Prison Reform: 1
Hi Friends!
Welcome to Issue 16 of this newsletter! This week’s topic is Prison Reform. Prison reform is the attempt to improve conditions inside prisons, improve the effectiveness of the prison system, implement alternatives to incarceration and find ways to reinstate convicted individuals back into society after they serve their sentence.
I’ve talked about the Prison Industrial Complex before, but because there is so much to unpack here, this will be a 2-week long topic. This week I will share more resources on the history of our current prison system in America and the ways in which scholars, activists and prisoners have linked the exception clause in the 13th Amendment to the rise of a prison system that incarcerates Black people at more than five times the rate of white people, and profits off of their unpaid or underpaid labor. Next week, I will talk about prison conditions and the specific areas of reform we are fighting for.
On a personal note, reform is a key cause for me and something I have and will continue to advocate for for the rest of my life. Angela Davis said, “Prisons do not disappear social problems, they disappear human beings,” and the ways in which human beings are so reduced, mistreated, tortured and killed in our prisons cannot be accepted. Let’s get into it.
Key Terms
Prison: An institution (such as one under state jurisdiction) for confinement of persons convicted of serious crimes. So if you’re sentenced and serving your time, it’s probably in a prison.
Jail: Such a place under the jurisdiction of a local government (such as a county) for the confinement of persons awaiting trial or those convicted of minor crimes. So if you’ve committed a minor offense and are awaiting trial, it’s probably in a jail.
Bail: Bail works by releasing a defendant in exchange for money that the court holds until all proceedings and trials surrounding the accused person are complete. That means if a defendant goes to all of their proceedings and trials, they get their money back. The amount of bail depends on the severity of the crime but is also at the judge's discretion which means it is not standardized. If you cannot pay bail, you must stay in jail until trial.
Surety Bond: When a defendant cannot afford bond, they can contact a bail agent or bail bondsman. A bail agent is backed by a special type of insurance company called a surety company and pledges to pay the full value of the bond if the accused doesn't appear in court. In return, the bail agent charges his client a 10 percent premium and collects some sort of collateral like a house or car.
Corporal Punishment: Physical punishment.
War on Drugs: The War on Drugs is a phrase used to refer to a government-led initiative that aims to stop illegal drug use, distribution and trade by dramatically increasing prison sentences for both drug dealers and users. The movement started in the 1970s and is still evolving today. Richard Nixon started the “War on Drugs” and his domestic policy chief was quotes saying: “We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course, we did.”
The Black Codes: Restrictive laws designed to limit the freedom of African Americans and ensure their availability as a cheap labor force after slavery was abolished during the Civil War.
Chain Gangs: Chain gangs were groups of convicts forced to labor at tasks such as road construction, ditch digging, or farming while chained together. Some chain gangs toiled at work sites near the prison, while others were housed in transportable jails such as railroad cars or trucks. Chain gangs minimized the cost of guarding prisoners, but exposed prisoners to painful ulcers and dangerous infections from the heavy shackles around their ankles.
Let’s Get Into It
A Brief History Of Prisons In America
Scroll down for more details on the prison system in relation to slavery and its impact on Black Americans specifically.
In colonial America, fining and corporal punishment were used as repercussions to crimes. This included whippings and hangings.
In the 1800s prisons were more common over physical punishments or the death penalty, but prisoners shared common spaces and had access to goods like alcohol.
In 1820, New York implemented the Auburn system named after Auburn State Prison where it was utilized. This was a system in which prisoners were confined in separate cells and prohibited from talking when eating and working together. They worked together in groups during the day and were in solitary confinement at night. The goal was supposedly rehabilitation and reflection. This system was widely adopted.
In the 1860s, prisons were overcrowded and it was clear that reform and rehabilitation were not the focus. Enoch Wines and Theodore Dwight implemented an education program focused on vocational training to remedy this problem.
In the early 1900s, psychiatrists started to treat prisoners but most methods were the same including restraining and solitary confinement. Probation was introduced at this time.
The 1950s brought a series of riots and an outcry for prison reform. Since the 1960s the prison population in the US has risen steadily, even during periods where the crime rate has fallen.
The 1970s “War on Drugs” resulted in more densely packed prisons.
By 2010, the United States had more prisoners than any other country and a greater percentage of its population was in prison than in any other country in the world. (Prison Policy Initiative)
Today, 6 out of 10 people in U.S. jails—nearly a half million individuals on any given day—are awaiting trial. People who have not been found guilty of the charges against them account for 95% of all jail population growth between 2000-2014. (PJI)
The 13th Amendment And The Exploitation Of Black Americans
Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
The 13th Amendment abolished slavery (but not really) in 1865. That same year, The Black Codes were passed and things like not showing respect, “malicious mischief” or loitering were offenses that landed newly freed slaves in prison. (History)
Many plantations in the south converted into prisons and stayed that way for over 100 years. The Corrections Corporation of America, a $1.8 billion private prison corporation, was founded by Terrell Don Hutto, who ran a cotton plantation the size of Manhattan in Texas until 1971. For-profit private prisons are concerned only with profit, not with rehabilitation. One prisoner wrote in his memoir that, as soon as the prison was privatized, his jailers “laid aside all objects of reformation and re-instated the most cruel tyranny, to eke out the dollar and cents of human misery.”(Time)
States put prisoners to work through a practice called “convict-leasing,” whereby white planters and industrialists “leased” prisoners to work for them. States and private businesses made money doing this, but prisoners didn’t. Convict leasing ended in 1910, however, companies like Whole Foods, Starbucks and Victoria Secret have benefited from prison labor in the past. (PBS)
Today — we see modern convict-leasing in cases such as California using incarcerated people as firefighters, saving the state $100 Million per year with their unpaid labor. The inmates earn $2 a day while in the camps and $1 an hour when out battling fires. (KQED)
Statistics
The U.S. has 5% of the world’s population but nearly 25% of its incarcerated population. (EJI)
32% of the US population is represented by Black and Hispanic people, compared to 56% of the US incarcerated population being represented by Black and Hispanic people. (NAACP)
A Black man is more than 5 times more likely to go to prison is his life than a white man. (US Department of Justice)
Compared to white men charged with the same crime and with the same criminal histories, Black men receive bail amounts 35% higher; for Hispanic men, bail is 19% higher than white men. (PJI)
People who cannot afford bond receive harsher case outcomes. They are 3 - 4 times more likely to receive a sentence to jail or prison, and their sentences are 2 - 3 times longer.(PJI)
Support
Support the Equal Justice Initiative. EJI strives to end mass incarceration and excessive punishment in the United States. They fight for those who have been wrongfully convicted, especially Black Americans. They are champions of prison reform from fighting against the death penalty to fighting for children in adult prisons to improving prison conditions.
Support The Bail Project. The Bail project combats mass incarceration through their national revolving bail fund. Remember that statistic earlier about 6 out of 10 people in U.S. jails—nearly a half million individuals on any given day—are awaiting trial? Those individuals, who are innocent until proven guilty, should be awaiting trial at home, and would be if they could pay for bail.
Next week, I’ll be talking more about Prison Reform, specifically current prison conditions and the ways in which amazing organizations like EJI and The Bail Project, amongst others, are fighting for reform in various areas, as well as ways you can fight too. I’ll see you there.
