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    Prisons and Profits
    Prisons and Profits
    Prisons and Profits
    Ebook204 pages2 hours

    Prisons and Profits

    By CB Warsteane

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    There is an alarming ignorance existing in our nation today, with respect to the most basic feature of its economic system.

    Granted, many understand that it is based on free enterprise and the profit motive. Also, more than a few would realize too that it is a system of commodity production, where such commodities are necessarily useful and exchangeable on the open market. Indeed, all commodities must possess these two essential characteristics.

    However, far too few understand that the power to labor is also a commodity, for it has use value, as well as exchange value. This is so because it is useful to the owner of the means of production and it is sold (exchanged) for wages on the open market.

    Among the millions of commodities, which total the (GNP) Gross National Product, labor power has a unique quality possessed by no other commodity. When used on raw materials and machines in the process of production, it can and does create a value in excess of its own. It alone is a commodity that creates surplus value.

    Both the famous economists, Adam Smith (Wealth of Nations) and Edward Ricardo, recognized this Labor Theory of value. Indeed, during the 18th and 19th centuries, it was the accepted view of the source of wealth.

    However, with the widespread exploitation of slave labor and the threat of reparations to the slaves that would logically follow once they were freed, the labor theory of value was gradually and deliberately replaced by the concept of value based on the free market of supply and demand.

    The only value received by the slave was the value of the commodities used to maintain himselfhis food, clothing, and shelter (the basic necessities of life).

    The only value received by the Texas prison inmate is the samefood, clothing, and shelter (the basic necessities of life).

    Thus can be seen the enormous amount of surplus value, and hence wealth, that is produced by such control and exploitation of prison labor power.

    Not only is the prison class directly and adversely affected, but indirectly, also is the working class as a whole (which in the United States is more than 125 million people).
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherXlibris US
    Release dateDec 8, 2017
    ISBN9781524572273
    Prisons and Profits
    Author

    CB Warsteane

    The author roots are in Dallas Texas. It was here that he received his primary and secondary education, graduating from booker. Washington high school and a short term at Prairie View University before the attack on Pearl Harbor changed his life completely. Along with his grandparents he migrated to Los Angeles where he worked as a welder in the naval shipyards during world war II. Later he joined the navy and continued his studies in Electrical Engineering at Hampton University which were begun at Prairie View. However his passion, born from his love of journalism in high school, was writing. After his discharge from the navy he joined the maritime union (marine cooks and stewards.) He became actively involved in the labor movement during the 1950s, and travelled extensively. Later, after a marriage that bore two children, he embarked on a successful real estate career in Los Angeles. He subsequently entered and graduated from the Northrop University School of Law at Inglewood, California. However he unwittingly became addicted to cocaine during his senior year. He was addicted for ten years at a cost of more than five million dollars which he explains in his soon to be published book How Crack Cost Me $5 Million Plus. It has been twenty one years since overcoming his addiction and in this book he details the method he used to do it. If diligently followed the procedure herein described is guaranteed to enable one to overcome ANY addiction, legal or illegal, benign or harmful. CB Warsteane, J.D.

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      Book preview

      Prisons and Profits - CB Warsteane

      Copyright © 2017 by CB Warsteane.

      All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

      Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

      Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

      Rev. date: 01/11/2017

      Xlibris

      1-888-795-4274

      www.Xlibris.com

      743771

      Contents

      Preface

      Introduction

      I. The Big Picture

      A. Behind the Scenes

      B. Media’s Role

      C. Unseen Expansion Costs

      II. Leaders of the Pack

      A. California

      B. Texas

      1. Organizational Structure

      2. The Wynne Unit Operations

      A. License and Sticker Plants

      B. Record Conversion

      C. Telemarketing

      D. Farm Shop

      E. Industrial Travel

      III. Why the Explosion

      A. The Mind-set

      B. Factories with Fences

      C. Danger to Organized Labor

      D. The Connection

      IV. Money Morality

      A. Class Morality

      B. Changing Morality

      C. Moral Hypocrisy

      V. Corporate Power

      A. International Monetary Fund

      1. What Is Its Purpose?

      2. The World Crisis

      a. Real Reasons

      b. Surplus Value

      VI. Corporate Welfare

      A. What Workfare Is

      B. How It Works

      VII. Privatization

      A. Growth

      B. Opposition

      C. The Connection

      VIII. The Death Penalty

      A. The Debate

      B. Research on Deterrence

      C. The Tucker Execution

      D. The Aftermath

      IX. Class and Crime

      A. Crimes Classified

      X. Juveniles and Crimes

      A. The Problem

      B. Purpose

      C. Which Direction

      XI. Prison Alternatives

      A. New Voices

      B. Community Programs

      1. Proven Alternative

      C. Main Obstacle

      XII. What’s Our Priority?

      A. Educate or Incarcerate

      B. The Main Obstacle

      XIII. Justice

      A. Roots of Injustice

      B. America Number One!

      C. Bias

      1. Why It Doesn’t Stop

      D. Victimless Crimes

      Preface

      There is an alarming ignorance existing in our nation today with respect to the most basic feature of its economic system.

      Granted, many understand that it is based on free enterprise and the profit motive. Also, more than a few realize that it is a system of commodity production, where such commodities are necessarily (1) useful and (2) exchangeable in the open market. Indeed, all commodities must possess these two essential characteristics.

      However, far too few understand that the power to labor is also a commodity, for it has use value as well as exchange value. This is so because it is useful to the owner of the means of production, and it is sold (exchanged) for wages in the open market.

      Among the millions of commodities, which total the gross national product (GNP), labor power has a unique quality possessed by no other. When used on raw materials and machines in the process of production, it can and does create a value in excess of its own. It, alone, is a commodity that creates surplus value.

      Both the famous economists Adam Smith (An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations) and Edward Ricardo recognized this labor theory of value. Indeed, during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, it was the accepted view of the source of wealth.

      However, with the widespread exploitation of slave labor and the threat of reparations to the slaves that would logically follow once they were freed, the labor theory of value was gradually and deliberately replaced by the concept of value based on the free market of supply and demand.

      But facts are stubborn things, and it is a fact that there is no such thing as amassing a fortune in business without the control of human labor power in one form or another.

      It is just as true today as it was in times past that (1) profit, (2) rent, and (3) interest are all derived from surplus value, which, in turn, is created in the process of production by those who sell their labor power in the open market.

      The price they receive for their labor power (wages) directly affects the amount of surplus value available to be distributed in the form of profit to the employer, rent to the landlord, and interest to the banker. The less the wages that are paid to the laborer, the more surplus value available to be distributed to employer, landlord, and banker.

      Just as slave labor was the basis of vast accumulations of capital and wealth in times past, so is prison labor today the source of great wealth by those forces who control such labor. The principle is the same: unpaid prison labor is the same as slave labor.

      The only value received by the slave was the value of the commodities used to maintain himself—his food, clothing, and shelter (the basic necessities of life).

      The only value received by the Texas prison inmate is the same—food, clothing, and shelter (the basic necessities of life).

      Thus can be seen the enormous amount of surplus value, and hence wealth, that is produced by such control and exploitation of prison labor power.

      Not only is the prison class directly and adversely affected, but also is the working class as a whole (which in the United States is more than 125 million people), albeit indirectly.

      Unpaid prison labor, as will be shown, brings down the wages of all segments of the laboring population. It has a gravitational pull, if you will.

      This is an interrelation which, unfortunately, is not seen by the general working class. However, to its credit, it must be mentioned that the success of the teamster strike against the United Parcel Service did show such awareness.

      Full-time employees, mostly white males, saw their wages being threatened by low-paid part-time workers—most of whom were minorities and women.

      The windfall of profits from the unprecedented expansion of prison construction and incarceration must be recognized for what it is: an assault on what is considered the junk people of the nation—the poor working people, women, and minorities.

      The new prison statistics are an indictment of our failed policies. They also give warning of the social explosions to come.

      Introduction

      Our nation is witnessing an expansion of prisons on a scale that has no equal in history.

      We are told that the frenzied pace at which construction proceeds is necessary in order to house the ever-increasing number of criminals who threaten our social order.

      Members of society, as the argument goes, have the right to live free from bodily harm and to be secure in possession of their property.

      Indeed, this is the view that has shaped the government’s policy regarding crime. The president’s crime bill, the largest in history, is geared primarily to provide funds for law enforcement agencies and prison construction. One would be hard-pressed to find a single politician, local or in Washington, who would not do anything to avoid being labeled as soft on crime.

      Admittedly, some type of action must be taken in response to the alarming increase in the nation’s crime rate. The question is whether or not building more and more prisons and locking up ever-increasing numbers of people, including juveniles, is the best solution to the problem, if indeed it is a solution at all.

      The entry of private corporations in the building and operation of prisons brings with it consequences totally unrelated to society’s interest in maintaining law and the nation.

      It’s safe to say that Texas is rapidly becoming the wealthiest state in the nation as a result of its policy of unpaid prison labor. Within a relatively short period, its prison population, and most other states as well, has doubled. So too has the number of prison units. Presently, over 140,000 inmates are locked up in approximately 130 units.

      "The East Texas town of Huntsville remains the company town of the Texas Prison System, which provides more than twice as many jobs (5,219) to Walker County and Sam Houston State, the next biggest employer and itself a participant in the field of criminology. Thanks to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, the town of 27,142 (not including the 7,500 inmates) is recession-proof and demographically blessed by East Texas standards. Its restaurants and bars are packed nightly with accountants, lawyers, and other well-educated administrative officials on the TDCJ payroll. It’s hard to find a person in Huntsville who doesn’t have at least an indirect affiliation with the prison system, as local attorneys are reminded whenever they ferret through a jury pool. Walker County farmers, hardware store retailers, and gas station operators owe their livelihoods to the TDCJ—all for the small price of seeing busloads of men in white rumble through their streets and enduring the harsh lights of the Walls, Wynne, and Holliday units that pierce the blanket of evening."

      In the May 1996 Texas Monthly issue, Robert Draper reported on an interview with James Andy Collins, who was the executive director of the TDCJ during the gargantuan prison buildup. Mr. Collins said of the debacle, "‘It was the stupidest thing the state of Texas has ever done. The public was absolutely hoodwinked into thinking that the only way the crime problem could ever be solved was by prosecution and incarceration. We should’ve been interceding at an earlier age, dealing with these kids before they ever became crooks. Instead, we’re just taking juveniles and feeding them directly into the system. I mean, look who was behind it all. Prosecutors, cops, politicians—all of them with a self-serving agenda.

      "‘And the media,’ Collins declared as he leaned over the patio table at his suburban home just north of Houston, delivering the accusation with a martyr’s relish. ‘The goddam media did as much as anyone to build all those prisons because they fanned the flames of public hysteria. The issue of crime has become entertainment. Turn on the TV. Cops. Rescue 911. That kind of crap.’"

      With all those prisons, the fact is that they are presently at 98 percent capacity. Yet the parole rate is less than 20 percent and even less on the more industry-oriented units. Why?

      Understanding the rapid growth of the private sector within the industrial prison complex will provide us with a much more different and much clearer perspective.

      I. The Big Picture

      According to figures from the Department of Justice, The total number of adults under correctional supervision, incarcerated or in the community, reached a new high of 5.5 million at the end of 1996. As of last December, 2.8 percent of the U.S. population, or about one in every 35 adults, was incarcerated or on probation or parole. Throughout our nation, prison construction has reached an all-time high. The quiet evolution of prison growth has exploded into revolutionary proportions.

      The main reason is that crime actually pays, and pays well. Brian Ruttenbur, stock analyst with the Equitable Securities Corporation, studied the private prison industry last year and found the money-making potential so great, he called his report Crime Can Pay. This year, he issued another report for investors eager to earn big bucks in a fast growing industry. The title: Crime Still Pays. It certainly does pay for those willing to make money off a system that has the highest incarceration rate in the industrial world. It’s not the dope dealers, car thieves, and burglars who make the real money from crime. It is those who profit from the expanding correctional industrial complex.

      Politicians create harsher penalties as communities compete for facilities, and big financiers—Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Prudential Financial, Morgan Stanley, and Merrill Lynch—underwrite prison construction bonds. Westinghouse Electric Corporation, 3M, and Alliant Techsystems Inc. adapt and sell their technology to fight crime.

      This rapidly expanding prison growth is occurring even as the latest FBI uniform crime report says that 1996 saw the yearly drop in serious crime from murder, robbery, aggravated assault to larceny and theft. The fact that crime is down is welcomed, but not if you’re in the prison business.

      An increasing portion of the spending goes to privately owned or managed facilities and service providers. Private prisons—a relatively new phenomenon—currently house about 4 percent of the inmate population and are much more common among state facilities than federal ones [Texas has 50 percent of all the private prisons in the country]. But the industry, already generating $30 to $40 billion annually, is growing rapidly. In the early ’80s, there were about 350 private prison beds under private sector control. Today, there are more than 80,000. This in spite of a falling crime rate!

      "‘It’s getting bigger and bigger every year,’ says Susan Hart, communications director for the Corrections Corporation of America, the country’s largest operator of private prisons. Last year, CCA opened or assumed management of six facilities totaling four thousand beds. This year, that number of facilities will more than double to thirteen, with a total of fifteen thousand new beds. The anti-crime bill Congress passed in 1994 ‘was very, very important, because the federal government finally started to privatize,’ Ruttenbur says. The bill also

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