This is an archive of the former website of the Maoist Internationalist Movement, which was run by the now defunct Maoist Internationalist Party - Amerika. The MIM now consists of many independent cells, many of which have their own indendendent organs both online and off. MIM(Prisons) serves these documents as a service to and reference for the anti-imperialist movement worldwide.

FACTSHEET on Michigan prisoner labor

The Revolutionary Anti-Imperialist League (RAIL), Ann Arbor, MI produced this factsheet as part of a May Day 1997 celebration honoring Michigan prisoners and prisoners throughout Amerika. RAIL celebrated May Day by handing out this factsheet to students and passers-by on the University of Michigan campus all day, and then made a brief presentation in the evening with further information on the conditions of prisoners in Michigan and elsewhere in Amerika. To find out more about RAIL's ongoing work with prisoners and around their political struggles, or to get involved, contact us at:

Revolutionary Anti-Imperialist League (RAIL)
P.O. Box 3576
Ann Arbor, MI 48106-3576
e-mail: mim@mim.org

We put the focus on prisoners because:

Michigan State Industries (MSI) runs factories and farms using Michigan prisoners as workers. The following numbers on Michigan prisoner labor conditions are from the Michigan Department of Corrections (MDOC) 1992 Statistical Report.

For factory work in 1992, MSI paid prisoners:

24 cents an hour to start for unskilled labor
70 cents an hour for specialist work
Workers received automatic increases of anywhere from 2 cents to 5 cents an hour after their first month on the job, and then again at the end of the second month. At the end of every six months on a given job, the state says a prisoner is "entitled to longevity pay" -- 1 penny an hour.

Working on a farm, also in 1992, prisoners earned more money than they could in a factory:

Unskilled workers started at $1.62 per hour
Specialists started at $4.94 per hour
30- and 60-day raises ranged from 23 to 38 cents an hour
Longevity raises were the same as in the factories -- 1 cent an hour after each six months.

In Fiscal Year 1991/92, Michigan State Industries factory and farm operations netted a total of $973,997,000 on goods produced by prisoners working in textiles, laundries, furniture refinishing, mattress and other factories.

How do Michigan prisons compare to the rest of Amerika and the world?

So what's our response to these vile conditions?

RAIL does not believe that Amerikan prisons can be reformed into acceptable institutions for re-education or rehabilitation. We believe that the conditions we've described in this factsheet alone are evidence that the people who currently have the power to inprison and oversee supposed criminals should not have this authority. RAIL does not think that all prisoners should be freed now, or that prisons shouldn't exist at all ever. We do think that prisons should be used to educate people and not to punish them, and that imprisonment should be applied by an even standard:

Help us publicize these injustices, build public opinion against the Amerikan criminal injustice system, write to the address above or send us mail.

Notes:
1. Michigan Department of Corrections (MDOC) 1992 Statistical Report, pp.. 139, 140.
2. MIM Theory 11: Amerikan Prisons on Trial, p. 28.
3. Battle Creek Times 30 March, 1996.
4. Reese Erlich, "Prison Labor: Workin' for the Man." (Obtained from http://wideopen.igc.apc.org/prison...l-Prison-Labor- Workin- For-The.html but no longer available there.)
5. Steven Elbow, "Doing Time, 9 to 5," The Madison Ithmus. http://www.well.com/user/tomorrow/prison.html
6. Huey P. Newton, Revolutionary Suicide, 1971
7. MIM Notes 137 May 1, 1997, p. 7.
8. Sean Kelly, America's Tyrant: The CIA And Mobutu Of Zaire.

Responses to this FACTSHEET


Return to RAIL Homepage
Return to MIM Homepage