October 4 2001: America’s new wall of homeland security is creating a big demand for calls to hold suspects and illegal aliens who might be rounded up. Stocks of private companies that build and operate prisons for governments have zoomed as high as 300% in anticipation of internment camps and new prisons.
‘Unfortunately, these are becoming good investments,’ said James McDonald, a private security analyst at First Analyst Securities. New York Post online article Paul Tharp
It’s an absolute nightmare. My silver lobster forks have gone. The mildew on the walls is destroying my draperies, and I haven’t once bathed in truly hot water since I came here. Harry and Walter Go to New York 1984 starring James Caan & Michael Caine & Elliott Gould & Diane Keaton & Charles Durning & Lesley Ann Warren & Burt Young et al, director Mark Rydell, Caine in prison
Food: ‘The Thing about the sausage rolls – they’re getting smaller. In terms of the size and all that there, you know.’ Sinn Fein prisoner, televised interview cited It Was Alright in the 1990s, Channel 4 2015
During the early 1970s there was a strong radical prison movement in the United States. Green & Siegel, The Weather Underground, 2002
One of the group’s most high profile actions was helping the counter-culture hero Timothy Leary escape from a Californian prison. ibid.
125 years! Oh, God. Oh, God. I’ll be 161 when I get out. Stir Crazy 1980 starring Gene Wilder & Richard Pryor & Georg Stanford Brown & JoBeth Williams & Miguel Angel Suarez & Craig T Nelson & Barry Corbin & Nicolas Coster & Joel Brooks & Jonathan Banks & Jonathan Banks & Erland van Lidth et al, director Sidney Poitier, Pryor
Surrounding this urban vortex lies a network of prisons that are among the most overcrowded in the world. The conditions for the prisoners are atrocious and there exists a permanent state of low-level warfare among inmates, and between inmates and the warders. Misha Glenny, McMafia
In 1973, inspired by President Nixon’s War on Drugs, Nelson Rockefeller, Governor of New York, introduced a new set of Drug Laws that remain in force to this day, continuing to bear his name. For possessing a risible amount of any drugs, New Yorkers risk draconian sentences of between fifteen years and life in a state penitentiary. And New York State pays out more than $500 million every year to keep incarcerated those who have fallen foul of this regime. ibid.
Perhaps the most terrifying statistic of all that Soares uncovered was that in Albany County (minority population 13 per cent) more than 95 per cent of imprisoned Drug Laws offenders were black or Hispanic. Whichever way you look at the figure, it can only mean one thing – something is rotten in the state. ibid.
There are certainly plenty of reasons to dislike the huge surge in the prison population. Not everyone is pleased that such a significant fraction of Americans, especially black Americans, live behind bars. Nor does prison even begin to address the root causes of crime, which are diverse and complex. Lastly, prison is hardly a cheap solution. Steven J Levitt & Stephen J Dubner, Freakonomics
Spent over half me married life inside … I just didn’t get the breaks. Calculated Risk 1963 starring William Lucas & Warren Mitchell & John Rutland & Dilys Watling & Shay Gorman & Terence Cooper & David Bierly & Vincent Charles & John G Heller & Peter Welch & Brian Cobby et al, director Norman Harrison, crooks at tea
The prison-industrial complex and the military-industrial complex are here with us and are multi-billion-dollar enterprises. We can make more money off the kid in Compton if he’s a criminal instead of a scholar. It’s business. Henry Rollins
Danli Prison, Honduras, home to over 700 of the country’s most dangerous inmates … They’ve handed over the keys to a convicted murderer, and given him the power to police the prison. Paul Connolly, Inside the Murder Prison
In the UK in 2016 there are fifty-nine people serving whole-life prison terms. Crimes that Shook Britain s7e1: Wrongly Released, CI 2017
People have been jailed for horrific crimes including rape, manslaughter and even murder and then released back into society only to offend again … Were they wrongly released? ibid.
The re-offending rate for adults released from custody in October 2013 to September 2014 was 45.5%. ibid.
The United States is home to 5% of the world’s population, but 25% of the world’s prisoners. Think about that. 13th, Obama, 2016
A prison population of 2.3 million. ibid. critic
The Birth of a Nation confirmed the story that many whites wanted to tell of the civil war and its aftermath. ibid.
Both races will be destroyed in such a movement. ibid. KKK bloke
Civil Rights activists began to be portrayed in the media and among many politicians as criminals. ibid.
In the 1970s we began an era that’s been defined by this term ‘mass incarceration’. ibid.
Hundreds of thousands of people were being sent to jail for simple possession of marijuana. ibid.
‘The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black.’ ibid. John Ehrlichman
US prison population 1970: 357,292; 1980: 513,900; 1985: 759,100; 1990: 1,179,200; 2014: 2,306,200. ibid.
The so-called war on drugs was a war on communities of colour. ibid.
FBI Chief Calls Martin Luther King ‘The Most Notorious Liar in the Country’. ibid. Washington Press International report
The role of CCA within Alex began a series of bills … CCA had a hand in shaping crime policy. ibid. critic
Corporations are operating in prison and profiting from punishment. ibid.
They’re too poor to get out. ibid.
97% of those people who are locked up have plea-bargained. ibid.
Ferguson: this pattern of mass criminalisation and mass incarceration. ibid.
Undercover in one of our crisis-hit prisons. I see some prisoners out of it on drugs. Prison officers say they have lost control. And inmates run the jail. The threat of violence is constant. Security compromised. And prison officers struck down, exposed to drug abuse. I ask, what will it take to turn our prisons around. Panorama: Behind Bars: Prison Undercover, BBC 2017
My standard shift is ten hours: straight out of training I do nine days in a row. ibid.
Since 2011 around half a billion pounds has been taken from prison budgets in England and Wales. ibid.
Spice: 58 prison deaths in England and Wales have been linked to the drug. ibid.
Lester Shortarse Piggot, you will go to Norwich Jail for at least five minutes and then be taken from that place to a more agreeable place by taxis. Spitting Image s4e1, ITV 1986
Two jails: one in California the other in New Jersey. Both have a policy of cracking down on drugs. But drugs still find a way in. In Cali the inmates’ drug of choice is Meth; in Jersey they go for something deadlier: heroin. Drugs Inc s7e5: Jailhouse Junkies, National Geographic 2015
Bergen County: roughly two-thirds of all incoming inmates are addicts: and the drug of Choice in Bergen County is heroin. ibid.
But incarceration doesn’t mean the end of the drug dealer. For some of the hardest cons – the tricks of the trade – this is the business behind bars we call Drugs Inc. Drugs Inc s7e15: Business Behind Bars
Albany County Jail in New York houses over a thousand men and women. They could be held here for over a year while they await trial. Upstate Purgatory, 2016
‘I became my own demon.’ ibid. Jason
40% of Palestinian men in the West Bank and Jerusalem have spent time in Israeli prisons. Abby Martin, The Empire Files: Silencing Palestine: Prison & Repression, 2017
20% arrested this month have been homeless. Overcriminalized: Alternatives to Incarceration, news, Brave New Films short 2014,
With over 86,000 people behind bars the UK’s prison population is at an all-time high. Whatever crime they’ve committed or time they’re doing there’s one event that allows every inmate to reconnect with the life they’ve had – visiting hour. Life Behind Bars, Channel 4 2017
Private Prisons: ‘It’s a slave-labour market.’ Tommy Chong, interview American Drug War: The Last White Hope, 2007
I’m going to jail to try and understand the American justice system from the inside. America incarcerates more people than any other country in the world. And the largest population of inmates are housed in Texas. Reggie Yates, The Insider s1e1, BBC 2016
Every day around 100 people enter this jail and 100 people leave with a total population reaching nearly 4,500 inmates. ibid.
The crimes we might regard as minor in the UK are punished by a jail term in Texas. ibid.
I found a system which incarcerates more people than anywhere else on Earth straining at the seams. Now I’m in North Carolina heading back to jail only this time I’ll be working as a guard. Reggie Yates, The Insider s2e3, BBC 2017
From midnight onwards the jail gets noticeably busier. ibid.
A constant threat of violence … You can never truly relax. ibid.
70% of the inmates here are black. ibid.