Prisons For Profit = A Bullseye For Black Men

Prisons for profit and the toll they’re taking on black men in America is the huge and ugly problem no one wants to talk about.  Well, let’s talk about it!

Current Events
The privatization of prisons across the US has created a staggering prison population of more than 2 million incarcerated Americans (a 500% increase over the past 40 years).  Sadly, this is more than any other nation in the world.  Even worse, 37% of those 2 million inmates are black males (based on 2013 statistics).  Yes, you read correctly.  Nearly HALF of America’s entire prison population is made up of black men.  How is this possible?

When states ran out of funds and/or simply grew tired of operating their own jails, the concept of prisons for profit was born.  Private companies were created to build, maintain, and operate prisons then get paid via state and/or federal funds.  In order for these private firms to make money, they need “customers” just like any other private business.  Or, in other words, they need prisoners.  So, it behooves them to collect as many prisoners as possible in order to turn a regular profit — and black men across America have become an easy target.  Hispanics, women, and the mentally ill have also proven to be a fast way to make a buck.

Prisons for profit don’t need to be fair.  They only need to make money.

The “prison–industrial complex” (PIC) was conceived and based on a model from the “military–industrial complex” of the 1950s. Backed by corporations, the PIC has been successful in contracting cheap prison labor while creating employment opportunities for construction companies, surveillance technology vendors, prison food service corporations, and more. They’ve also been charged with creating power through racial and economic privileges and ridding the streets of America of the “undesirables,” AKA African-American men, Hispanics, the mentally ill.

The mass incarceration of black and brown people in the US during the late 20th century and early 21st century has resulted in increased revenues for the prisons for profit system, a reinforcement of systemic oppression and institutional racism, as well as the racialization of crime and social death.

Or, to put it bluntly, prisons for profit are big business.

Many of these prisoners are incarcerated for minor crimes.  Many remain imprisoned without having yet received a trial. Black men are nearly 6 times as likely to be incarcerated as white men. Federal courts imposed prison sentences on black men that were 19% longer than those imposed on similarly situated white men between 2011 and 2016. In fact, according to a 2016 report by the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law, 40% of the US prison population – 576,000 people – are behind bars with no compelling public safety reason.

Are we ready to talk about and address this problem yet?

OK WASSUP! covers Current Events:
The ugly stain known as prisons for profit.