 Yeah, I mean, when you make a guy work in jail for a dollar a day, whatever they pay, how is that not slavery? From a cost-effectiveness point of view, the $45 million that private prisons have reportedly spent over the past decade lobbying to keep prisons full is peanuts compared to the billions that they make every year. It's not a picture of the antebellum South. It's actually a picture from a modern-day American prison. But slavery is illegal in the United States, right? Right. The 13th Amendment says, Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall exist within the United States. Except there's this one little thing. It's okay if it's punishment for a crime. Guys, it's Madison Parnish back in my blue kitchen for another crazy video. And today's video is the part two video on the series I'm doing diving into the criminal justice system in America. In part one, I covered the history of policing in America. And in today's video, I'm going to cover the prison industrial complex and its effect on America, the economy, and much, much more. That's what we're doing in today's video. And if you're enjoying this series as well as my other videos, but have forgotten to subscribe, don't forget to subscribe down below and give this video a thumbs up. Well, let's get into the video. The prison industrial complex is a term we use to describe the overlapping interests of government and industry that use surveillance, policing, and imprisonment as solutions to economic, social, and political problems. Through its reach and impact, the PIC helps and maintains the authority of people who get their power through racial, economic, and other privileges. There are many ways this power is collected and maintained through the PIC, including creating mass media images that keep alive stereotypes of people of color, poor people, queer people, immigrants, youth, and other oppressed communities as a criminal. This power is also maintained by earning huge profits for private companies that deal with prisons and police forces, helping earn political gains for tough-on-crime politicians, increasing the influence of prison guards and police unions, and eliminating social and political dissent by oppressed communities that make demands for self-determination and reorganization of power in the US. There are companies, a.k.a. the economic elite, who make a ton of money off of the prison industrial complex and therefore perpetuate through a lot of media this idea of people of color being criminals. And that's not really a theory, but actually something well-defined through statistics, data, and research. Large prison populations and harsh sentences result in greater profits. America's three major private prison companies spend around $45 million over the past ten years on lobbying state and federal governments for supporting immigrant detention, mandatory minimum sentences, three strikes laws, and other legislative measures that contribute to the growth of America's gigantic prison population. The people who are profiting off of the prison industrial complex spend so much money lobbying and getting involved with politicians as much as possible, rewarding the politicians who keep the prison industrial complex going, and working very hard to eliminate all backlash of this system. Here are the top private prison contributors to political parties, and here's a list from Open Secrets about politicians who receive funds from private prison organizations or those that benefit from the prison industrial complex. And to dive a little bit deeper, here's some information on individuals who are part of the prison industrial complex and are profiting from it. Henry Waddell. The individual who's invested the most in private prisons is Henry Waddell, who started serving on CCA's Board of Directors in 2000, when the company was struggling with scandals related to prisoner abuse and mismanagement. He now owns more than 650,000 shares in the company, which is far more successful these days. Those shares are worth more than $25 million. America allows more freedom than any other country in the world, much more than Russia and a whole lot more than Scandinavia, where they aren't really free. So offering all this freedom to society, there will be a certain number of people more in this country than elsewhere who take advantage of that freedom, abuse it, and end up in prison. That happens because we are so free in this country. So basically, Henry Waddell is trying to say that America has more criminals because America is more free. Okay. Another person profiting from the prison industrial complex is George Zoli, the CEO of GEO Group and the second biggest investor in the incarceration industry. In fact, he's so proud of his business, which has committed a laundry list of human rights abuses, he tried to get a college football stadium named after it. The Democratic Party is also heavily linked to the incarceration system in the prison industrial complex. For example, Jeremy Mindyke and Max Rovich both donate to Democratic politicians and are involved in progressive leaning organizations. But their day job, however, is running Scopia Capital, a hedge fund that is one of the largest shareholders of the GEO Group. The fund owns about 300 million in shares in that company, which represents 12% of its entire portfolio. So the Democratic Party is totally fine with the incarceration rate. Although Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan are largely responsible for the drug war policies that caused the prison population to skyrocket, Democratic politicians like Bill Clinton was a tough on crime president who continued their ideas and vice president Joe Biden was a principal player in the Clinton era's crime policies. He wrote the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, which among other things called for 9.7 billion in increased funding for prisons and stiffer penalties for drug offenders. Overall, on both sides of the aisle, there are people who have contributed to the mass incarceration rates that we see in America today. And for those that say it's important to keep the prison system that we have going, I would argue that's not the case at all. Prisons have been proven to not help reform criminals or lead them down a better path after imprisonment. This statistic shows that a lot of inmates are incarcerated for drug issues or drug related problems, yet very few actually receive treatment. Then when you get out of jail, it's extremely hard to find a job worse than the Great Depression. So to get back on your feet, to re-stabilize, to build a better life for yourself is nearly impossible after you've been in prison. So therefore, homeless rates among the formerly incarcerated people are extremely high. Plus, the rates of mass incarceration that America has is well beyond any other country. Any other country. Why is that? If it's because America has far more criminals than any other country, then maybe we really should think about what's going on in America that's causing that. 2.3 million people are in confinement in the United States. 3,100 plus corporations benefit from mass incarceration. Bail itself is a $2 billion per year industry. Private prison owners, CoreCivic and the GEO group spent $5.1 million to lobby local state and federal governments in 2016 to continue the prison industrial complex. 5.1 million. Some prisoners have to pay up to $15 for a 15 minute phone call, and prisoners are held in far more private prisons than they are federal prisons. The prison industrial complex is sustained by a network of companies, corporations, and egregious actors that profit massively from this system being maintained and spend a lot of money to keep the system maintained. Unfortunately, there is a lot of profit to be had in the prison industrial complex, but the scariest thing are the companies whose products we use every single day that are manufactured and produced by prison workers. There's not enough folks that will do this type of work in this country, so therefore we're bringing back this industry that historically has been going out of this country and we're putting it inside the walls and it's absolutely a perfect idea. I have a workforce that does not have car problems or babysitting problems, etc. They're always here and they're always willing to come to work. A wide variety of industries take advantage of prison labor. Among many other things, prisoners make clothing, textiles, electronics, furniture, and even solar panels. Unicor is a government-owned corporation that uses prison labor to produce all kinds of goods, mainly for other government agencies. 175 different types of products and services. Last year Unicor's revenue reached $900 million. As far as private prisons are concerned, two of the country's biggest prison corporations made $3.3 billion last year alone. Prison labor is referred to as insourcing and employers receive a tax credit of $2,400 per person that they employ who is imprisoned. This is supposed to be a reward for hiring risky target groups. Prison workers are not only cheap labor, but they're much easier to control and are usually African American males. Companies don't need to provide any benefits or sick days. There can be no worker unions. You know that thing back in the day that the economic elite were so afraid of and that they used police force to violently shut down? There are no vacation times, no raises, and no leave for family issues. So big corporations still have their slave labor. It's just a little bit more hidden now. The federal prison industry produces 100% of military helmets, war supplies, and other equipment, 93% of paints and paint brushes, 46% of body armor, 36% of home supplies, 30% of headphones, microphones, and speakers, and 21% of office furniture. Sure, at this point you could be the one person in the comments section saying, but these people are bad people. I don't care if they're getting treated like slaves in jail, especially if I get cheaper headphones from it, but don't people go to jail to learn how to not be a criminal? Not to spend most of their time doing practically free labor with no benefits. Prison labor only benefits corporations that is the only people who benefit from prison labor. Instead of having to employ factory workers, pay them a minimum wage, give them a certain amount of benefits, you can literally resort to forced labor in the prison system where you don't have to do any of that. In fact, most prison workers earn $0.90 to $4 a day, and they come out of prison indebted to the government and cannot have the right to vote until they pay off their debts. But at the same time, most of their time in prison was doing free labor for companies. If you don't see that that's a bit of a screwed up system, I don't know what else to tell you. How is that labor system going to teach anyone how to not be a criminal, or put them in a better life situation when they get out of jail, especially if they come out of jail indebted? There are literally hundreds of corporations that use slave labor, I mean prison labor, but here are some of the biggest ones that you know. McDonald's and Wendy's use prison labor to process their frozen food. Walmart uses inmates for their manufacturing purposes. Starbucks uses prison labor to package holiday coffee. Inmates provide telecommunication services for Sprint and Verizon, and are used in call centers. Think about that. If these criminals were really that dangerous, would they be used in call centers? Would they be used to produce products that we use every day if they were truly this dangerous, that they needed to be locked away and enslaved in this process? And also, is anyone else thinking about switching their phone plan right now? Victoria's Secret uses inmates to cut production costs. No inmates were used to sew products and reportedly switch the made in tags to made in the USA. If you have ever used a fidelity investment, which we may or may not have unfortunately used for our home mortgage, some of your money funded by fidelity is used for prison labor or to fund the prison industrial complex. J.C. Penney and Kmart both sell jeans made by inmates. Are those two companies still around? Anyways, but still. American Airlines and car rental company Avis use prison inmates to take reservations. And this is just the tip of the iceberg. As I said earlier, there are a total of 3,100 plus corporations that benefit from and profit from the prison industrial complex. A lot of money and a lot of power fueling and keeping the system going. No matter how hard you try, it is nearly impossible to boycott all of the companies that use prison labor for their products. But if we expose them and put pressure on them, we could possibly get them to stop this highly immoral practice. Or at least get the prison labor workers who they are so dependent on for production to have a little bit more benefits and rights when working. Because unfortunately, prison labor unisation, protests, riots of any sort are met with extreme force from prison security and police officers. What's even worse is companies that have a lot of stake in the prison industrial complex are working constantly with administrations to keep it going and to strengthen this complex over time. For example, criminal justice advocates all agree that the violent crime act of 1994 signed by Bill Clinton was a driver of mass incarceration, especially of people of colour. In an odd wave of deja vu, especially if you saw part one of this series, this crime bill had an obsession with punishment for petty crimes and claimed that policing and over-policing was the cure to social disorder, when obviously all statistics and experts agree that it's not. Even in that time, there was so much scholarly literature that policing had no effect on crime rates. So why did Bill Clinton pass a bill that caused mass incarceration and over-policing? And who was in his pockets? The Violent Crime and Law Enforcement Act has resulted in 10.5 million arrests each year with the majority of arrests resulting in a dismissal of charges. So they basically took the proactive policing that, as we discussed in part one, was the result of discriminatory and racist practices of targeting dangerous classes and they increased it. They put more police on the streets to do more proactive policing, resulting in more people of colour being jailed. On top of this, there was more of an emphasis on money when it comes to bail, etc. Resulting in people losing jobs and all of their financial standing because they cannot afford to post bail while they're waiting for a trial with which they will be acquitted of whatever charges they had. This is modern day slavery, plain and simple. You could say that it's a much needed system to stop crime, but as I've already said, this has been proven to not be the case. So do you believe that because it's a well-studied fact? Or, like Americans in the past, do you believe that just because we have been conditioned to believe that there is a dangerous class that produces most of the crime and needs policing? Maybe the police and justice system are just continuing to do what they've always done. Misconceptualize social order and what benefits the economic elite as stopping crime. The criminal justice system is just one of the pillars of institutional racism, but it's perhaps one of the most complicated parts of institutional racism and directly relates to American history itself, as well as what's happening in present day America. I hope this cleared up a lot of things and was really informative for you guys, but most importantly, I hope you all are staying safe and well. Comment below what reforms you are most interested in seeing with the criminal justice system in America, and let's all have a positive discussion in the comments. My next video is going to kind of jump back to my normal content. I just had to put this out there and talk about it before fully moving on and uploading my regular, and uploading my regular usual content. I'll see you in the next video, but until next time, have a good one.