What is the Prison Industrial Complex The Prison

What is the…? Prison Industrial Complex

The Prison Industrial Complex The PIC is the overlapping interests of government and industry that use surveillance, policing, and imprisonment as solutions to economic, social, and political problems. -- Critical Resistance

Presidential Thoughts • “You have to face the fact that the whole problem is really the blacks. The key is to devise a system that recognizes this while not appearing to. ” – President Richard Nixon

A Perfect Storm War on Drugs Neoliberalism

War on Drugs • A campaign correlating drug use with innercity crime, has resulted in the mass incarceration of people of color and the poor. “It's a war without a clear enemy. Anything waged against a shapeless, intangible noun can never truly be won. ” - President Clinton's drug czar Gen. Barry Mc. Caffrey

The 13 th Amendment • Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

Results of the war on drugs & other get tough on crime laws • US has ¼ of the world’s population of prisoners. • There are more black men incarcerated today than there were enslaved in 1856. • Businesses Profit: Victoria Secret, Wal-mart, Starbucks, AT&T, Bank of America, Chevron, IBM, Boeing… • Prisoners in Washington also build furniture for universities, high schools, and primary schools.

Racism and the Prison Industrial Complex