9/2/10

CBS IN AZ EXPOSING GOV JAN BREWER, SLAVE MASTER FOR PRIVATE PRISON CORPORATIONS


CBS 5 videos can't be embeded, but here are the links:
CBS 5 in Phoenix Arizona. CCA lies and Brewer won't answer questions.
http://www.kpho.com/local-video/index.html?grabnetworks_video_id=4326429

Problems with private prisons in Arizona.
http://www.kpho.com/local-video/index.html?grabnetworks_video_id=4325260




Beau Hodai:

Over the past decade, the private-prison industry has increasingly shifted its attention to the burgeoning fields of undocumented and criminal alien detention. From January 2008 to April 2010, CCA spent $4.4 million lobbying the Department of Homeland Security, Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the Office of the Federal Detention Trustee, the Office of Budget Management, the Bureau of Prisons, and both houses of Congress. Of the 43 lobbying disclosure reports CCA filed during this period, only five do not expressly state intent to monitor or influence immigration reform policy or gain Homeland Security or ICE appropriations.

Just like the private prison industry’s affect on the number of United States Citizens who are in prisons SB 1070 was about making money, by raising the number of illegals imprisoned. Corporations have used lobbying to compel our legislators to pass laws for harsher sentences, designed probation so people get sent back to prison easily, mandatory sentences force judges to give long sentences, they have made lesser offenses which used to get community service subject to imprisonment, and they were behind the three strikes laws passed in other states. The corrections officers unions were also lobbying for the same laws to be passed for their own job security. Then there are the businesses in the communities where the prisons are which provide support such as laundry, food services, and supplies. All of this is well documented. This is of course made much worse by fear due to a bad economic situation in this country.

There are prison corporations who supply so called state run prisons which are actually partly privatized due to the prison corporations and others providing a lot of services. Even in states without actual privatized prisons they are influencing those running the prisons, lawmakers and policies because they make tons of money as contractors and suppliers. They are making huge profits off prisoners, many of which should never have been in prison to begin with. They helped turn mental illness, and chemical dependency, both health problems into criminal offenses. The corporations are about profits so they do what other corporations do, they find ways to cut costs. They feed prisoners health harming crap food, deny health care, deny mental health care, don’t fix unsafe problems, hire inappropriate staff and pay them poorly, and have very minimal, inadequate training for staff which result in huge problems. There are a lot of abuses in a system that is designed for profit and not for the good of society. Damaging prisoners does not make them better citizens and is in no way a benefit to anyone. Private prisons are also not supplying the services they are contracted for. They are not taking care of basic health, nutrition, rehab, etc. They are creating more problems and more expense for the tax payers in the future. They make promises about chemical dependency treatment, mental health treatment, job training, and education to other states, such as Alaska, but cut the programs to nothing. Then there are the prison industries companies who just love prison labor because they pay the inmates next to nothing. The prisons are big suppliers of cheap labor.

From the WSJ:
A two year study shows the number of immigrants are now down by about a million less, so SB 1070 makes no logical sense, it was all propaganda designed to put more people in prison to create an economy for a group of people who use other human beings as slaves. Jan Brewer is a slave master controlled by CCA.
The Pew study found that the flow of Mexicans, who represent 60% of all illegal immigrants in the U.S., plummeted to 150,000 annually during the 2007-2009 period, compared with the annual average of 500,000 during the first half of the decade.

Emphasis was added by me. That means the numbers of illegal people from Mexico are down 70%. It is because our economy is in the dump. Mexicans have always come here for jobs. When there are less jobs there will be less illegals from Mexico in this country. Imagine what it is like for so many living in the areas where so much violence is occurring in Mexico. Now they can't even risk their lives going through the desert to get a low paying job cleaning toilets or pruning roses so they can send money home to feed their families.


I have to wonder about the details behind the decision to pay Mexico to upgrade their/our “war on drugs” which is causing people to flee for their lives over the border. Did they want to get those numbers of illegals back up by creating a refugee situation? We are deploying 1,200 National Guards to the border along with aerial drones. That should assist in arresting even more Mexican illegals for the private prison corporations.

The Alaskan prisoners who were in Arizona have been moved to a private prison in Colorado. I am glad they are out of Arizona, but Colorado is also a haven for private prison corporations. Recently an inmate from Alaska was found down and died shortly after being found in Colorado. The autopsy showed no cause of death and they are awaiting tissue and toxicity testing. There has been almost no information released in Alaska or Colorado. I just spoke to Commissioner Joe Schmidt of the Alaska Prison system who said there is no information that is public on the investigation at this point. It is my sincere hope that if there was abuse of some kind at that prison in Arizona the Department of Law here in Alaska seeks justice.

There are many prisoners who after years of unhealthy food, trauma, lack of health care and solitary confinement simply become very ill with heart disease, diabetes, and other illnesses. When this results in death they call it natural causes, but it was caused by the situation they were forced to live in. There are also suicides, misuse of psychiatric medications, and a lot of illegal drugs in the prisons. It is known cover ups have happened in states that have a lot of private prisons. Remember the case of Marcia Powell, who died from being given psychotropic medication, put in the heat, denied water, and ignored in Arizona? Charles Ryan, Arizona Department of Corrections interim director during this incident ended Powell's life support systems without consulting with Powell's court-appointed guardian. They disciplined 16 people for her death and it was recently announced by the Maricopa County Attorney's Office that no charges would be filed in her horrendous death. They say they can't put a case together, but certainly if this was a case against a citizen with some kind of shaky drug evidence they would find a way to prosecute. There is a lot of evidence in this case which is why Donna Hamm, executive director of Middle Ground, a prison-reform group is contacting the DOJ to see if they will review the case. Eric Holder has been prosecuting some prison abuse cases.

Recently I found a very interesting web documentary, called Prison Valley about a town in Colorado that has 13 prisons and the people who live in the town all make their living based on the prison industry. It is made by people from France where they also are having issues with prisons. People in Canon City (pronounced Canyon) have said the documentary gives their town a bad image and a slanted view. It does, but the idea they are trying to convey is how the prison industry is supported by people who make their living off the imprisonment of a huge portion of our society. Without the private prisons they would not exist or have any kind of economy. Prison Valley navigates around the town with information about the prison industry, like taking a trip to the area. The Alaskan prisoners are not in Canon City, they are in Hudson Correctional facility located in Hudson, Colorado, a private prison run by Geo which is a remake corporation to cover for corrupt companies, one of which has done some corrupt dealings in Alaska.


http://prisonvalley.arte.tv/?lang=en
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703882304575465742670985642.html?mod=e2tw
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2010/09/02/20100902arizona-inmate-heat-death-marcia-powell.html
http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/6084/corporate_con_game/

2 comments:

Kevin said...

Just saying thank you for spreading the word. Nobody, including me, wants to think about prisoners, prisons, and what our "justice system" is doing to society, but if we don't, it's a creeping moral pollution.

Bob Sloan said...

For more on the issues of private prisons and prison labor abuses visit: http://sloan-wwwpiecp-violations.blogspot.com/ and http://americantribune.org/. There the major players and how they manipulate laws to cause increasing prison populations.

Bob Sloan
Prison Industry Consultant
www.piecp-violations.com