the prison-industrial complex
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The Prison-Industrial Complex. Social Policy and Correctional Health Care Martin Donohoe. - PowerPoint PPT PresentationTRANSCRIPT
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The Prison-Industrial Complex
Social Policy and Correctional Health Care
Martin Donohoe
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• “The mood and temper of the public in regard to the treatment of crime and criminals is one of the most unfailing tests of any country. A calm, dispassionate recognition of the rights of the accused and even of the convicted criminal, ... [and] the treatment of crime and the criminal mark and measure the stored-up strength of a nation, and are the sign and proof of the living virtue within it.”
Winston Churchill
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Lockdown:US Incarceration Rates
• World prison population 8.75 million• US: 6.5 million under correctional supervision
(behind bars, on parole, or on probation) - 1/31 adults (vs. 1/77 in 1982)– 2.3 million behind bars (jail + prison)
• 1.52 million in jail; 0.79 million in prison• Includes 250,000 women, 93,000 youths• 1.6 million prisoners in China
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Lockdown:US Incarceration Rates
• 6-fold increase in # of people behind bars from 1972-2000
– And rising
• # of women behind bars up 750% from 1980
• 3100 local jails, 1200 state and federal prisons in U.S.
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Lockdown:US Incarceration Rates
• 10 million Americans put behind bars each year
• 3-fold increase in # of people behind bars from 1987-2007
– Crime rate down 25% compared with 1988
• # of women behind bars up 750% from 1980
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Lockdown:US Incarceration Rates and Costs
• US incarceration rate highest in world
–Russia close second
–6X > Britain, Canada, France
• Costs: $30,000/yr for prison spot; $70,000/yr for jail spot
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Race and Detention Rates
• African-Americans: 1815/100,000
–More black men behind bars than in college
• Latino-Americans: 609/100,000
• Caucasian-Americans: 235/100,000
• Asian-Americans: 99/100,000
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Immigration Detention Centers
• Run by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a branch of DHS– Haphazard network of governmentally- and
privately-run jails
• Increasing numbers of detainees (“War on Immigration”)– Fastest-growing form of detention in U.S.– Lucrative business
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Immigration Detention Centers / Guantanamo
• Abuses common, including over 100 deaths since late 2003
• Guantanamo, overseas black-ops sites (extraordinary rendition)– 92% were never involved with al-Qaeda (per
government data)
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Jail and Prison Overcrowding
• 22 states and federal prison system at 100%+ capacity in 2000
• 1/11 prisoners serving life sentence
–¼ of these without possibility of parole
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Reasons for Overcrowding
• “War on Drugs”
• Mandatory Minimums
• Repeat Offender laws– 13 states have “three strikes laws”
• Truth in Sentencing regulations
• Decreased judicial independence
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Corporate Crime:Silent but Deadly
• $200 billion/yr. (vs. $4 billion for burglary and robbery)
• Fines for corporate environmental and social abuses minimal/cost of doing business
• Some corporations linked to human rights abuses in US and abroad
• Most lobby Congress to weaken environmental and occupational health and safety laws
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Corporate Crime
• “The [only] social responsibility of business is to increase its profits.”
Milton Friedman• “Corporations [have] no moral conscience.
[They] are designed by law, to be concerned only for their stockholders, and not, say, what are sometimes called their stakeholders, like the community or the work force…”
Noam Chomsky
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Corporate Crime
• “Corporation: An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility.”
Ambrose Bierce
• “A criminal is a person with predatory instincts who has not sufficient capital to form a corporation.”
Howard Scott
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The Prison-Industrial Complex
• Private prisons currently hold 16% of federal and 7% of state prisoners–Only UK has higher proportion of
private prisoners than US
• 18 corporations guard 10,000 prisoners in 27 states
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Private prison boom over past 15 years
• Reasons:– Prevailing political philosophy which
disparages the effectiveness of (and even need for) government social programs
– Often-illusory promises of free-market effectiveness
–Despite evidence to contrary (e.g., Medicare/Medicaid, water privatization, etc.)
– Increasing demand from ICE and USMS
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The Prison-Industrial Complex
• Leading trade group:– American Correctional Association
• For-profit companies involved:– Corrections Corporation of America
• Controls 2/3 of private U.S. prisons
– GEO Group (formerly Wackenhut)• Together these two companies control 75% of
market, with over $2.9 billion revenue in 2010
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The Prison-Industrial Complex
• For-profit companies involved:– Correctional Medical Services
– Others (Westinghouse, AT&T, Sprint, MCI, Smith Barney, American Express, Merrill Lynch, Shearson-Lehman, Allstate, GE, Wells Fargo [7% owned by Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway])
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Corrections Corporation of America
• Largest for-profit prison corporation• Largest detainer of undocumented immigrants
– Facilitated by Arizona’s SB1070 and similar laws in UT, IN, GA, AL, and SC
• Earns between$90 and $200 per prisoner per night
• Accused of paying lower salaries and providing less training than state-run prisons
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The Prison-Industrial Complex
• Aggressive marketing to state and local governments– Promise jobs, new income
• Rural areas targeted– Face declines in farming, manufacturing,
logging, and mining
• Companies offered tax breaks, subsidies, and infrastructure assistance
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The Prison-Industrial Complex:2001 Bureau of Justice Study
• Average savings to community 1%• Does not take into account:
– Hidden monetary subsidies– Private prisons selecting least costly inmates
• c.f., “cherry picking” by health insurers
– Private prisons attract large national chain stores like Wal-Mart, which:
• leads to demise of local businesses• Shifts locally-generated tax revenues to distant
corporate coffers
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The Prison-Industrial Complex:Politically Well-Connected
• Private prison industry donated $1.2 million to 830 candidates in 2000 elections
– $100,000 from CCA to indicted former House Speaker Tom Delay’s (R-TX) Foundation for Kids
• Delay’s brother Randy lobbied TX Bureau of Prisons on behalf of GEO
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The Prison-Industrial Complex:Politically Well-Connected
• Spent over $20 million lobbying legislators and DHS between 2003 and 2010
• $3.3 million donated in 44 states between 2000 and 2004
– 2/3 to candidates, 1/3 to parties (2/3 of this to Republicans
– More given to states with tougher sentencing laws
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The Prison-Industrial Complex:Abuses
• Some paid for non-existent prisoners, due to inmate census guarantees
• 2009: Two judges in PA convicted of jailing 2000 children in exchange for bribes from private prison companies
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Jails for Jesus:Faith-Based Initiatives
• Increasing presence
• Politically powerful
• Most evangelical Christian
• Supported financially by George W Bush’s Faith-Based Initiatives Program– e.g., Prison Fellowship Ministries – founded
by Watergate felon Charles Colson in 1976
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Jails for Jesus:Faith-Based Initiatives
• Offer perks in exchange for participation in prayer groups and courses
– Perks: better cell location, job training and post-release job placement
– Courses: Creationism, “Intelligent Design”, “Conversion Therapy” for homosexuals
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Jails for Jesus:Faith-Based Initiatives
• Some programs “cure” sex offenders through prayer and Bible study– Rather than evidence-based programs
employing aversion therapy and normative counseling
• Highly recidivist and dangerous criminals may be released back into society armed with little more than polemics about sin
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Health Issues of Prisoners
• At least 1/3 of state and ¼ of federal inmates have a physical impairment or mental condition– Mental illness– Dental caries and periodontal disease– Infectious diseases: HIV, Hep B and C, STDs
(including HPV→cervical CA)– Usual chronic illnesses seen in aging
population
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Crime and Substance Abuse
• 52% of state and 34% of federal inmates under influence of alcohol or other drugs at time of offenses
• Rates of alcohol and opiate dependency among arrestees at least 12% and 4%, respectively– 28% of jails detoxify arrestees
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Inmate Deaths
• 141 per 100,000 deaths in custody in 2007
• 89% - medical conditions
–8% - suicide or homicide
–3% - alcohol/drug intoxication or accidental injury
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Inmate Deaths
• Blacks prisoners have ½ mortality of Black non-prisoners (fewer alcohol- and drug-related deaths, lethal accidents, and chronic diseases; guaranteed health care)
• White prisoners have 12% higher mortality than White non-prisoners (higher death rates from infections, including HIV and hepatitis)
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Inmate Deaths
• Very few prisons have hospice programs
• Some have compassionate release programs, to allow death outside of prison before completion of sentence
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Prison Health Care
• Estelle v. Gamble (US Supreme Court, 1976): affirms inmates constitutional right to medical care (based on 8th Amendment prohibiting cruel and unusual punishment)
• Amnesty International and AMA have commented upon poor overall quality of care
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Prison Health Care
• 60% provided by government entities
• 40% (in 34 states) provided by private corporations
• Private care often substandard
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Prison Health Care
• Some doctors unable to practice elsewhere have limited licenses to work in prisons
• Some government and private institutions require co-pays
–Discourages needed care; increases costs
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Examples of Substandard Prison Health Care
• Correctional Medical Systems (largest/cheapest)– Numerous lawsuits/investigations for poor
care, negligence, patient dumping; opaque accounting of taxpayer dollars
• Prison Health Services– Cited by NY state for negligence/deaths;
subject of >1000 lawsuits; under investigation in VT
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Examples of Substandard Prison Health Care
• California’s state prison health care system placed into receivership through 2012
–1 unnecessary death/day
–$5 co-pays limit access
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Rehabilitation and Release
• 600,000 prisoners released each year
– 4-fold increase over 1980
– 97% of all prisoners eventually return to the community
– 1990s: funding for rehab dramatically cut
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Rehabilitation and Release
• Newly released and paroled convicts face restricted access to federally-subsidized housing, welfare, and health care
• ½ of state correctional facilities provide only a 1-2 week supply of medication
• Wait times for Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security benefits up to 3 months
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Rehabilitation and Release
• Drug felons in 18 states permanently banned from receiving welfare
• High risk of death in first few weeks after release, mostly due to homicide, suicide, and drug overdose
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Ex-offenders have poor job prospects
• Little education and job skills training occur behind bars– GED programs reduce recidivism, decrease costs
• Most prisoners released with $50 to $100 “gate money” and a bus ticket
• Limited resumés, background checks• 60% of employers would not knowingly hire an
ex-offender• High rates of criminal recidivism
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Summary
• US world’s wealthiest nation
• Incarcerates greater percentage of its citizens than any other country
• Criminal justice system marred by racism
• Prisoner health care substandard
• Until recently, US executed juveniles and mentally handicapped
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Summary
• US continues to execute adults
• Drug users confined with more hardened criminals in overcrowded institutions– Creates ideal conditions for nurturing and
mentoring of more dangerous criminals
• Punishment prioritized over rehabilitation
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Summary
• Convicts released without necessary skills to maintain abstinence and with few job skills
• Poor financial and employment prospects of released criminals make return to crime an attractive or desperate survival option
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Summary
• US criminal justice system marked by injustices, fails to lower crime and increase public safety
• Significant portions of system turned over to enterprises that value profit over human dignity, development and community improvement
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Role of Health Professionals in Creating a Fair Criminal Justice System
• Address social ills that foster substance abuse and other crimes– Especially rising gap between rich and poor,
haves and have nots
• Increase focus on magnitude and consequences of corporate crime
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Role of Health Professionals in Creating a Fair Criminal Justice System
• Speak out against injustice, racism, death penalty
• Improve provider education re criminal justice system
• Run for office
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Health Professionals and Criminality
• 2002: AAMC standard application includes questions about felony convictions
• 2008: Questions about military discharge history and misdemeanor convictions added
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Health Professionals and Criminality
• Medical schools make final judgments– Previous offences one of the most robust
predictors of future offenses• Including cheating
– 2009: BU med student accused of stalking/murder
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Conclusion
• Hold government accountable for creating fair system that combines reasonable punishment with restitution and smooth re-entry of rehabilitated criminals into society
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Prison Health Care
• “A society should be judged not by how it treats its outstanding citizens but by how it treats its criminals.”
Fyodor Dostoevsky
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Reference
• Donohoe MT. Incarceration Nation: Health and Welfare in the Prison System in the United States. Medscape Ob/Gyn and Women’s Health 2006;11(1): posted 1/20/06. Available at http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/520251