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More Prisons More Prisoners 2
February 27, 2012 - 4:27pm
continues from here:
http://rabble.ca/babble/national-news/more-prisons-more-prisoners
More Prisons, Higher Profits - by Kaley Kennedy
http://www.dominionpaper.ca/articles/4333
"Criticism of cheap prison labour is something often aimed at privately owned US super jails, but here in Canada, thousands of imprisoned people form a labour pool where wages dip below a dollar an hour. Every year, about 4,800 inmates across the country participate in CORCAN work programs.
Inmates are paid a maximum of $6.90 per day, have no vacation time or vacation pay and need clearance from a health professional to take a sick day. Overtime pay is just $1 per hour and inmates are required to hand over 25 per cent of any earnings over $69 biweekly, for room and board.
Prison expansion allows for a larger inmate workforce..."
If you type in "prison corporation" in any search engine you get a pretty good idea on what The Harper govt is up too..No question they want to turn the prison industry into a money making enterprise for a select few dirty tory scumbags and to do so means creating more laws to fill quotos...something we are witnessing with the introduction of new laws by the truckload....as for profit prisons can only be profitable if packed. Basically get rid of the conservatives before they get rid of you should be the Canadian motto right now....this election fraud is a golden opportunity if there ever was one.
Private Prison Company to Demand 90% Occupancy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-QvXax88J8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0eQgUpkJ1Q
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ns8LD5Q8ecc
This is Harper's idea of a multi-pronged approach to unemployment in this challenging economic climate. It seeks to encourage a reduction in the overall figures by potentially creating more jobs for the prison industry, while simultaneously incarcerating as many of those as possible who make up the statistics; thereby removing them entirely from consideration within the unemployment rate. You have to admit that it represents a far more aggressive strategy than the elementary one used by the Americans, where they simply stop counting people as being unemployed when they run out of benefits.
Thank you Buddy - Slumberjack - very informative.
Stephen Harper's corporate jails - this from a prime minister who oversaw the rigging of his own election. Someone should be up front and center, maybe eclipsing that Rae guy, I wouldn't even care if it was the green party - just someone else to add to Rae's voice. I can't believe it isn't a bigger issue.
Anyway, I can only add, anyone growing 5+ cannabis plants gets a 1 year sentence under the omnibus crime law - the judge has no say.
Oh and cyber crime. that's next, they'll find a way to arrest folk for their net activity.
Prison Spending Trumps Seniors for Harper Government
http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Prison+spending+trumps+seniors+Harper+g...
"The Harper government is prioritizing new prison spending over maintaining senior's retirement benefits, for reasons known only to itself. This when Human Resources Minister Diane Finley has just confirmed the upcoming federal budget will outline age-based eligibility deays to Old Aged Security, for even the neediest seniors..."
long past time for this government to go...
Here's the action Harper wants a piece of..
Locking Down an American Workforce in the Prison-Corporate Complex
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/04/19-4?nocache=1
"Prison labor as the past - and future - of American 'free market' capitalism.."
Prisoner Self-Injury on the Rise in Canada (and vid)
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2012/10/11/pol-prisoner-self-harm-...
"Biggest spike among Aboriginal women offenders..."
Canada's gulag horror show
There's an amazing new documentary out called "The House I Live In" that I can't recommend strongly enough. It's about how the "war on drugs" fuels the prison industry and the devestating effectgs of imprisoning so many people both for what prison is like on the inside and how it screws up the lives of families left behind and leaves ex-felons really screwed in terms of getting jobs when they get out. It's American where these issues are even worse but could applies pretty well to Canada as well.
The House I Live In (trailer)
http://vimeo.com/35282281
Rape in America's Prisons - by David Rosen
http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/10/12/rape-in-americas-prisons/
"...The prison-industrial complex, like the military-industrial system, is a self-perpetuating racket in which victory means failure. Like the military industrial system's demand for an eternal enemy, the prison-industrial complex would collapse without an inexhaustible stream of criminals..."
I just watched the Harry Belafonte movie Sing Your Song (2011). He went ballistic when he saw the five-year-old black girl being arrested and put in handcuffs for the huge crime of being "unruly". One of the quotes from that segment of the movie, where they talk about the USA having the largest prison population in the world, and it's a majority coloured men and women population, that "incarceration is the new slavery".
Awesome film - see it if you can.