CRIMINAL MATTERS

America’s 2 million prisoners constitute a quarter of the world’s entire prison population. I find that a staggering statistic. In the mid-1990’s there were only 5 private prisons in the US. There are now over 100 holding 62,000 inmates. This is set to increase exponentially over the next 10 years, at the end of which period there will be an estimated 360,000 prisoners in the private sector. No wonder the aim is to stuff the prisons to bursting point. There’s money in it.

Another horrendous fact is that the Prison Industrial Complex (PIC) produces 100 percent of US military helmets, ammunition belts, bulletproof vests, shirts, pants, tents, bags and canteens. 37 States have legalized the contracting out of prison labor to multi-nationals, including IBM, Boeing, Microsoft, AT&T, Dell and Intel. Between 1980 and 1994, PIC profits went from $392 million to $1.31 billion.

Workers in private prisons earn around 17 cents an hour and those in federal prisons make about $1.25 an hour. It has been reported that US companies operating in China and southeast Asia have actually closed plants there and returned to use US prison labor. No wonder that organized labor in the US is very unhappy about the whole issue.

A guy who works in a 7-11 store down the road told me that he has a court hearing in a few weeks. His crime? Selling alcohol and cigarettes to a girl of 16. Apparently, the girl was used by the police as a tool in their entrapment set-up. She had a military ID card and the 7-11 man immediately thought that she had to be 18 to be in the military. As soon as she left the store, the cop entered and charged him. He faces a penalty of at least $500. Does anyone know if this kind of thing happens in the UK?

This is a short piece I saw in the Tucson Weekly, entitled ‘Least Competent Criminals’:

In Monticello, NY, Steven King, 40, was indicted in October as a result of a traffic stop, for allegedly doing nearly every single thing wrong. He was allegedly intoxicated, driving in oncoming traffic lanes, with an open beer container, not wearing a seat belt, driving an uninsured car, with an expired safety inspection sticker, with license plates belonging to another car, and with his 2-year old daughter passenger neither in a car seat nor belted in.