to hear about, and some tips for writing prisoners please see the section of her blog on writing letters
to read Mandy's blog on Rabble, go to: http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/mandy-hiscocks/2012/02/bored-not-broken-liberation