Money for education not for prisons!

During the month of April, MIM's Under Lock and Key 2000 Campaign 
focuses on Education versus Prisons. This important issue helps 
expose the failures of capitalist social programs. In the U.$., 
prisons have become the biggest growth industry and per capita 
imprisonment rates are the highest in the world. In fact, Amerika 
houses a quarter of the world's prisoners while it has only five 
percent of the world's population.(1) As the world's wealthiest 
country, the u.s. might be expected to have the best educational 
system. But because of imperialism's priorities, more money is 
spent on prisons than on education.

In 1980 $27 billion was spent on education in the U.$. while $8 
billion was spent on prisons. In 1995 this had changed to $16 
billion on education and $20 billion on prisons. In 1999 about $39 
billion was spent to operate Amerika's prisons and jails. It is 
estimated this cost will reach $41 billion for the year 2000. The 
1990s were a tremendous growth decade for prisons with the 
incarceration rate in Amerika rising faster than ever before. 
Reflecting the priorities of the U.$., by 1995 states around the 
country were spending more to build prisons than to build 
universities.(1)

States fund prisons over education

Education and prisons both receive funding from a state's non-
mandated funds. Thus they fight for money from the same portion of 
a state's budget. From 1978 to 1995, general fund expenditures for 
prisons increased by 30% while the same fund expenditures for 
universities decreased by 18%.(2) In overall dollars, by 1995 
University construction funds decreased by $945 million (to $2.5 
billion) while corrections funding increased by $926 million (to 
$2.6 billion).(1)

Nationwide, the number of correctional officers increased at four 
times the rate of public higher education faculty.(3) In 
California, the salaries of correctional officers' more than 
doubled, from $21,000 per year in 1980 to $46,000 less than two 
decades later.(2) In 1985 the ratio of prison spending to higher 
education spending in California was 1:6, in 1994 that had dropped 
to 1:1. From 1984 to 1994, California's prison increased prison 
funding by 209%, while increasing state university funding by only 
15 %.(1)

Texas, the corrections capitol, leads the nation in prison-
spending increases. Funding for prisons from 1977-1995 grew at a 
rate 5.7 times faster than state funding for higher education. 
Nationwide, prison spending increased 823 percent while higher 
education spending increased 37 percent.(4)

Public education for the wealthy, prison for the poor

The u.s. "public" education system, which provides free education 
through high school, is financed by property taxes creating 
dramatic inequalities based on income. Wealthy (generally white) 
people live in the suburbs and pay high property taxes, which 
finance good schools. The poor (generally Black, Latino, 
Indigenous and other oppressed nationalities) live in poorer 
districts which earn fewer tax dollars for schools. These schools 
often can not afford text books much less computers and other 
resources.

In addition to attending schools with inadequate resources, 
oppressed nation youth must bear the burden of an education system 
that serves the interests of imperialism and its white-nation 
dominators. From historical lies to the phony celebration of 
"diversity" to reactionary attacks on national minorities' test 
scores, these youth are intentionally excluded from the road to 
educational success.

The inequality in education received by different groups of people 
in the u.s. continues when youth who attended underfunded schools 
do poorly on standardized tests and are not admitted to college. 
The u.s. has set up an alternative for these youth: prison. As the 
prison population skyrockets, one in three Black men between the 
ages of 20-29 are under some type of criminal injustice-system 
control (incarceration, probation or parole). For young Latino 
males, the rate is 1 in 8.(5)

In Wisconsin, $241 million dollars were spent to incarcerate 
oppressed nations compared with $81.3 million earmarked for 
"minority-student" grants.(6) In California, the ratio of 
imprisonment for Blacks males to those enrolled in state 
universities was 5 to 1 in 1997. Three Latino males in California 
were added to the prison population for every 1 added to a four-
year state university from 1990-1997.(2)

Fight prison expansion

It costs more than $22,000 to incarcerate a persyn for a year. In 
1998 the U.$. spent over $34 billion dollars on incarceration 
(including state, federal and local direct expenditures for 
"corrections"). This money could instead fund over 5.9 million K-
12 students or 7.4 million individuals in job training. The fact 
that prisons do not reduce the crime rate and do not offer any 
rehabilitation for those locked up backs up MIM's argument that 
prisons in Amerika are used as a tool of social control.

MIM recognizes that the superprofits that make up the tremendous 
wealth of the u.s. today represent stolen resources and labor from 
the Third World which is owed back in reparations. But as we build 
the struggle to overthrow imperialism and end imperialist-country 
parasitism, within the u.s. it is a progressive demand to fight 
for more money for education and less for prisons.

At the same time, we see the connection between education and 
prisons within the prison system and build independent 
institutions of the oppressed to serve the 2 million prisoners 
held under lock and key. MIM runs a Free Books for Prisoners 
program to provide political education to prisoners. MIM and RAIL 
recently initiated University BARS, a program that offers 
correspondence classes to prisoners. And as MIM builds the 
revolutionary struggle we continue to expand our other serve the 
people programs and our work with prisoners.

Join MIM in the struggle to fight expansion of the Amerikan prison 
system. Organize for revolution!

Demand money for education not for prisons!

Notes:

1. Justice Policy Institute, www.cjcj.org/punishingdecade

2. Class Dismissed: Higher Education vs. Corrections During the 
Wilson Years,

http//www.cjcj.org/jpi/classdis.html

3. From Classrooms to Cellblocks: A National Perspective-Executive 
Summary, www.cjcj.org/jpi/higheredex.html

4. ABCNEWS.com: Prison Spending Explodes Past Education.

5. The Sentencing Project, Facts About Prisons and Prisoners: 
http://www.sentencingproject.org

6. The Progress Report: http://www.progress.org/ekane.htm