VIDEO-Prison Reform Plan is Really About Expanding Slave Labor for the Prison Industrial Complex | American Everyman

by Scott Creighton

I just watched John Oliver (reactionary right activism presented as left-cover comedy) do a segment on Obama’s new prison reform agenda and I was quite sickened by it. He failed to mention anything to do with the prison-industrial-complex when talking about how mandatory minimum sentencing laws were pushed over the past 30 year or so and also failed to mention the fact that the biggest supporters of this new agenda just happen to be the reactionary/neoliberal Koch brothers.

His segment uses the same heart-stringing pulling tricks any other standard propaganda utilizes including children crying because “mommy” is in jail for helping sell crack (lots of crack) to addicts, ruining their lives forever. It also used deception in that most states have repealed or at least softened mandatory minimum sentencing laws over the last decade and even California’s “three strikes” law now states someone can’t be given life unless that last strike is a serious violent crime.

I hate John Oliver. The last segment I saw of his was pushing for having the federal government ease restrictions on food “sell by” dates and give Big Business some tax money (or big tax breaks) for “donating” that outdated food to shelters or other hungry folks. Also mentioned in that little clip is the call for making it harder for someone to sue Big Business when they get sick from eating that deregulated, tax-dime paid for food they were given. That’s right: Big Business has found a way to curb some of their losses in the commercial grocery business and John Oliver is their go-to guy to help them sell it as “progressive”

The prison reform bill John Oliver alludes to, the one his segment says has the most bi-partisan support of any other legislation, is called the “Corrections Oversight, Recidivism Reduction, and Eliminating Costs for Taxpayers In Our National System Act of 2015 or the CORRECTIONS Act” by Sen. Cornyn, John [R-TX] (Introduced 02/11/2015)

It should be noted that John never mentions the name of the legislation, probably because the producers at his HBO show don’t want his “progressive” listeners to look it up and read a little bit about it.

Here’s the “correction”: it establishes a system by which EVERY PRISON must make contact with “private entities” in order to establish what they call “recidivism reduction programs” and the prisoners who are mandated to participate will work for those “private entities” for low or next to no pay in exchange for a slight reduction in their sentence.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is slave labor.

Directs DOJ to issue regulations requiring the official in charge of each correctional facility to enter into partnerships with nonprofit organizations, including faith-based and community-based organizations, educational organizations, and private entities, to make recidivism reduction programming and productive activities available to eligible prisoners.CORRECTIONS Act

What are “recidivism reduction programming and productive activities” you ask? Well, it’s right there in the bill’s summary:

Directs the Department of Justice (DOJ) to: (1) conduct a review of recidivism reduction programming and productive activities, including prison jobs, offered in correctional institutions; (2) conduct a survey to identify products currently manufactured overseas that could be manufactured by prisoners without reducing job opportunities for other U.S. workers; and (3) submit to the House and Senate Committees on Appropriations and the Judiciary a strategic plan for the expansion of recidivism reduction programming and productive activities,including prison jobs, in Bureau of Prison facilities.

Amends the federal criminal code to direct the Bureau of Prisons to make available appropriate recidivism reduction programming or productive activities, including prison jobs, to all eligible prisoners and to assign such prisoners to such activities using the Post-Sentencing Risk and Needs Assessment System developed by DOJ. CORRECTIONS Act

The actual bill itself describes the role of “private entities” in this way:

“(C) Private entities that will, on a volunteer basis

“(i) deliver occupational and vocational training and certifications in Bureau of Prisons facilities;

“(ii) provide equipment to facilitate occupational and vocational training or employment opportunities for prisoners;

“(iii) employ prisoners; or

“(iv) assist prisoners in prerelease custody or supervised release in finding employment.

What this “reform” bill does is open up new manufacturing opportunities for Big Business in fields that are typically unacceptable to them here in the states due to the fact that US workers wont work for the pennies that laborers in Mexico, Thailand or other neoliberalised nations will. It MANDATES prison officials to meet with “private entities” in order to see what kind of manufacturing facilities could be installed on the property. And it does all of this under the left-cover of purporting to be about lessening the draconian sentencing mandates they imposed years ago when the prison-industrial-complex was just taking off.

Basically, it turns every prison in the United States into a work-camp in which prisoners may or may not even get paid:

Grants eligibility to a prisoner who has successfully completed a recidivism reduction program or productive activity certified by the National Institute of Corrections for time credits for each period of 30 days of successful completion of such a program or activity, except prisoners who have been convicted of certain federal crimes, including crimes involving terrorism, violence, or child exploitation. CORRECTIONS Act

In the actual bill, time credits are explained this way:

“(i) IN GENERAL.—Subject to clauses (ii) and (iii), a prisoner who has successfully completed a recidivism reduction program or productive activity that has been certified under paragraph (2)(B) shall receive time credits of 5 days for each period of 30 days of successful completion of such program or activity. A prisoner who is classified as low risk shall receive additional time credits of 5 days for each period of 30 days of successful completion of such program or activity.

That’s right. Their pay may be nothing more than “time credits” issued to them for each “successful” 30-day-stint of slave labor. And of course, who decides if the prisoner’s last 30-day-stint was “successful”? The guy managing the prison slave labor camp/business.

And if you look at the ratio of time-off to work served, for a year’s service to whatever “private entity” they happen to be assigned to, they get a whooping 60 days off their sentence. That’s “if” each 30 day segment is considered “successful” by the people making a mint off their slave labor.

And this is the “progressive” agenda being pushed by our president (and the Koch brothers) and reactionary front-men like John Oliver.

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Filed under: Fascism, fascism in America, Fascism², Neoliberalizing America, Prison "reform" plan, Prison Industrial Complex, Prison Reform 2015, Scott Creighton

https://willyloman.wordpress.com/2015/07/27/prison-reform-plan-is-really-about-expanding-slave-labor-for-the-prison-industrial-complex/