THOUGHTS FROM THE HEART
BY: Joseph Smith
2012-March-31
18:45 hrs

PRISON
A PLACE TO DO BUSINESS AND GET RICH!

The prison system is an interweaving of private business and governmental interest. Its two-fold purpose is profit and social control. Its public rationale is the fight against crime. As with the building and maintenance of our military, the building and maintenance of prisons are big business. Investment houses, construction companies, architects and support services such as food services, medical services, specialty items such as fencing, handcuffs, drug detectors, protective vests and other security devices being sold to prisons – all stand to profit from prison expansion. As the war on crime heats up, big businesses are rethinking their services and getting their share of the profits from the domestic law enforcement market. Equipment once supplied by our military are now being marketed to the prison system, as well as to police departments across the United States. Communication companies like AT&T, S Print[?], Globa Tech and MCI are getting into the act as well, gouging prisoners with exorbitant phone calling rates, often six times the normal long distance rate. Smaller companies like Correctional Communication Corp., whose main and only purpose is prison systems. They win prison contracts by giving some of the profits to the prison system awarding the contract to them. "Kick backs" if you will, these companies are reaping huge profits at the expense of prisoners and their loved ones. Prisons are big business. One of the fastest growing sectors of the prison system is "private prisons". Investment firms such as Smith-Barney is a part owner of a prison in Florida. American Express and General Electric have invested in private prison construction. "C.C.A." (Correctional Corporation of America, one of the largest private prison owners, as well as MTC) now operates here in the state of Ohio. "Big business" – under contract by the state of Ohio; and "paid a fixed sum per inmate" the profit motive mandates that MTC and CCA operate as cheaply and efficiently as possible. Private prisons mean lower wages for staff, "NO UNIONS", and fewer services for prisoners. Private prisons also means less public scrutiny. Prisons such as MTC are raking in billions by cutting corners which harm inmates. Substandard diets, extreme overcrowding, and abuse by poorly trained personnel have all been documented and can be expected in these prisons which are unashamedly making money. Like any business, the prison business needs raw materials. In the instant case: prisoners are the raw materials – with the lock-'em-up and throw away the key mandate prison population grow, grow and grow, money for everybody, the construction trade, local vendors of the city in which the prison is located, prison staff with an annual pay roll of several million dollars which local and county pay roll taxes are [?]. by these cities and counties, plus state tax revenues. It's a win win situation Ohio inmate population spent '38 million dollars' in revenue buying items that the commissary statewide, and that does not include phones which are located in every housing unit. Eight phones which stays on from 5:30am-11:30am 7 days a week and the vending machines located also in the housing units four machines. Big business and they are getting rich. I'll be the first to say prisons are needed in order to keep society out of harm's way, not a place to make money and cause harm.