Masked Racism: Reflections on the Prison Industrial Complex

Masked Racism:
Reflections on the Prison Industrial Complex
By Angela Davis
Introduction:
Race, Prison and Politics in Australia
By Chris Cunneen
The following article by Angela Davis raises fundamental issues in relation to c
urrent trends in imprisonment in Australia. These insights need however to be pl
aced within the context of the specific relationship which exists between Indige
nous people and the criminal justice system in Australia. Davis draws our attent
ion to the racialized assumptions about criminality prevalent in the US. In the
Australian context, racialized assumptions about Aboriginal inferiority have bee
n fundamental to the way Indigenous people have been treated by the colonial sta
te: from the denial of Indigenous sovereignty, to imprisonment on reserves and t
he stealing of children, to current criminal law and practice which undermines A
boriginal governance and rights to self-determination. In contemporary Australia
, racialization has enabled the massive criminalisation and imprisonment of Indi
genous people throughout the country.
Prison privatization is a major issue in Australia too, as demonstrated by the a
nnouncement in early 1999 that the US Corrections Corporation Wackenhut is to bu
ild a new prison in Western Australia. Yet we should not ignore the fact that pu
blic prison construction also goes on unabated. In June 1999, it was announced t
hat two new public prisons in New South Wales are to be constructed.
We should however note that there is no necessary direct correlation in Australi
a between States with high levels of Aboriginal imprisonment and high levels of
privatization â yet. Victoria, for instance, has the highest level of privatization,
but a relatively low rate of Indigenous imprisonment compared to Western Austra
lia, South Australia, Queensland and New South Wales.
Prison numbers are influenced by both penal and sentencing policy, and particula
r sentencing policies can have foreseeable discriminatory impacts on political a
nd racial minorities. We can accurately predict that the type of mandatory impri
sonment legislation introduced in the Northern Territory[1] will disproportionat
ely impact on Aboriginal people because they are more likely to have a previous
record and are more likely to be arrested for the types of offences defined in t
he legislation (such as property damage). Interestingly, fraud was excluded in t
he Northern Territory as a property crime punishable by mandatory imprisonment.
The move towards mandatory sentencing in Australia has been mild compared to the
types of mandatory sentences imposed in the USA for drug offences and other â three-
strikeâ classified offences. Yet the movement towards this type of sentencing is gat
hering speed here at the very time that it is being questioned in the US because
of its extraordinarily unjust and racist outcomes.[2]
Over the last decade in Australia we have seen a seemingly inexorable rise in th
e number of Indigenous people in prison.[3] Imprisonment rates for non-Aborigina
l people have increased as well â but not nearly so rapidly. We have also witnessed
further penetration of international corporations into the economies of the Aust
ralian prison.[4] Although Victoria stands as an example of a highly privatised
jurisdiction (with nearly half of its inmates in private facilities), we have st
ill not gone as far down the road as the US in terms of integrating the prison s
ystem into the broader capitalist economy. Nor have we embarked on the same leve
l of punitive sentencing policies. But the signs are there for anyone who cares
to see.
Chris Cunneen is Director of the Institute of Criminology at the Sydney Universi
ty Law School.
Masked Racism:
Reflections on the Prison Industrial Complex
Imprisonment has become the response of first resort for far too many of the soc
ial problems that burden people who are ensconced in poverty. These problems are
often veiled by being conveniently grouped together under the category 'crime'
and by the automatic attribution of criminal behavior to people of color. Homele
ssness, unemployment, drug addiction, mental illness, and illiteracy are only a
few of the problems that disappear from public view when the human beings conten
ding with them are relegated to cages.
Prisons thus perform a feat of magic. Or rather the people who continually vote
in new prison proposals and tacitly assent to a proliferating network of prisons
and jails have been tricked into believing in the magic of imprisonment. But pr
isons do not disappear problems, they disappear human beings. And the practice o
f disappearing vast numbers of people from poor, immigrant, and racially margina
lized communities has literally become big business.
The seeming effortlessness of magic always conceals an enormous amount of behind
-the-scenes work. When prisons disappear human beings in order to convey the ill
usion of solving social problems, penal infrastructures must be created to accom
modate a rapidly swelling population of caged people. Goods and services must be
provided to keep imprisoned populations alive. Sometimes these populations must
be kept busy and at other times - particularly in repressive super-maximum pris
ons and in Immigration and Naturalisation Service detention centers - they must
be deprived of virtually all meaningful activity. Vast numbers of handcuffed and
shackled people are moved across state borders as they are transferred from one
state or federal prison to another.
All this work, which used to be the primary province of government, is now also
performed by private corporations, whose links to government in the field of wha
t is euphemistically called 'corrections' resonate dangerously with the military
industrial complex. The dividends that accrue from investment in the punishment
industry, like those that accrue from investment in weapons production, only am
ount to social destruction. Taking into account the structural similarities and
profitability of business-government linkages in the realms of military producti
on and public punishment, the expanding penal system can now be characterized as
a 'prison industrial complex.'
The Colour of Imprisonment
Almost two million people are currently locked up in the immense network of US p
risons and jails. More than 70 percent of the imprisoned population are people o
f color. It is rarely acknowledged that the fastest growing group of prisoners a
re black women and that Native American prisoners are the largest group per capi
ta. Approximately five million people-including those on probation and parole-ar
e directly under the surveillance of the criminal justice system.
Three decades ago, the imprisoned population was approximately one-eighth its cu
rrent size. While women still constitute a relatively small percentage of people
behind bars, today the number of incarcerated women in California alone is almo
st twice what the nationwide women's prison population was in 1970. According to
Elliott Currie:
[t]he prison has become a looming presence in our society to an extent unpar
alleled in our history-or that of any other industrial democracy. Short of major
wars, mass incarceration has
been the most thoroughly implemented government social program of our time.
To deliver up bodies destined for profitable punishment, the political economy o
f prisons relies on racialized assumptions of criminality - such as images of bl
ack welfare mothers reproducing criminal children - and on racist practices in a
rrest, conviction, and sentencing patterns. Colored bodies constitute the main h
uman raw material in this vast experiment to disappear the major social problems
of our time. Once the aura of magic is stripped away from the imprisonment solu
tion, what is revealed is racism, class bias, and the parasitic seduction of cap
italist profit. The prison industrial system materially and morally impoverishes
its inhabitants and devours the social wealth needed to address the very proble
ms that have led to spiraling numbers of prisoners.
As prisons take up more and more space on the social landscape, other government
 programs that have previously sought to respond to social needs - such as Tempo
rary Assistance to Needy Families - are being squeezed out of existence. The det
erioration of public education, including prioritizing discipline and security o
ver learning in public schools located in poor communities, is directly related
to the prison 'solution.'
Profiting from Prisoners
As prisons proliferate in US society, private capital has become enmeshed in the
punishment industry. And precisely because of their profit potential, prisons a
re becoming increasingly important to the US economy. If the notion of punishmen
t as a source of potentially stupendous profits is disturbing by itself, then th
e strategic dependence on racist structures and ideologies to render mass punish
ment palatable and profitable is even more troubling.
Prison privatization is the most obvious instance of capital's current movement
toward the prison industry. Government-run prisons are often in gross violation
of international human rights standards. However, private prisons are even less
accountable than governments ones. In March 1999, the Corrections Corporation of
America (CCA), the largest US private prison company, claimed 54,944 beds in 68
facilities under contract or development in the US, Puerto Rico, the United Kin
gdom, and Australia. Following the global trend of subjecting more women to publ
ic punishment, CCA recently opened a women's prison outside Melbourne. The compa
ny recently identified California as its 'new frontier.'
Wackenhut Corrections Corporation (WCC), the second largest US prison company, c
laimed contracts and awards to manage 46 facilities in North America, UK, and Au
stralia. It boasts a total of 30,424 beds as well as contracts for prisoner heal
th care services, transportation, and security. The stocks of both CCA and WCC h
ave done extremely well recently. Between 1996 and 1997, CCA's revenues increase
d by 58 percent, from $293 million to $462 million. Its net profit grew from $30
.9 million to $53.9 million. WCC raised its revenues from $138 million in 1996 t
o $210 million in 1997. Unlike public correctional facilities, the vast profits
of these private facilities rely on the employment of non-union labor.
The Prison Industrial Complex
But private prison companies are only the most visible component of the increasi
ng corporatization of punishment. Government contracts to build prisons have bol
stered the construction industry. The architectural community has identified pri
son design as a major new niche. Technology developed for the military by compan
ies like Westinghouse are being marketed for use in law enforcement and punishme
nt.
Moreover, corporations that appear to be far removed from the business of punish
ment are intimately involved in the expansion of the prison industrial complex.
Prison construction bonds are one of the many sources of profitable investment f
or leading financiers such as Merrill Lynch. One American telecommunications com
pany charges prisoners and their families outrageous prices for the precious tel
ephone calls which are often the only contact prisoners have with the free world
.
Many corporations whose products we consume on a daily basis have learned that p
rison labor power can be as profitable as third world labor power exploited by U
S -based global corporations. Both relegate formerly unionized workers to jobles
sness and many even wind up in prison. Some of the companies that use prison lab
or are IBM, Motorola, Compaq, Texas Instruments, Honeywell, Microsoft, and Boein
g. But it is not only the hi-tech industries that reap the profits of prison lab
or. Nordstrom department stores sell jeans that are marketed as 'Prison Blues,'
as well as t-shirts and jackets made in Oregon prisons. The advertising slogan f
or these clothes is 'made on the inside to be worn on the outside.' Maryland pri
soners inspect glass bottles and jars used by Revlon and Pierre Cardin, and scho
ols throughout the world buy graduation caps and gowns made by South Carolina pr
isoners.
'For private business,' write Eve Goldberg and Linda Evans (a political prisoner
inside the Federal Correctional Institution at Dublin, California) 'prison labo
r is like a pot of gold'. No strikes. No union organizing. No health benefits, u
nemployment insurance, or workers' compensation to pay. No language barriers, as
 in foreign countries. New leviathan prisons are being built on thousands of eer
ie acres of factories inside the walls. Prisoners do data entry for Chevron, mak
e telephone reservations for TWA, raise hogs, shovel manure, make circuit boards
, limousines, waterbeds, and lingerie -all at a fraction of the cost of 'free la
bor.'
Devouring the Social Wealth
Although prison labor - which ultimately is compensated at a rate far below the
minimum wage - is hugely profitable for the private companies that use it, the p
enal system as a whole does not produce wealth. It devours the social wealth tha
t could be used to subsidize housing for the homeless, to ameliorate public educ
ation for poor and racially marginalized communities, to open free drug rehabili
tation programs for people who wish to kick their habits, to create a national h
ealth care system, to expand programs to combat HIV, to eradicate domestic abuse
, and in the process, to create well-paying jobs for the unemployed.
Since 1984, more than twenty new prisons have opened in California, while only o
ne new campus was added to the California State University system and none to th
e University of California system. In 1996-97, higher education received only 8.
7 percent of the State's General Fund while corrections received 9.6 percent. No
w that affirmative action has been declared illegal in California, it is obvious
that education is increasingly reserved for certain people, while prisons are r
eserved for others. Five times as many black men are presently in prison as in f
our year colleges and universities. This new segregation has dangerous implicati
ons for the entire country.
By segregating people labeled as criminals, prison simultaneously fortifies and
conceals the structural racism of the US economy. Claims of low unemployment rat
es-even in black communities-make sense only if one assumes that the vast number
s of people in prison have really disappeared and thus have no legitimate claims
to jobs. The numbers of black and Latino men currently incarcerated amount to t
wo percent of the male labor force. According to criminologist David Downes:
[t]reating incarceration as a type of hidden unemployment may raise the jobl
ess rate for men by about one-third, to 8 percent. The effect on the black labor
force is greater still, raising the [black] male unemployment rate from 11 perc
ent to 19 percent.
Hidden Agenda
Mass incarceration is not a solution to unemployment, nor is it a solution to th
e vast array of social problems that are hidden away in a rapidly growing networ
k of prisons and jails. However, the great majority of people have been tricked
into believing in the efficacy of imprisonment, even though the historical recor
d clearly demonstrates that prisons do not work. Racism has undermined our abili
ty to create a popular critical discourse to contest the ideological trickery th
at posits imprisonment as key to public safety. The focus of state policy is rap
idly shifting from social welfare to social control.
Black, Latino, Native American, and many Asian youth are portrayed as the purvey
ors of violence, traffickers of drugs, and as envious of commodities that they h
ave no right to possess. Young black and Latina women are represented as sexuall
y promiscuous and as indiscriminately propagating babies and poverty. Criminalit
y and deviance are racialized. Surveillance is thus focused on communities of co
lor, immigrants, the unemployed, the under-educated, the homeless, and in genera
l on those who have a diminishing claim to social resources. Their claim of soci
al resources continues to diminish in large part because law enforcement and pen
al measures increasingly devour these resources. The prison industrial complex h
as thus
created a vicious cycle of punishment which only further impoverishes those whos
e impoverishment is supposedly 'solved' by imprisonment.
Therefore, as the emphasis of government policy shifts from social welfare to cr
ime control, racism sinks more deeply into the economic and ideological structur
es of US society. Meanwhile, conservative crusaders against affirmative action a
nd bilingual education proclaim the end of racism, while their opponents suggest
 that racism's remnants can be dispelled through dialogue and conversation. But
conversations about 'race relations' will hardly dismantle a prison industrial c
omplex that thrives on and nourishes the racism hidden within the deep structure
s of our society.
The emergence of a US prison industrial complex within a context of cascading co
nservatism marks a new historical moment, whose dangers are unprecedented. But s
o are its opportunities. Considering the impressive number of grassroots project
s that continue to resist the expansion of the punishment industry, it ought to
be possible to bring these efforts together to create radical and nationally vis
ible movements that can legitimize anti-capitalist critiques of the prison indus
trial complex. It ought to be possible to build movements in defense of prisoner
s' human rights and movements that persuasively argue that what we need is not n
ew prisons, but new health care, housing, education, drug programs, jobs, and ed
ucation. To safeguard a democratic future, it is possible and necessary to weave
together the many and increasing strands of resistance to the prison industrial
complex into a powerful movement for social transformation.
Angela Davis is Professor in the History of Consciousness Department at the Univ
ersity of California and is also a former political prisoner and long-time priso
n activist. She visited Australia for the first time in May last year as a guest
of the Sydney Writers Festival. On her trip, she also visited Mulawa Women' Det
ention Centre in Sydney and met a group of Indigenous women active in prison ref
orm. She is currently working on a history of the penal system which will also d
iscuss prisons in Australia.(see (1999) 4 (21) ILB 31. Angela Davis' article is
reprinted from the US magazine Colorlines.
[1] National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islande
r Children from Their Families, Bringing Them Home (1997) 528. Cf also George Zd
enkowski, 'Mandatory Imprisonment of Property Offenders in the Northern Territor
y', (1998) 4 (17) ILB 15; 'New Challenge to NT Mandatory Sentencing' (1999) 4 (1
8) ILB 16; C Thomson, 'Preventing Crime or "Warehousing" the Underprivileged? Ma
ndatory Sentencing in the Northern Territory', (1999) 4 (26) ILB 4.
[2] M Tonry, Malign Neglect (1995).
[3] C Cunneen and D McDonald, Keeping Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peop
le Out of Custody (1997) especially Chapter 2.
[4] See the special issue on prisons and privatization in Australia in (1999) 11
(2) Current Issues in Criminal Justice.