politics for the 99%

Published on Le Monde diplomatique, english edition, by Maxim Robin, December 2013.

The number of people in US prisons fell in 2012 by around 30,000, the third consecutive fall in as many years: budget difficulties mean that states can no longer afford incarceration for every offence, and at local level Republicans and Democrats are, unusually, unanimous on the need to decongest prisons. In California — which accounted for half of the fall in 2012 — and Texas, there is a drive to reduce sentences and find alternative punishments.  

In Louisiana, however, writing a cheque that bounces still carries a sentence of up to 10 years in prison, and the minimum sentence for a repeat burglary offender is 24 years without parole. The incarceration rate has doubled in 20 years, rising to a level unmatched in the world; more than 44,000 people are behind bars (one in 86 adults) — double the national average and 13 times more than in China.

The economic survival of entire areas depends on this high rate of incarceration. In the early 1990s Louisiana had a choice of solutions to the overcrowding problem; it could either reduce sentences or build more prisons. It chose to build more prisons but, owing to a chronic budget deficit, could not afford to. So it encouraged the sheriffs of rural counties (known as parishes in Louisiana) to build and run their own prisons — or parish jails. Building a jail is a major investment for a rural parish. The state pays the sheriffs $24.39 per inmate per day, to cover detention costs, whereas a prisoner in a state prison costs the taxpayer $55 per day. Louisiana has 12 state prisons (reserved for very long sentences), but 160 local jails scattered across remote parishes with Cajun-sounding names such as Acadia, Bienville, Beauregard and Calcasieu.

Incarceration creates jobs, and the rural population, which has suffered severely from the cotton crisis, is directly dependent on them. “In rural parishes, where the economy is depressed, it has become a business,”said Burk Foster, criminologist and visiting professor at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. For many local people, the best chance of work is as a prison guard. It’s poorly paid, at $8 an hour, but the pension is good.

The sheriff needs to keep beds occupied:

Bed occupancy needs to be high to maximise return on investment. Otherwise, the jail will cease to be profitable and will have to lay off guards or even close. “It’s almost like building a hotel. To keep a jail profitable, the sheriff needs to keep beds occupied,”said Cindy Chang, formerly a journalist with the Times-Picayune. Every morning, parish jail wardens have their staff phone around to secure a few prisoners from overcrowded penitentiaries in big cities such as New Orleans or Baton Rouge. The system relies mainly on personal connections among the wardens; for some jails, it works so well that phone calls are unnecessary. “I hate making money off the back of some unfortunate person,” said former sheriff Charles McDonald, owner of the jail in Richland, a parish with a population of 20,000. “The fact is, somebody’s got to keep them, and it might as well be Richland Parish” … //

… (full text).

Links:

Federal Court Grants Injunction Against NSA Bulk Telephony Metadata Program, on Talk Left, by Jeralyn, Section Civil Liberties, Dec 16, 2013;

Complaint to EU: German Banks Try to Torpedo Transaction Taxes, on Spiegel Online International, by Claus Hecking and Stefan Kaiser, December 16, 2013: German banking associations have sent letters to the European Commission urging it to forbid the new financial transaction taxes imposed by France and Italy. Insiders believe the letters are an attempt by the banking lobby to block a planned EU-wide financial transaction tax …;

Brutal Power Politics: Merkel’s Banking Union Policy Under Fire, on Spiegel Online International, by Claus Hecking and Stefan Kaiser, December 16, 2013: Top officials in Brussels have told SPIEGEL that they disagree with Berlin’s approach to creating the planned banking union. Chancellor Angela Merkel is trying to give big member states too much power, they say …;

Government by big business goes supranational: The corporation invasion, on Le Monde diplomatique, english edition, by Lori M. Wallach, December 2013: A new treaty being negotiated in secret between the US and the EU has been specifically engineered to give companies what they want — the dismantling of all social, consumer and environmental protection, and compensation for any infringement of their assumed rights …;

New-liberal Capitalism, on Dissident Voice, by Adnan Al-Daini, Dec 15, 2013.