MIM(Prisons) is a cell of revolutionaries serving the oppressed masses inside U.$. prisons, guided by the communist ideology of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism.
Under Lock & Key is a news service written by and for prisoners with a focus on what is going on behind bars throughout the United States. Under Lock & Key is available to U.S. prisoners for free through MIM(Prisons)'s Free Political Literature to Prisoners Program, by writing:
MIM(Prisons) PO Box 40799 San Francisco, CA 94140.
The example(s) set down by the “People’s Machine” still resonate
today…within the hearts and minds of captives in particular, and
conscious folk out in “minimum security” (Amerikkka!) in general.
The blood of our revolutionary martyrs still stains the ground in San
Quentin, Soledad, Tracy, Attica, Angola, Jackson, Walla Walla, among
others! Their spirits call out to us…“Avenge Us”, they say! Can we hear
them? Truly?
Today being the day, 47 years ago! that the “Dragon” spit fire and in
turn, ran out of the adjustment center…to a revolutionary death! The
Amerikkkans thought that killing Comrade George, they would kill the
movement…WRONG!
Granted…the system of capitalism has been quite active in circumventing
our quest(s) for revolutionary change! As we ourselves have internalized
“gangsta” delusional fantasies…and in turn, became cannibals of our own!
Between the two lives the poor and oppressed masses! The have nots!
starving for freedom…starving for justice…starving for equality! Just
unsure of “how” to go about obtaining it?!
The fact that every issue of ULK that i have ever read has had at
least one prisoner submission that referenced Comrade George, speaks
volumes! At least to those who are truly conscious…These Brothas
identify with strength in these torture chambers, where broken men
abound! They want to be about more than lip service…it is on those of us
who know, to teach! and lead by example!
Comrade George, W.L. Nolen, Bill Christmas, Khaiari Gualden, others
unnamed, sacrifice their very lives for the cause of liberation! They
waged struggle in service of all of us behind the walls and we owe them,
period!
Today, i am deep in thought…examining my conditions and the cats i find
myself imprisoned with. And I am working…regardless of what the
Amerikkkans do to me: indeterminate SHU, death row, out of state moves,
even death! i shall continually strive to be the example of resistance
to those around me! Way i see it, i have absolutely nothing left to
lose…but my chains! Life in a cage is unacceptable…to a “Black Cat”! i
salute all of you Brothas in struggle with a clenched fist held high!
Thinking of the beloved Comrade G. i have blood in my eyes! Power to the
People!
Reification is a term that refers to using the labor power of the
people and in turn using it as a powerful force to keep them under
oppression.
The only way Texas can afford to keep 150,000 people imprisoned and
continue to give parole “set offs” after they are parole eligible by law
is through the use of forced labor to offset operating costs.
Theoretically speaking if TDCJ were forced by law to pay prisoner
workers through a new supreme court precedent, or if prisoners quit
participating in enslaving themselves, parole would be presumptive and
automatically granted at first eligibility.
Our freedom is at stake here, friends. That is why this issue is
absolutely vital. In Texas, per a 1993 law which was passed in reaction
to the 90s crack-cocaine-fueled crime wave, violent or aggravated
offenders must serve 1/2 their entire sentence before becoming parole
eligible. And often times after decades of dreams, hope, hard labor and
good behavior, alas many are given the dreaded “set off.” So much time
has elapsed that their momma has died, their support structures have
crumbled, and they have become old men in terrible health due to poor
diet, unable to gain meaningful employment, dreams are dashed. All their
efforts seem totally futile.
It reminds me of the book Animal Farm by George Orwell and how
they treat the work horse, Boxer. They push the old work horse to work
harder and harder for the revolution, promising him great comforts and
retirement benefits one day in the future. However the day comes when he
becomes so old and unable to work they send him off to slaughter at the
glue factory. TDCJ’s treatment of its prisoners is very analogous to
this. When will we wake up?
MIM(Prisons) responds: This is an interesting take on a theme
that we hear about constantly from our subscribers in Texas. This writer
is saying that if prisoners didn’t help offset the operational costs of
their own imprisonment, that TDCJ would be forced to release them
because it could no longer afford to keep so many people locked up.
There is a contradiction between the high costs to keep people in
prison, and the pressure applied to the criminal injustice system from
citizens who want to keep oppressed nations in check. Texas is one of
the most racist borderland states and has a very long history of
national oppression and white supremacy.(1) The call for harsher
sentences coinciding with the crack epidemic is simply a manifestation
of this racism. It’s not about fear of violence; it’s about fear of
Black violence.
TDCJ certainly would have a harder time financing its prison operations
if it actually had to pay prisoners for their labor. But if it started
releasing people because of these financial problems, we’d be hearing it
from the citizenry. We aren’t sure what lengths the state would go to to
appease its white constituency.
In fact, we have also heard countless reports of what TDCJ does when it
has “budget problems”: it makes conditions worse for the prisoners by
skipping rec time, medical call, and other duties it has to prisoners.
We have yet to receive a letter from someone saying that TDCJ has
started releasing prisoners due to budget problems.
The battle here isn’t between the prisoners getting paid for labor, and
the TDCJ not paying them. The battle is between the interests of the
oppressed nations who are housed in TDCJ prisons, with their entire
lives stolen from them, and the Amerikkkan nation which has a strong
material, social, and cultural interest in keeping these oppressed
nations locked up. If that battle manifests in a struggle for work to be
paid for in TDCJ, or for TDCJ to honor good time - work time credits in
releasing prisoners, then we are all for it. But we can’t lose sight of
this bigger contradiction, which is what the entire prisoner labor
struggle rests on.
This contradiction has always existed since the beginning of the
Amerikan nation, and even prior to that when it was still in
development. And it has only been heightened under the Trump presidency.
We aim to build our power so that we can overcome the contradiction, in
unity with oppressed peoples all over the world. Any struggle for paid
prisoner labor should primarily be a struggle to build our internal
unity and organizing.
Throughout the numerous issues of Under Lock & Key (ULK), we
have read countless articles detailing the unjust and inhumyn conditions
of imprisonment across U.$. prisons and jails. Many of these stories,
and the compelling analyses they entail, help shape and develop our
political consciousness. From the hunger strikes in California to the
rampant humyn rights’ violations in Texas on to the USW-led countrywide
grievance campaign, through the pages of ULK, we have shared our
organizing struggles, the successes and setbacks. As a result, our
clarity regarding the illegitimacy of the U.$. criminal (in)justice
system has sharpened tremendously.
And yet, there are some political and economic dimensions of our
imprisonment that seem to evade our critical gaze. It is not enough that
we become familiar with each others’ stories behind the walls. At some
point, we must move toward relating our collective organizing
experiences in prison to much broader struggles beyond prison. To this
end, the anti-prison movement(1) is but a necessary phase of national
liberation struggles that has serious implications for anti-imperialism.
And in order for the anti-prison movement to advance we must analyze all
sides of the mass incarceration question.
Many of us already understand that prisons function as tools of social
control. We also recognize that U.$. prisons are disproportionately
packed with oppressed nation lumpen, ostensibly because these groups
organized and led national liberation movements during the late-1960s to
mid-70s. After these movements succumbed to repression from U.$.
reactionary forces (COINTELPRO), the U.$. prison population rose
dramatically and then exploded, resulting in what we know today as mass
incarceration.(2) Thus, we see, in a very narrow way, the basis for why
U.$. prisons serve in neutralizing the existential threat posed by
oppressed nation lumpen.
But understanding the hystorical basis of mass incarceration is only one
part of the question. The other part is determining how the systematic
imprisonment of oppressed nation lumpen has developed over time, and
exploring its impact throughout that process. Because while the question
of mass incarceration may seem as formulaic as “national oppression
makes necessary the institutions of social control,” the reality is this
question is a bit more involved than mere physical imprisonment.
The latter point in no way opposes the analysis that the primary purpose
of mass incarceration is to deter oppressed nation lumpen from
revolutionary organizing. In fact, the political and economic dimensions
of mass incarceration described and analyzed later in this article
function in the same capacity as prison bars – in some instances, the
bonds of poverty and systemic marginalization, or the racist and
white-supremacist ideology that criminalizes and stigmatizes oppressed
nation lumpen are just as strong as the physical bonds of imprisonment.
If oppressed nation communities, particularly lumpen communities, are
kept in a perpetual state of destabilization, disorganization, and
distraction, then these groups will find it that much harder to
effectively organize against a status quo that oppresses them.
The point of this article is thus to widen the panorama of our
understanding, to take in those political and economic dimensions of
mass incarceration that too often go unnoticed and unexamined, but are
nonetheless important in determining the line and strategy necessary to
advance the anti-prison movement.
Partial Integration Set the Table for Mass Incarceration
As pointed out above, mass incarceration deters oppressed nation lumpen
from revolutionary organizing. But what does this analysis really mean
in today’s context of the national question? How does the prevention of
oppressed nation lumpen from organizing for national liberation impact
the national contradiction; that is, the contradiction between the
Euro-Amerikan oppressor nation-state and the U.$. internal oppressed
nations and semi-colonies?
The lumpen-driven liberation movements of past were, in part, strong
rebukes against the integrationist Civil Rights movement (which of
course was led by the bourgeoisie/petty-bourgeoisie of oppressed
nations). Thus we see the partial integration agenda as an alliance and
compromise between the Euro-Amerikan oppressor nation-state (its ruling
class) and the comprador bourgeoisie of oppressed nations. It is meant
to answer the national question set forth by the earlier protest
movements (revolutionary and progressive) of oppressed nations, on one
hand, and to ease tensions inherent in the national contradiction, on
the other hand.
In exchange for open access to political power and persynal wealth, the
comprador bourgeoisie was tasked with keeping their lumpen communities
in check. To this point, it was thought that if Black and Brown faces
ruled over Black and Brown places, then much of the radical protest and
unrest that characterized the period between the mid-60s to mid-70s
would be quelled.
This is the very premise of identity politics, and, as
Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor aptly notes: electing leaders of oppressed
nations into political office does not change the dire material and
socioeconomic circumstances of the communities they represent.(3) In eir
book, From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation, Taylor goes on
to describe the failure of partial integration (and identity politics)
with respect to the New Afrikan nation,(4) contending:
“The pursuit of Black electoral power became one of the principal
strategies that emerged from the Black Power era. Clearly it has been
successful for some. But the continuing crises for Black people, from
under-resourced schools to police murder, expose the extreme limitations
of that strategy. The ascendance of Black electoral politics also
dramatizes how class differences can lead to different political
strategies in the fight for Black liberation. There have always been
class differences among [New Afrikans], but this is the first time those
class differences have been expressed in the form of a minority of
Blacks wielding significant political power and authority over the
majority of Black lives.”(5)
Here we see Taylor describes the inability of partial integration to
remedy the plight of the entire New Afrikan nation and its communities.
Ey also articulates very precisely the internal class divisions of New
Afrika brought to light by such an opportunistic agenda, which serves to
enforce and maintain semi-colonialism. There is a reason why the
Euro-Amerikan oppressor nation-state allied with the comprador
bourgeoisie, as their interests were (and are) clearly more aligned than
conflicting, given the circumstances. Where the
bourgeois/petty-bourgeois integrationists wanted access to capitalist
society, the lumpen and some sections of the working class of oppressed
nations saw their future in their liberation from U.$. imperialist
society – two very different “political strategies” reflective of
somewhat contentious “class differences.”
Furthermore, Taylor highlights the moral bankruptcy of partial
integration (and identity politics) with the contemporary lesson of
Freddie Gray’s tragic murder and the Baltimore uprising that followed.
Ey explains, “when a Black mayor, governing a largely Black city, aids
in the mobilization of a military unit led by a Black woman to suppress
a Black rebellion, we are in a new period of the Black freedom
struggle.”(6) This “new period” that Taylor speaks of is nothing more
than good-ole neo-colonialism.
To elaborate further, an understanding of the Baltimore uprising, for
example, cannot be reduced down to a single incident of police murder.
Let’s be clear, New Afrikan lumpen (and youth) took to the streets of
Baltimore in protest and frustration of conditions that had been
festering for years – conditions that have only grown worse since the
end of the “Black Power era.” Obviously, the political strategy of
identity politics (i.e. “the pursuit of Black electoral power”) has not
led to “Black liberation.” Instead it has resulted in an intensification
of class tensions internal to the U.$. oppressed nation (in this case,
New Afrika), as well as increased state repression of oppressed nation
lumpen.
This latter point is evidenced by the support of policies from the
Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) that target, disrupt, and imprison
oppressed nation communities (lumpen communities).(7) At the same time
that these communities struggled under the weight of economic divestment
and merciless marginalization, conditions which in many respects
worsened under the political leadership of the comprador bourgeoisie,
the drug trade opened up, providing a precarious means of survival.
Predictably, as “crime”(8) increased so too did the creation and
implementation of criminal civil legislation that fueled mass
incarceration. To really get a sense of the true interests of the
comprador bourgeoisie of oppressed nations, we only need to look at the
positions taken by the CBC, the so-called champions of freedom,
equality, and justice, which “cosponsored conservative law-and-order
politics out of not political weakness but entrenchment in Beltway
politics.”(9) It is clear that partial integration has been “successful
for some,” but it is equally apparent who the victims of this
opportunistic agenda have been.
What is often missed in any serious and sober analysis of the CBC (or
any other political org. representative of the comprador bourgeoisie) is
the legitimacy it bestows upon the prison house of nations: U.$.
imperialist society. This legitimacy isn’t some figment of imagination,
but a material reality expressed primarily in the class-nation alliance
signified by the partial integration agenda. Dialectically, while the
comprador bourgeoisie is granted the privileges of “whiteness,” access
to political and economic power, the lumpen and some sections of the
working class of oppressed nations are deemed superfluous (not
necessary) for the production and reproduction of U.$. imperialist
society. Of course, the election of more members of oppressed nations
into office goes a long way in maintaining the facade that the United
$tates is a free and open society that respects and upholds the rights
and liberties of its citizenry. However, identity politics will never
obscure the sacrificial zones within U.$. society -– South and Westside
Chicago, Eastside Baltimore, Compton and South Central and East Los
Angeles, and many more deprived urban lumpen areas –- maintained and, in
many cases, made worse by partial integration.
Unfortunately, this is where we find the oppressed nation lumpen today
on the national question, held hostage by a set of identity politics
complicit in its further marginalization and oppression.
Politics of Mass Incarceration
In discussing the failure of partial integration to effectively improve
the material and socioeconomic life of the entire oppressed nation, we
can better appreciate the extreme limitations of such an anemic
political strategy that is identity politics. But if the legitimacy that
partial integration (and identity politics) provides U.$. society can
only go so far in actually pacifying oppressed nation lumpen, then by
what other means and methods are these superfluous groups controlled? In
the next two sections, we will explore and analyze this question.
Racism and white supremacy are constant ideological threads woven
throughout the founding and development of U.$. society. In each era, be
it slavery, segregation, or mass incarceration today, the primary
function of this political ideology is to rationalize and legitimate the
oppression and/or exploitation of colonized peoples, which throughout
these different eras invariably involved employing particular methods of
social control against these peoples or specific groups thereof.
Now, of course, we cannot compare the fundamental nature of slavery with
that of mass incarceration. And to be clear, this is not the point of
this particular section. It should be obvious to the casual ULK
reader that where the slave performed an essential economic role and was
therein exploited and oppressed, oppressed nation lumpen have no role
within the current socioeconomic order of U.$. society, as it is
systematically denied access to it. The point, however, is to show how
the ideological forces of racism and white supremacy, while they have
assumed different forms depending on the historical era, are mobilized
in service of the status quo. It is in this sense that political
motivations underpin the system of mass incarceration. And as we will
see in this section, these motivations are hystorically tied to the
oppression and/or exploitation of U.$. internal oppressed nations and
semi-colonies.
To be sure, the need to control oppressed nations has always been a
paramount concern of the oppressor (settler) nation since
settler-colonialism. During the era of slavery, slave codes were
implemented to ensure that slaves were held in check, while slave
patrols were formed to enforce these measures. We see here the emergence
of the modern U.$. criminal (in)justice system in its nascent form, with
its proto-police and proto-criminal laws. But it wasn’t until after the
abolition of slavery that we find express political motivations to
criminalize oppressed nations. For Angela Y. Davis,
“Race [nation] has always played a central role in constructing
presumptions of criminality … former slave states passed new legislation
revising the slave codes in order to regulate the behavior of free
blacks in ways similar to those that had existed during slavery. The new
Black Codes proscribed a range of actions … that were criminalized only
when the person charged was black.”(10)
While the Black Codes were created in large part to control New Afrikan
labor for continued exploitation, we are able to see the formation of
policies and policing designed for the specific purpose of repressing
oppressed nations. As a side note, irony doesn’t begin to describe the
enactment of the Thirteenth Amendment, meant to abolish slavery, to
disestablish one system of oppression only to provide for the legal and
political basis for another system of oppression -– convict lease labor.
Furthermore, Davis observes that, “The racialization of crime – the
tendency to ‘impute crime to color’ … did not wither away as the country
became increasingly removed from slavery. Proof that crime continues to
be imputed to color resides in the many evocations of ‘racial profiling’
in our time.”(11) In this sense, oppressed nation lumpen criminality
under conditions of mass incarceration is analogous to Afrikan
“inferiority” or First Nation “savagery” under conditions of
settler-colonialism. In both instances, there are narratives, informed
by racism and white supremacy, which serve the continued functioning of
the status quo.
Given that the criminalization of oppressed nations is not some modern
phenomenon, but one that originated in the hystorical oppression and
exploitation of oppressed nations, we now have a different angle from
which to view mass incarceration. Part of this view involves recognizing
that the criminal (in)justice system, law enforcement, and legislators
are not neutral arbiters of justice or “law and order.” These people and
institutions are infected by racism and white supremacy and thus
function to carry out ideological and political aims.
Therefore, it is important that we remain diligent in uncovering the
many guises under which racism and white supremacy lurk and hide. This
is no less significant today as it is in the cultural arena where
reactionary ideas and ideologies are propagated and traded. To be more
clear, when trying to rationalize why oppressed nation lumpen are
imprisoned at disproportionate rates relative to similarly-situated
Euro-Amerikans, arguments about lack of responsibility and no work ethic
are tossed around as explanations. Mainstream media go even further by
portraying and projecting stereotypes about oppressed nation lumpen (and
youth), that is to say, stereotyping the dress, talk, and actions, which
is really a subtle but sophisticated way of stigmatizing. Of course,
this stigmatization goes on to construct a criminal archetype, which
many of us see today in nearly every facet of U.$. media life.
All of these factors, taken into consideration together, shape the
public conscience on “crime” and criminality, laying the groundwork for
rationalizing the great disparities characteristic of the current
criminal (in)justice system. Unsurprisingly, this propaganda has worked
so effectively that even oppressed nation members find it hard to
ignore. So where there should be unity on issues/incidences of national
oppression, none exists, because the oppressed nation is divided,
usually along class lines. Taylor strikes at the heart of the
matter:
“Blaming Black culture not only deflects investigation into the systemic
causes of Black inequality but has also been widely absorbed by [New
Afrikans] as well. Their acceptance of the dominant narrative that
blames Blacks for their own oppression is one explanation for the delay
in the development of a new Black movement.”(12)
This is certainly the plan of partial integration, to divide the
oppressed nation against itself and thereby legitimize the
marginalization and oppression of oppressed nation lumpen in the
process. Naturally, this paralyzes the oppressed nation from acting on
its right to self-determination, from pursuing liberation.
To frame this point another way, take a Chican@ business owner. This
persyn has a business in a predominantly Chican@ lumpen community,
despite residing in the suburbs. This business owner sees Chican@ youth
hang out and skip school. Ey sees them engaged in questionable, possibly
criminal activity. Add in the scenario that local media frames crime as
a virtue of Chican@ lumpen youth on a nightly basis. And then say one
day one of those Chican@ kids is killed by the police. How will the
Chican@ business owner respond?
Before the era of mass incarceration, the overwhelming majority of the
oppressed nation would have viewed this scenario for what it was: a
police murder. Today, we cannot be so sure.
To sum up, the current criminal (in)justice system, law enforcements,
etc. are unfair and unjust not because these institutions are biased
against oppressed nations, but because the fundamental nature of
society, the basis upon which these institutions are built and set in
motion, is founded on the oppression of non-white peoples. We must
remember that slavery was legal and segregation was held up as
permissible by the highest courts in this stolen land. For us to view
mass incarceration solely from the social control perspective undermines
any appreciation for the urgency of anti-imperialism, for the need for a
reinvigoration of U.$. national liberation struggles. We need to be more
nuanced in our analysis because the system is nuanced in its
marginalization and oppression of oppressed nation lumpen.
Economics of Mass Incarceration
This nuance mentioned above is primarily played out on an economic
plane. And there are many economic dimensions and impacts of mass
incarceration that maintain a strangle hold on oppressed nation lumpen
and communities.
We can explore how contact with the criminal (in)justice system can
leave an oppressed nation member and eir family destitute, through fees,
fines, and other forms of financial obligations. We can look at the
impact of prisons located in rural communities, providing employment
opportunities and economic stimulus. We could even investigate prison
industries and how prisoner labor is utilized to offset the costs of
incarceration. However, the point here is that there are many things to
analyze, all of which, taken as a whole, disadvantage oppressed nation
lumpen and their communities.
The most consequential impact of mass incarceration is how it feeds the
cycle of poverty and marginalization characteristic of lumpen
communities. Basically, the criminalization / stigmatization of lumpen
reinforces its material deprivation, which in turn nurtures conditions
of criminal activity as a means of survival, further unleashing the
repressive forces of the criminal (in)justice system, which proves or
validates the criminalization / stigmatization of oppressed nation
lumpen in the first place. Thus, oppressed nation lumpen are inarguably
subjected doubly to the poverty and marginalization, on one hand, and to
the relentless blows of national oppression, on the other hand.
Todd Clear, provost of Rutgers University – Newark, who specializes
in the study of criminal justice, draws a stark picture of this cycle of
crime and poverty that lumpen are subjected to:
“A number of the men are gone at any time; they’re locked up. And then
the men that are there are not able to produce income, to support
families, to support children, to buy goods, to make the neighborhood
have economic activity, to support businesses … the net effect of rates
of incarceration is that the neighborhood has trouble adjusting.
Neighborhoods where there’s limited economic activity around the
legitimate market are neighborhoods where you have a ripeness to grow
illegitimate markets.”(13)
What Clear is depicting is not so much the fact that crimes take place
in lumpen communities. Clear is emphasizing that criminogenic factors
(factors that strongly tend to lead to criminal activity/inclination)
are really a reflection of the lack of socioeconomic opportunities to
social upward mobility. This is the essence that fuels the dynamic
relationship between crime and poverty. What Clear fails to mention is
that there are Euro-Amerikans who are in similarly-situated
circumstances as oppressed nation lumpen but are more likely to escape
them where oppressed nation lumpen are trapped. This is so for reasons
already mentioned in the above sections.
Furthermore, not everyone in lumpen communities are imprisoned; in fact,
most likely never see the inside of a jail or prison. But enough people
do go away and stay away for a considerable period of time that the
community is destabilized, and familial bonds are ruptured. When free,
the imprisoned persyn from the lumpen community represented some sort of
income, and not a liability weighing down a family, financially,
morally, etc, already struggling to make ends meet. Enough of these
families are part of the lumpen community that the cycle mentioned above
seems to be unbreakable. Kids growing up in broken homes, forced to
assume adult roles, only to make kid mistakes that come with adult
consequences; and the cycle continues.
To be sure, this cycle has been in force with respect to oppressed
nations since the end of slavery. It has just become necessary over time
to enact laws and policies that now target and disrupt these
communities. Both the politics and economics of mass incarceration work
to keep lumpen communities from organizing for national liberation as
was done during the late-60s.
Conclusion
Part of any strategy related to our anti-prison movement is first
recognizing these dimensions of mass incarceration, and taking into
account that we live in enemy society where enemy consciousness
prevails, even amongst much of the oppressed nations. We have to also
recognize that the interests of oppressed nation lumpen are not the same
as the other classes of the oppressed nation. There are some members of
the oppressed nations who have bought the bill of goods sold by partial
integration. They are fully immersed in the delusions of identity
politics, subtly sacrificing their true identity for the trinkets of
“whiteness.”
Understanding and recognizing these points means we can focus our
organizing efforts on building public opinion and independent
institutions, on a concrete class/nation analysis and not because
someone is Black or Brown. We need to be patient with lumpen communities
as they are in that day-to-day grind of survival and may not (or cannot)
see the merit in our movement. Ultimately, we need to step up and be
those leaders of the movement, so when we do touch we hit the ground
running.
Locked In: the true causes of mass incarceration - and how to
achieve real reform by John F. Pfaff 2017 Basic
Books
With over 2 million people behind bars, Amerikkka locks up more people
per capita than any other nation in the world. But within this system of
mass imprisonment there is an even more striking story of national
oppression: New Afrikans locked up at 5 times the rate of whites, and
Chican@s and First Nations also locked up at disproportionately high
rates. We might hope that a book about the true causes of mass
incarceration (and how to achieve real reform!) would address this
discrepancy. But Pfaff, like all good bourgeois scholars, is focused on
how to make capitalism work better. And so ey sweeps this whole issue
under the rug in a book that offers some really good science and
statistics on imprisonment. Here we will pull out the useful facts and
frame them in a revolutionary context.
Overall Locked In does a good job of exposing some important
facts and statistics often ignored by prison researchers. Pfaff attacks
what ey calls the “Standard Story.” This is the name ey gives to the
common arguments anti-prison activists make, which ey believes are
counter-productive to their (and eir own) goals of prison reform. Ey
claims these arguments either over simplify, or are straight up wrong,
about why we have so many prisoners in the United $tates, and as a
result target the wrong solutions.
The big picture
Pfaff sometimes gets lost in the details and fails to look at the big
picture. For instance, ey argues that “we are a nation of either 50 or
3,144 distinct criminal justice systems” talking about the big
differences in how each state and even each county deals with
prosecution, sentencing and prisons.(p. 16) While it is true there are
significant differences, this thinking evades the importance of looking
at the big picture that it’s no coincidence that so many distinct
counties/states have such high rates of imprisonment in this country.
It’s a good idea to examine state and county level differences, and
learn lessons from this. But using this information in the interests of
the oppressed requires an understanding of the underlying role of the
Amerikkkan criminal injustice system in social control and national
oppression, the topic Pfaff studiously avoids.
In one of eir rare references to the role that nation plays in the
criminal injustice system in the United $tates, Pfaff bemoans that
“Obviously, effecting ‘cultural change’ is a very difficult
task.”(p. 228) Ey entirely misses the fundamental national oppression
going on in this country. To him it’s just about attitudes and cultural
change.
Pfaff does raise some good big picture questions that scientific
capitalists and communists alike need to consider. Discussing the
importance of balancing the cost of crime against the costs of
enforcement Pfaff asks “what the optimal level of crime should be.” “Why
is crime control inherently more important than education or medical
research or public health?” “What if a reduction in prison populations
would allow 100,000 children with at least one parent in prison to now
have both parents at home, but at a cost of a 5 percent rise in
aggravated assaults (or even some number of additional murders) – is
this a fair tradeoff, even assuming no other criminal justice benefits
(like lower future offending rates among these children)?” But Pfaff
notes that politicians in the United $tates are not able to talk about
these things. Even Bernie Sanders’s discussion of investing more in
schools and less in prisons was in the context of reducing crime more
efficiently. It’s just not okay to say education should be prioritized
over crime control.(p. 119) And so Pfaff concludes that we must work on
reforms that can be implemented within this severely restricted
political system. We see this as evidence that the system will never
allow significant change.
Another place where Pfaff frames the larger context in useful and
scientific ways is around the question of why people commit crimes.
While ey dances around the social causes of crime, Pfaff offers some
good analysis about how people age out of crime. And this analysis leads
to eir position that we shouldn’t be calling people “violent offenders”
but instead just saying they have committed violent crimes. Data shows
that most people commit crimes when young, and as they age they are far
less likely to do so again.
Crime rates and imprisonment rates
Pfaff is a professor of law at Fordham University, and like people
working within the capitalist system ey accepts the capitalist
definitions of crime. This means ey ignores the biggest criminals: those
conducting wars of aggression and plunder against other nations in the
interests of profit. For the purposes of this review we will use the
term crime as Pfaff does in eir book, to refer to
bourgeois-defined crime.
Crime rates in the U.$. grew in the 1970s and early 1980s. Pfaff
believes that “rising incarceration helped stem the rise in
crime.”(p. 10) Disappointingly ey doesn’t put much work in to proving
this thesis. But at least ey concedes that locking up more people may
not have been the best response to rising crime.(p. 10) And ey goes on
to note that crime rates continued to fall while prison populations also
fell in later years: “Between 2010 and 2014, state prison populations
dropped by 4 percent while crime rates declined by 10 percent – with
crime falling in almost every state that scaled back
incarceration.”(p. 12) So even if locking up people in the 70s and 80s
did curtail some crime, clearly there isn’t a direct correlation between
imprisonment rates and crime rates.
There was a drop in the number of prisoners in the United $tates between
2010 and 2014 (4%), but this was driven by California which made up 62%
of the national decline. Outside of California, total prison populations
fell by 1.9% during this same period. But at the same time total
admissions rose by 1.1%. Pfaff cites this statistic in particular to
point out a failure of prison reform efforts using the metric of total
prison population. If the goal is to reduce the prison population
overall, looking at the drop in people locked up will miss the fact that
the total number of prisoners is actually rising!(p. 69) This is an
important point as we know that prison has lasting effects on all who
are locked up, as well as on their community, even if they are only
serving short sentences.
War on Drugs is not driving prison growth
Disagreeing with the common argument that locking up low-level drug
offenders is driving up the prison population, Pfaff points out that
“only about 16 percent of state prisoners are serving time on drug
charges – and very few of them, perhaps only around 5 or 6 percent of
that group, are both low level and nonviolent. At the same time, more
than half of all people in state prisons have been convicted of a
violent crime.”(p. 5) So ey argues that targeting non-violent drug
offenders is focusing on too small a population to make a significant
impact.
Pfaff offers extensive data analysis to demonstrate that the number of
people serving time for drug convictions just aren’t enough to be a
major driver of state prison growth. Ey does concede that “the single
biggest driver of the decline in prison populations since 2010 has been
the decrease in the number of people in prison for drug crimes. But
focusing on drugs will only work in the short run. That it is working
now is certainly something to celebrate. But even setting every drug
offender free would cut our prison population by only 16
percent.”(p. 35)
From this analysis Pfaff concludes that it is essential that prison
reformers not avoid talking about violent crime. “From 1990 to 2009…
about 60 percent of all additional inmates had been convicted of a
violent offense.”(p. 187) “[T]here are almost as many people in prison
today just for murder and manslaughter as the total state prison
population in 1974: about 188,000 for murder or manslaughter today,
versus a total of 196,000 prisoners overall in 1974.”(p. 185) And due to
length of sentence, “Violent offenders take up a majority of all prison
beds, even if they do not represent a majority of all
admissions.”(p. 188) So those serious about cutting back prisons will
need to cut back on locking people up for violent crimes.
Length of sentence
Pfaff concludes that longer sentences are not the cause of rising
imprisonment rates. This is the opposite of the common anti-prison
activist position: “despite the nearly automatic assumption by so many
that prison growth is due to ever-longer sentences, the main driver of
growth, at least recently, has been steadily rising admissions for
fairly short terms.”(p. 74) “[M]ost people serve short stints in prison,
on the order of one to three years, and there’s not a lot of evidence
that the amount of time spent in prison has changed that much – not just
over the 1990s, 2000s, and 2010s, but quite possibly over almost the
entire prison boom.”(p. 6)
Pfaff does concede that official sentences, per statutes, have gotten
longer, but ey claims time served has changed much less. At most average
time served in state prisons increased by 36% between 1990 and 2009,
which ey calls a small increase that can’t explain most of the prison
growth over that time. (p. 58) Ey argues that tough sentencing laws are
all about politics and legislator image, trying to look tough on crime.
But they count on prosecutors not actually imposing the maximum
punishments.
Private prisons vs public employees
We agree with Pfaff that private prisons don’t play a very large role in
the current Amerikan criminal injustice system. “Private spending and
private lobbying … are not the real financial and political engines
behind prison growth. Public revenue and public-sector union lobbying
are far more important.”(p. 7) And ey correctly identifies “the real
political powers behind prison growth are the public officials who
benefit from large prisons: the politicians in districts with prisons,
along with the prison guards who staff them and the public-sector unions
who represent the guards.”(p. 7)
Pfaff makes a compelling point: public prisons will act the same way
private prisons act when facing the same contractual incentives. Ey goes
on to argue that it might actually be better to expand private prisons
but give them incentives for better performance, such as rewarding lack
of recidivism.
It is public prison employees who are the strongest opponents of private
prisons. This was seen in Florida where an attempt to privatize 27
prisons was killed after the public employees’ union got a bunch of
congresspeople to vote against the bill.(p. 87)
This strength of public prisons lobbying is also behind the fact that
closing public prisons doesn’t necessarily result in much savings
because the unions will aggressively oppose any lost jobs. In
Pennsylvania, the state closed two prisons in 2013 and laid off only
three guards. In New York the prison population dropped by 25% since
1999 but they have not closed any prisons.(p. 88)
Pfaff concludes: “In other words, reformers should not really be
concerned with the privateness of the PIC. They should worry that as
prisons grow, the supporting bureaucracies – private and public alike –
will grow as well, and they will fight against anything that jeopardizes
their power and pay.”(p. 91)
Pfaff is correct that private prisons are not driving incarceration
rates. Actually, public employee wages are playing a much larger role.
However, there are valid reasons to oppose privatization for reformers,
or anyone who subscribes to a sense of humynism. In our bourgeois
democracy, the law does provide for greater accountability of public
institutions. Therefore, public prisons will generally allow less
unnecessary suffering than private ones. Of course, neither
privatization, nor the public sector can eliminate the oppression of the
capitalist state that is meted out by the police and prisons. Yet,
privatization of the state-sanctioned use of force only creates more
problems for those working for progressive change.
Recidivism
Pfaff disagrees with the argument that a big driver behind the prison
population is recidivism, specifically that lots of people are being
sent back to prison for technical violations or small issues. Ey does
find that in most states the number of parole conditions has gone up,
from an average of 11 in 1982 to an average of 18 in 2008.(p. 62) But
digging into recidivism more deeply, Pfaff cites a study that found that
only about a third of people admitted to prison end up returning. And ey
correctly notes that if the commonly cited Bureau of Justice Statistics
claim of a 50% recidivism rate is wrong, this just means that even more
people are ending up in prisons at some time in their lives. This is
perhaps an even scarier story than the high recidivism rate because it
means that even more lives are being ruined by prison.
States vs counties
Pfaff points out that the $50 billion that states spend on prisons is
only about 3% of state spending. And as has been seen in examples above,
the savings from decarceration are not that great if states can’t
actually close prisons or lay off guards. Also, releasing individual
prisoners doesn’t result in much savings because prisons work on an
economy of scale. While we can calculate the average cost of
incarceration per persyn, we can’t translate that directly into savings
when one persyn is released, because the entire infrastructure is still
in place.(p. 99)
New York City actually did cut its prison population recently, along
with a few other urban counties in New York. However, rural counties
sent more people to prison so the overall impact was growth, not
decreasing numbers of prisoners in New York.(p. 76) Similarly, higher
crime rate areas like Los Angeles and San Francisco in California send
relatively fewer people to prison compared to more rural counties which
tend to be more conservative.(p. 77)
We touched on this urban vs. rural discrepancy in imprisonment rates in
a recent article on
national
oppression in prison, suggesting that this could be the primary
driver behind the (temporary?) drop in the discrepancy between
incarceration rates of oppressed nations and whites. Since more whites
are in the rural counties, statistically that’s who is getting locked up
if those counties are locking people up at a higher rate. Pfaff’s data
backs up our theory.
Prosecutors driving imprisonment
Pfaff argues compellingly that the primary driver behind the boom in
prisoners in the past few decades is prosecutorial toughness:
prosecutors are charging more people with more serious crimes.
Prosecutors have a tremendous amount of latitude. They can determine the
charges brought against people, which in turn drives the level of
seriousness of the crime and potential sentences. They can also decide
when to take a plea and what to offer in the plea.
To prove the impact of prosecutors, Pfaff cites data between 1991 and
2014 when crime rates were falling. During this period the arrest rates
by police matched crime rates, which means that as violent and property
crimes fell so did arrests for those offenses. In states Pfaff examined,
arrests fell 10% between 1994 and 2008. But at the same time the number
of felony cases rose steeply. Fewer people were entering the criminal
injustice system but more were facing felony charges. Pfaff calculated a
40% increase in felony cases. Ey found this was the only thing that
changed; felony charges resulted in imprisonment at the same rate as
before. So Pfaff concludes: “In short, between 1994 and 2008, the number
of people admitted to prison rose by about 40 percent, from 360,000 to
505,000, and almost all of that increase was due to prosecutors bringing
more and more felony cases against a diminishing pool of
arrestees.”(p. 72) The probability that a prosecutor would file felony
charges against an arrestee basically doubled during this time period.
Pfaff attributes this prosecutorial aggression to a few things. First,
the number of prosecutors trying cases has increased significantly over
the past forty years, unrelated to crime rates. Prosecutor discretion is
not new, but they seem to be using it more and more aggressively in
recent years. And it is the prosecutors who have complete control over
which cases get filed and which get dismissed. Prosecutors also have a
huge advantage over public defenders, whose budget is significantly less
than prosecutors and who don’t benefit from free investigative services
from law enforcement.(p. 137)
Overall Pfaff finds very little data available on prosecutors and so
finds it impossible to come to firm conclusions about why they are so
aggressively increasing prosecution rates. Ey spends a lot of the book
talking about potential prosecutoral reforms but also concludes that
mandatory data collection around prosecution is essential to get a
better handle on what’s going on.
While this data on the role of prosecutors in driving imprisonment rates
in recent years is interesting, revolutionaries have to ask how
important this is to our understanding of the system. Whether it’s more
cops on the streets driving more arrests, or more aggressive prosecutors
driving more sentences, the net result is the same. If we’re looking to
reform the system, Pfaff’s data is critical to effectively targeting the
most important part of the system. But for revolutionaries this
information is most useful in exposing the injustice behind the curtain
of the system. We want to know how it works but ultimately we know we
need to dismantle the whole system to effect real and lasting change.
Solutions
Even within eir general belief that prisons are necessary to stop crime,
Pfaff makes some good points: “To argue that prison growth contributed
to 25 percent of the drop in crime does not mean that it was an
efficient use of resources: perhaps we could have achieved an equally
large decline in a way that was less fiscally and socially
costly.”(p. 116) And ey goes on to note that studies suggest
rehabilitation programs outside of prison do a much better job reducing
crime.
Some of Pfaff’s solutions are things we can get behind, like adequately
funding public defenders. And most of them, if effective, would result
in fewer prisoners and better programs to help prisoners both while
locked up and once on the streets. But still these solutions are about
relatively small reforms: giving prosecutors more guidance, expanding
political oversight, expanding parole and providing more scientific
structure to parole decisions, appointing prosecutors rather than
electing them, setting up better contracts with private prisons paying
based on how prisoners performed upon release.
All of these reforms make sense if you believe the Amerikan prison
system has a primary goal of keeping society safe and reforming
criminals. This is where we deviate from Pfaff because we can see that
prisons are just a tool of a fundamentally corrupt system. And so
reforms will only be implemented with sufficient belief from those in
charge that the fundamental system won’t be threatened. And certainly
the Amerikan imperialists aren’t looking to “improve” or reform the
system; they will only react to significant social pressure, and only as
much as they need to to take pressure off.
As a Hollywood movie based on a Marvel comic book, Black Panther
stands out for overtly political themes and some honest discussion of
national oppression. It features a Wakandan society of supremely
advanced and peaceful Africans. A society that includes strong,
empowered wimmin in roles of defense, science and serving the oppressed.
The Wakandan society is completely hidden from the world and led by a
king, T’Challa, the movie’s hero. Its isolation is based in a legit fear
of the imperialist world which has a long history of oppression and
exploitation in Africa. The Wakandan solution was to hide, and focus on
building a strong and peaceful society internally. It was wildly
successful, surpassing the rest of the world in all realms of science.
And what’s more, the movie suggests that Wakanda built, on the wealth of
its natural resources, a society with no apparent exploitation or
oppression. But this isolationism does have a growing opposition from
within, from some who want to help the oppressed in the world.
We can compare Wakanda’s isolationism to revolutionary movements that
have taken power in one country, only to find themselves surrounded by
enemies. In places like north Korea, Cuba, and Albania, isolation was a
strategic move against outside interference, but ultimately was also a
great difficulty for these nations. Wakanda does not face similar
challenges due to its tremendous wealth of resources, but also because
no one knows about its advanced society, so there’s no severe drain of
resources being spent on national self-defense. The world thinks Wakanda
is just a Third World country full of farmers.
What we found most interesting about the movie was not the protagonists,
but the antagonist, Eric Killmonger, who came up in Oakland in the
1990s. Killmonger’s father (T’Challa’s uncle) was serving as a Wakandan
spy in Oakland when ey fell in love with the oppressed New Afrikan
people ey was living among, and decided ey needed to take Wakandan
resources to help liberate these people. For betraying Wakanda,
Killmonger’s father was killed by the king (eir own brother), which left
Killmonger abandoned in Oakland. The king kept this betrayal, death, and
Eric a secret all the way to the grave, so Killmonger’s appearance came
as a sudden surprise to those living an idyllic life in the capitol.
Eric Killmonger is a product of eir abandonment by Wakanda and eir
upbringing on the streets of Oakland. Killmonger saw the desperate
struggles of the New Afrikan nation in the United $tates and could not
forgive Wakanda for not helping these people. Killmonger wasn’t only
seeking persynal revenge for eir father’s death, ey was fighting to
continue eir father’s dream of helping the oppressed liberate
themselves. Killmonger’s education (at MIT) and training (in the U.$.
military) was purposeful, focused on getting em into a position to
control the Wakandan resources so that ey could use them to help the
oppressed. Killmonger cultivated the passion and perseverance to bring
em all the way to the hidden society of Wakanda and into a duel for the
throne.
Killmonger doesn’t hesitate to kill, even those ey seems to care about,
to achieve eir goal. But this is war, and the lives of millions around
the world are at stake. We respect Killmonger’s drive and focus. Nicely
asking the Wakandan king to hand over some weapons and technology to
help the oppressed wasn’t going to work. Even similar requests from
influential people within Wakandan society were denied. So Killmonger
reasonably believed that eir only option was to take what ey wanted by
force.
There were many different reactions to this contradiction between
peaceful isolationism vs. violent uprising, playing out in the battle
for the throne. A faction of Wakandans (the civil defense force)
enthusiastically joined Killmonger once ey explained eir plan to arm New
Afrikans in the United $tates and Wakandan spies all over the world.
Killmonger’s proposal also included ensuring the sun never set on the
Wakandan empire. Whether the civil defense force joined for altruistic
or power-hungry reasons is up to the viewer to decide.
The royal defense force begrudgingly remained loyal to the throne when
Killmonger took power, from an adherence to conservative traditionalism
more than anything else. The royal defense quickly switched sides when a
technical justification arose – the duel for the throne was not
complete, because T’Challa was still alive. This faction of the military
is made out to be heroes, but they were defending a king who upheld
isolationism against a king who wanted to help free the world’s
oppressed.
Yet another angle is represented by T’Challa’s love interest, Nakia, a
spy who worked among refugees and victims of humyn trafficking. Ey
stubbornly refused a chance to become queen, so ey could continue eir
important work helping people outside of Wakanda. While ideologically
Nakia had much in common with Killmonger, at least in opposing Wakanda’s
isolationism and wanting to liberate oppressed people globally, ey
remained loyal to T’Challa. Nakia, like many other Wakandans, was
primarily against Killmonger’s strategy of sending weapons and firepower
out all over the world, and persynal feelings for T’Challa were an
influencing factor.
There were many strategic problems with Killmonger’s solution to
imperialist oppression, including the lack of leadership or liberation
movements to take advantage of the military and technology resources ey
was offering. It’s hard to see how just delivering weapons to the
oppressed would lead to liberation. In fact those weapons could easily
have ended up in the hands of the imperialists, which – besides
tradition and “it’s not our way” – was a primary justification given by
T’Challa and others for keeping Wakanda hidden from the world.
In the end, the conservative king wins, but ey learns that ey does have
a duty to the world’s people. A big part of T’Challa’s change in
perspective comes when the pedestal ey has built for tradition and
blindly following eir father’s path is torn down by the discovery of the
family secret. The appearance of Killmonger is a huge turning point for
T’Challa. T’Challa comes to see Killmonger as a monster who was created
by eir own father’s hands. T’Challa sees how an adherence to tradition
and isolation actually alienates people, such as young Eric, who
T’Challa feels should otherwise be included in the Wakandan umbrella of
aid and help.
So T’Challa comes to finally agree with Nakia and Killmonger that
Wakanda has a moral obligation to share its expertise. Unfortunately, in
spite of all Wakanda’s international spies, King T’Challa still fails to
correctly assess the balance of forces, and the friends and enemies of
the oppressed. The last scene of the movie shows T’Challa making a
speech at the United Nations, announcing that Wakanda will begin sharing
its technology and knowledge with the world. Ey also buys a few
buildings in Oakland, California to open Wakanda’s first youth outreach
and education center.
If T’Challa really wanted to help the world’s oppressed, ey could use
Wakanda’s technology of being able to stay hidden in plain sight, and
its reputation as a nonthreatening farming nation, to build the strength
of an underground army, to soon fight the oppressors for dual power, and
then freedom, including an end of capitalism. Rather than going to the
UN and announcing “Hey! We’re organizing and doing cool shit that will
threaten your power! Watch us closely!” ey could do this discretely and
very successfully. It seems T’Challa moved from conservative to liberal,
and didn’t quite make the step to true revolutionary.
Los E$tados Unidos encierra a los Nuevos Afrikanos a una velocidad de 5
veces más rápido que a los Euro-Amerikanos. La tasa para los Chican@s es
de por lo menos 1.4 veces más alta que la de los blancos, y la forma en
que las prisiones recogen información sobre los “Hispanos” hace que
probablemente este número sea muy bajo.(1) Este exceso dramático de
encarcelación de las naciones oprimidas en las prisiones de U.$. no es
nuevo. Pero el alto número de gente encerrada es un fenómeno
relativamente reciente. En la década de los 60, la disparidad entre las
tasas de encarcelación era prácticamente la misma de la de hoy. Pero la
población en prisión era mucho menor, de forma que impactaba a mucho
menos gente.
En 1960, la tasa de encarcelación de los hombres blancos fue de 262 cada
100,000 residentes blancos de los U.$, y la tasa de hombres Nuevo
Afrikanos fue de 1,313; lo cual son 5 veces más que la tasa de los
blancos. Para 2010 la disparidad se había elevado hasta 6 veces. Esto
significa que los hombres Nuevos Afrikanos eran seis veces más
susceptibles a ser encerrados que los hombres blancos. Esta discrepancia
tuvo un impacto mucho mayor en 2010 porque las tasas de encarcelación se
dispararon hasta el cielo, empezando en la década de los 70, de modo que
para el 2010 la tasa de encarcelación de hombre Nuevos Afrikanos era de
4,347 cada 100,000.(2)
En 2000 la discrepancia en las tasas de encarcelación entre los Nuevos
Afrikanos y los blancos empezaron en realidad a bajar, y para el 2015 ya
estaba hasta en los niveles de los 60. Entre el 2000 y el 2015 la tasa
de encarcelamiento para hombres Nuevos Afrikanos cayó 24%, mientras que
al mismo tiempo, la tasa de encarcelamiento para hombres blancos se
elevó ligeramente. Entre mujeres vemos la misma tendencia pero con una
caída del 50% para las mujeres Nuevas Afrikanas y un 50% de aumento para
las mujeres blancas.(3)
Tasas de hombres Negros y Blancos en prisión
Tenemos que poner estos cambios en contexto. La tasa de encarcelación de
Nuevos Afrikanos es todavía increíblemente alta en comparación con la
tasa para blancos. La opresión nacional en las prisiones no se ha
eliminado, ni de cerca. A la velocidad actual de cambio, tomaría hasta
aproximadamente el año 2100 para que haya igualdad de encarcelamiento en
la nación.
Pero no podemos ignorar cambios como estos, especialmente cuando son
consistentes a lo largo de un período de 15 años.
Las prisiones se usan principalmente como una herramienta de control
social por el gobierno de los E$tados Unidos. Las naciones oprimidas
siempre han sido una amenaza debido a la relación dialéctica entre los
oprimidos y los opresores. Y por eso, las naciones oprimidas enfrentan
las tasas de encarcelación mayores. Y los objetivos más grandes son
aquellos que organizan el cambio revolucionario, como vimos con las
operaciones masivas del COINTELPRO contra el Partido de la Pantera Negra
(Black Panther Party) y el Partido de los Señores Jóvenes (Young Lords
Party) en la década de los 70.
Así que, ¿por qué el sistema de injusticia criminal cambiaría para
disminuir la tasa de encarcelación de Nuevos Afrikanos pero no haría lo
mismo para los blancos? Una explicación posible es que los cambios en el
sistema de injusticia criminal se han realizado a velocidades diferentes
en las ciudades y en áreas no urbanas. La caída en las tasas de
encarcelación se debe principalmente a las tasas menores en las
ciudades, porque en las zonas rurales no han cambiado.(3) Tal vez veamos
que estos cambios se nivelen con el tiempo.
Luego de la proclamación de la emancipación, hemos visto cambios en la
opresión nacional en la sociedad Amerikana en varios momentos de la
historia. Estos cambios generalmente suceden como respuesta a los
movimientos sociales. Las reformas se dieron desde la segregación legal
hasta la restricción de la discriminación abierta en ámbitos como el
hogar, empleo, y préstamos. Pero estas reformas en realidad no pusieron
un fin a estas prácticas; la realidad de la segregación y discriminación
continuaron, simplemente cambiaron a formas más sutiles o escondidas. No
obstante, podemos decir que en algunos aspectos, las condiciones para
las naciones oprimidas dentro de las fronteras de los E$tados Unido$,
han mejorado. Esto no sorprende porque el gobierno de los EE. UU. no
puede realmente tener disturbios activos dentro de sus fronteras
mientras pelea tantas guerras abiertas e indirectas alrededor del mundo.
El imperialismo es más estable cuando puede mantener tranquila a la
población de su país natal.
En un país imperialista rico, los capitalistas tienen el dinero para
integrar parcialmente las semi-colonias, comprándolas con los beneficios
del saqueo imperialista. Sin embargo, la opresión nacional está tan
arraigada en la sociedad imperialista moderna que no anticipamos la
integración total de estas semi-colonias internas. Y por eso, creemos
que la distancia entre las tasas de encarcelación de la nación oprimida
y la blanca no estará cerca de cerrarse. Pero las corrientes actuales en
las tasas de encarcelación se prestan para seguirles la pista.
I recall entering United States Penitentiary (USP) Leavenworth in 1993
as a very ignorant, reactionary member of a street tribe in need of
guidance. I was approached by an individual seen by others in many
lights; original gangsta! Comrade George’s comrade! Revolutionary! Major
underworld figure! All of the above and some. All I know is, the brotha
James “Doc” Holiday freely gave of himself to educate all of us tribal
adherents.
Making it mandatory that we both exercise daily (machine) and read
progressive literature, because consciousness grows in stages. As such,
he brought many a tribal cat towards a more revolutionary-oriented
ideal. Some accepted New Afrikan revolutionary nationalism. Others
gained structure, within their respective tribes (Kiwe/Damu national
identities). Whichever choices we made, the overall revolutionary
objectives were being met, in that the seeds of liberating consciousness
had been sown. We learned of: Che, Fidel, W.L. Nolen, Marx, Lenin, Mao,
Huey P., Bobby, Fred, Bunchy, Comrade George, Assata, etc. So many more
unnamed heroes/sheroes of the movement for change and liberation.
Was “Daktari” perfect? No! He had flaws and vices like most hue-mans
raised in capitalist United $tates – this putrid system which conditions
us to value money over character. However, it is my contention that, to
overlook the strengths and contributions this elder made to both Cali
state and Federal systems’ revolutionary cultures is to aid our common
oppressors in suppressing the memories of all whose stories could serve
as inspirational tools.
Utilizing materialist dialectics to analyze our forerunners’ strengths
and weaknesses as they relate to contributions to struggle is a
positive. Constructively critiquing their actions and/or strategem which
negatively impacted our progression towards building revolutionary
culture is also a positive. Personally, I do not view giving honors to
our fallen as “cult of personality.” As a New Afrikan by DNA, I know
firsthand how important it is for “us” to have concrete examples to
emulate. Sad reality is, U.$.-born New Afrikans have been conditioned
via historical miscarriages to see themselves as inferior to others. As
such, before giving them/us Marx and the like, they should be taught
examples of U.$. folk of color. Identification with/to New Afrikan
cultural identity is key to building viable revolutionary culture, prior
to more global revolutionary cadre education.
With that, I recently embraced Islam. The need of a morality code was
imperative for me (individually) in order for me to continue to be an
asset to the overall struggle. Regardless of my personal religious
belief, I shall remain committed to giving of myself – blood, sweat,
tears, my life if need be – to advance the struggle for freedom,
justice, and equality. This loyalty and devotion to the cause, come
hell, or forever in isolation, is a direct result of the seeds planted
in USP Leavenworth all those years ago by James “Doc” Holiday. I honor
him accordingly as an educator, elder, father figure, and comrade.
Recently my family attempted to locate Doc via FBOP locator and as his
name was not found, thus I assume he has passed on. I shall miss his wit
and grit. Revolutionary in peace!
MIM(Prisons) responds: The greatest tribute we can pay to Doc,
and all of the people who helped raise us to a higher level, is to carry
on eir legacy through our actions. We don’t mean to just “be about” the
struggle, or to shout them out in remembrance. “Each one teach one” is a
good place to start, and we can even look more deeply at what it was
about our comrades’ actions that made them such great organizers. In
analyzing their actions, we can build on that in our own organizing.
We encourage our readers to take a closer look at what it was that
turned you on to revolutionary organizing and politics. It surely wasn’t
just one action from one persyn, and it surely wasn’t just an internal
realization. Who was it that helped develop you, and how did they do it?
Especially for ULK 63, we want to look deeper at organizing
tactics and approaches within the pages of this newsletter. One thing we
can look at is our memories of what other people did to organize us.
Think about the people who helped develop your revolutionary
consciousness, and write in to ULK your observations.
What was their attitude? What methods did they use? How did they react
when someone was half-in the game? How did they behave toward people who
were totally in denial? Where did they draw the line between friends and
enemies? What are some memories you have of when the spark was lit for
you, that told you you needed to struggle to end oppression, rather than
just get what you could for yourself? Send your stories in to the
address on page 1 so ULK readers can incorporate your experiences
into their own organizing tactics.
The United $tates locks up New Afrikans at a rate more than 5 times
Euro-Amerikans. The rate for Chican@s is at least 1.4 times higher than
whites, and the way the prisons collect information on “Hispanics” makes
this number likely an underestimate.(1) This dramatic over-incarceration
of oppressed nations in U.$. prisons isn’t new. But the huge numbers of
people locked up is a relatively recent phenomenon. In the 1960s the
disparity between incarceration rates was actually about the same as it
is today. But the prison population was much smaller, so it impacted a
lot fewer people.
In 1960, the white male incarceration rate was 262 per 100,000 white
U.S. residents, and the New Afrikan male rate was 1,313; that’s 5x the
rate for whites. By 2010 this disparity had risen to 6x. This means New
Afrikan men were six times more likely to be locked up than white men.
This discrepancy had a much bigger impact in 2010 because incarceration
rates skyrocketed starting in the 1970s, so that by 2010 the New Afrikan
male incarceration rate was 4,347 per 100,000.(2)
In 2000 the discrepancy in incarceration rates between New Afrikans and
whites actually started dropping, and by 2015 it was back down to the
1960 levels. Between 2000 and 2015 the imprisonment rate of New Afrikan
men dropped 24%, while at the same time the incarceration rate of white
men rose slightly. Among wimmin we see the same trend but with a 50%
drop for New Afrikan wimmin and a 50% increase for white wimmin.(3)
We need to put these changes in context. The incarceration rate of New
Afrikans is still ridiculously higher than for whites! National
oppression in prisons has not been eliminated, not even close. At the
current rate of change, it would take until around the year 2100 to hit
imprisonment equality by nation.
But we can’t ignore changes like these, especially when they are
consistent over a 15 year period.
Prisons are used primarily as a tool of social control by the United
$tates government. Oppressed nations have always been a threat because
of the dialectical relationship between oppressed and oppressor. And so
oppressed nations face the highest incarceration rates. And the biggest
targets are those who are organizing for revolutionary change, as we saw
with the massive COINTELPRO operations against the Black Panther Party
and the Young Lords Party in the 1970s.
So why would the criminal injustice system shift to lowering the rate of
incarceration of New Afrikans but not doing the same for whites? One
possible explanation is that changes to the criminal injustice system
have been proceeding at different rates in cities and in non-urban
areas. The drop in incarcerations rates has been largely driven by lower
rates in cities while incarceration in rural areas has remained
unchanged.(3) We may see these changes even out over time.
Post-emancipation proclamation, we have seen changes in national
oppression in Amerikan society at various times in history. These
changes generally happen in response to social movements. Reforms ranged
from ending legal segregation to curtailing overt discrimination in
arenas like housing, employment, and loans. But these reforms didn’t
actually put an end to these practices; the reality of segregation and
discrimination continued, just shifted to more subtle or hidden forms.
Nonetheless, we can say that in some regards conditions for oppressed
nations within U.$. borders have improved. This is not surprising as the
U.$. government can’t really afford to have active unrest within its
borders while it’s fighting so many overt and proxy wars around the
world. Imperialism is more stable when it can keep its home country
population pacified.
In a wealthy imperialist country, the capitalists have the money to
partly integrate the internal semi-colonies, buying them off with the
benefits of imperialist plunder. But the national oppression is so
entrenched in modern imperialist society that we don’t anticipate full
integration of these internal semi-colonies. And so we think it’s likely
the gap between white and oppressed nation imprisonment rates won’t come
close to closing. But the current trends in imprisonment rates are
something to keep watching.
More than 2 million people are locked up in prisons and jails in the
United $tates. This represents an imprisonment rate of just under 1% of
the population. Almost 7 million people were under the supervision of
the adult correctional system (including parole and probation) at the
end of 2015.(1) And in 2012, latest data available from the U.$. Bureau
of Justice, the total money spent on the criminal injustice system
across federal, state and local governments was $265,160,340,000. Of
this prisons accounted for $80,791,046,000.(2)
Prisons are incredibly expensive for the state and prisons cost far more
than they produce.(3) The question is, why does the government, at all
levels, continue to spend so much money to keep so many people locked
up? And why does the United $tates have the highest imprisonment rate of
any country in the world?
The Myth of the Prison Industrial Complex
The
Prison-Industrial
Complex (PIC) meme has become effectively popularized in the United
$tates. Behind the concept of the PIC is the belief that there are big
corporate interests behind the unprecedented mass incraceration in the
United $tates. It represents an Amerikan politic that is outwardly
“anti-corporate,” while denying the class structure of the country that
is made up of almost completely exploiter classes.
While there are certainly some corporations that are making money off of
prisons, overall prisons are a money-losing operation for the
government. Basically the government is subsidizing the profits and
income of a few corporations and a lot of individual so-called
“workers.”(see Cost of Incarceration article) If we examine prison
statistics, economic trends, private prisons, and the “diversity” of the
prisoner population, then it becomes clear that prisons are
fundamentally about social control over oppressed nations within the
United $nakkkes. This leads us to some important conclusions on how the
prison system functions and how we should struggle against it.
Falling Rates of Imprisonment
Overall, the prison and jail population in the United $tates has been
dropping in recent years, along with the rate of imprisonment. The total
number of people in prison and jail started dropping in 2009 after
decades of steady increases. In reality the increases in 2008 didn’t
keep up with the increase in population in the United $tates as the peak
imprisonment rate was in 2007 with 1 in every 31 people being somewhere
under correctional supervision (including jails, prisons, parole and
probation). The prison/jail population peaked in 2006-2008 with 1% of
the adult population locked up behind bars. That dropped to .87% at the
end of 2015.(4)
This drop in imprisonment rate starting in 2008 lines up with the peak
of the recent financial crisis. It seems that the U.$. government does
have some limits to their willingness to spend money on the criminal
injustice system. If imprisoning people was a way to increase profits,
then the numbers of prisoners would increase when there was a financial
crisis, not decrease.
Private Prisons
Private prisons are a dangerous development in the Amerikan criminal
injustice system. They are owned and operated by corporations for a
profit. And these prisons take prisoners from any state that will pay
them for the service. In states with overcrowding problems, shipping
people to for-profit prisons is seen as a good option.
But these corporations also try to sell their services as cheaper and
more efficient, basically reducing the already dangerously low level
services to prisoners in order to save on costs, because, as we have
seen, prisons are extremely costly to run.
At the end of 2015, 18 states and the Federal Bureau of Prisons met or
exceeded their prison facilities’ maximum capacity.(5) So we might
expect a lot of outsourcing to private prisons. But the actual
percentage of prisoners in private prisons is relatively low. In 2015,
only 8% of total state and federal prisoners were in private facilities.
And this number dropped 4% from 2014.(6) This is a greater drop than the
2.2% decrease in prisoners between 2014 and 2015.
If private prisons were so successful, then we ought to see their
numbers increase, not decrease. And if they were so influential with the
politicians, then they would have a larger market share. Private prisons
clearly are not the backbone of some “Prison Industrial Complex.”
Corporations have, thus far, not figured out how to successfully
generate profits from prisons, beyond the subsidy handout they get from
the government and commissary stock. On top of this, the federal and
state governments are losing money by paying for prisons.
There is a lot of activism opposed to private prisons. This comes from
people who generally understand that privatization of an institution
usually does not have a good outcome for the oppressed. Activism can
influence the government. It’s possible that the voices against private
prisons helped push the Obama administration to implement its policy of
phasing out private prisons for Federal prisoners. The Trump
administration has since repealed that policy.
But we don’t believe this is a question of partisan politics anyway. The
U.$. government has shown that it will stop at nothing to implement
policies that push forward profitable capitalist industries. The violent
attacks on activists protesting the destructive Dakota Access Pipe Line
are a good case in point. This is not a fight over profitable capitalist
corporations, it is a debate over which group of people get a subsidy
from the government: private prison corporations, or public prison
employees. Shifting away from private prisons is painless for the
government, because it doesn’t require a decrease in prisons, just a
shift in where money goes.
National Oppression
So, if not for profit, then why does the U.$. lock up so many people?
The answer to this question is obvious when we look at prisoners and the
history of imprisonment in this country. It is impossible to talk about
prisons without talking about the tremendous disparity in the way the
criminal injustice system treats Chican@s, First Nations, and New
Afrikans within U.$. borders. The ridiculously high rate of imprisonment
of people, particularly men, from these nations, is the most obvious
disparity.
Approximately 12-13% of the population of the United $tates is New
Afrikan, but New Afrikans make up around 35% of prisoners.(7) The
imprisonment rate of First Nations is also disproportionately high. In
South Dakota, for example, Indigenous people are 8% of the state’s
population, but are 22% of the state’s male prison population and 35% of
female prison population.(8) Meanwhile, Chican@s are imprisoned at a
rate higher than Euro-Amerikkkans as well.(9)
Any study of the injustice system reveals the same evidence: the
majority of prisoners are from oppressed nations. This is in spite of
the fact that there are more Euro-Amerikkkans in the United $tates than
all the oppressed nations combined.
This disparity starts on the streets with police occupation of oppressed
communities, and continues into the courts with disproportionate
sentencing, inadequate legal representation, and the conscious and
unconscious bias of juries. By the time we get to prisons, we can
clearly see the results of systematic national oppression in the rates
of imprisonment.
The aggressive use of prisons as a tool of social control started in the
United $tates in response to the revolutionary nationalist organizations
that gained tremendous popularity in the late 1960s and 1970s. As the
government scrambled for an effective response to tamp down this
potentially revolutionary mass movement, they turned to the police and
prisons.
Between 1961 and 1968, the prison population dropped to its lowest point
since the 1920s. From 1968 to 1972, the imprisonment rate rose slowly.
However, starting in 1974, just following the peak of revolutionary
organizing in this country, there was an unbelievable increase in the
imprisonment rates. COINTELPRO was oriented against revolutionary
organizations like the Black Panther Party and the United $tates began
to systematically lock up or assassinate those people who were trying to
fight against oppression. Almost 150,000 people were imprisoned in eight
years – demonstrating the government’s fear of revolutionaries.(10)
At the same time, there was a growing anti-prison movement and the
government was sure to stamp out any and all dissent there as well.
George Jackson’s book, Soledad Brother, came out in 1970 and was
a huge indictment of the oppression against the internal semi-colonies.
The following year, he was murdered.
This disproportionate arrest, prosecution and imprisonment of oppressed
nations didn’t stop in the 1970s. It continues today. Internal
semi-colonies are positioned in a way to maintain their subjugated
status. And it is when the oppressed nations band together and organize
that the Amerikkkan government strikes against them like a rabid dog.
Lessons for our Work
Understanding the injustice system is of central importance to
developing a method and structure to resist the prison network. This is
why it is so necessary to understand that prisons are a money-losing
operation for the government, and to locate the politics of mass
incarceration in the attempt at social control of oppressed nations.
If we focus on the role of prisons as social control, targeting the
lumpen, we can then target the real reason for the existence of the vast
Amerikan criminal injustice system. Exposing this role helps people
understand just how desperate the U.$. government was in the 1970s when
faced with a huge revolutionary nationalist movement. And the government
is still afraid to take any significant steps away from this
imprisonment solution.
That tells us they are still afraid of the oppressed nations, so much so
that they don’t care if a bunch of white people get swept up in the
imprisonment craze.
Since social control is driving the Amerikkkan prison system, we should
focus our organizing work on exactly what the government fears:
organizing those being controlled. We should pick our battles to target
the parts of the system that we know are vulnerable: they fear
revolutionary education (censorship, bans on study groups), they fear
organization (rules against groups), and they fear peaceful unity most
of all (provocations of fights, pitting groups against one another). We
can build this unity by spreading our analysis of the root goal of the
criminal injustice system. All those targeted for social control should
be inspired to get together against this system.
Sadly, we as prisoners, in many instances take the judgment of our
enemy, the injustice system, as truth even when knowing
first-hand their ability to get a conviction has little to do with facts
or justice. This knowledge should be enough that we not begin to
persecute or torment any member of the lumpen class based on convictions
and charges that derive in these kangaroo courts. The contradiction is
that actual violations of this nature by any member of the lumpen class
is a violation against us all. I have served justice on a street level
against such violators. Yet I am in prison due to a sex crime conviction
that was racially motivated. Even when the alleged victim was impeached
for lying and video was shown proving my innocence a jury of 12 whites
found me guilty of the crime. I have continued to defend my innocence,
lead many groups in prison and stayed politically engaged. Yet I have to
deal with the stigma that is created by this label. I continue to use my
voice to awaken members of the lumpen class about the poisonous beast of
capitalism and educate them about the benefits of socialism.
In the book Soul on Ice, Eldridge Cleaver has a chapter called
“The Allegory of the Black Eunuchs,” which I would advise all
revolutionaries to read. Also to all my New Afrikan comrades our
politics are clear on this issue as it was dealt with in the Ten Point
Program produced by our revolutionary forefathers, The Black Panther
Party for Self-Defense. Point #8 of the program states, “WE want freedom
for all Black men held in federal, state, county and city prisons and
jails.”
Marc Lamont Hill, author of Nobody: Casualties of America’s War on
the Vulnerable, from Ferguson to Flint and beyond, commented in the
August 2016 issue of Ebony Magazine on p. 109:
“To many people, including Blacks and radical activists at the time, the
call for releasing all prisoners was the most controversial tenet of the
Black Panther Party’s original Ten-Point Program. After all, how could
we justify releasing criminals into society?
“For the Panthers, however, it was impossible to separate ‘criminals’
from the circumstances that criminalized them. Racist police forces,
unjust laws, unfair trials and biased juries all made it impossible to
determine whether someone was truly guilty or simply the victim of a
rigged system. Even those who were guilty, they argued, had their hands
forced because of the oppressive conditions of capitalism and White
supremacy. Essentially, the question was, How can you blame someone for
becoming a thief when he or she doesn’t have a fair shot at an honest
job with honest pay?”
But the Panther Program did not end with releasing New Afrikan
prisoners. Point #9 continues to explain:
“We believe that the courts should follow the United States Constitution
so that Black people will receive fair trials. The Fourteenth Amendment
of the U.S. Constitution gives a man a right to be tried by his peer
group. A peer is a person from a similar economic, social, religious,
geographical, environmental, historical and racial background. To do
this the court will be forced to select a jury from the Black community
from which the Black defendant came. We have been, and are being, tried
by all-White juries that have no understanding of the ‘average reasoning
man’ of the Black community.”
Here Huey P. Newton was referring to the tenets of the United $tates
Constitution to justify a move towards building independent institutions
of the oppressed. Newton was always conscious to not get ahead of the
masses, but to lead them towards viable solutions. And the Black Panther
Party leadership knew that getting justice for New Afrikans in the
United $tates was not viable; that only the New Afrikan nation could
apply a just morality in judging the actions of its people in the
context of being an internal semi-colony of the United $tates white
power structure.
So my conclusion to the sex offender debate for issue 61 of Under
Lock & Key is that at no point should we take our enemies word
or level of injustice over members of the lumpen class, when those
lumpen maintain their innocence. Yet we should stand against these
violations if they are knowable facts. We should get to know each member
of the oppressed lumpen on a personal and individual basis, while
understanding the history of the white supremacist criminal injustice
system of labeling political prisoners with these kinds of charges in
their effort to get them assassinated by other members of the oppressed.
Just think of how we lost big Yogi a year or so ago.