Week 17 - Mass Incarceration and the PIC

Canada’s Attempts at Private Prisons

2001 - Central Northern Correctional Center

• Built to replace 3 correctional facilities

• “Superjail” that held 1200 Max Security prisoners

• Oversought by a private American company on a 5 year lease

2006 - Provincial Government didn’t renew the contract because..

• “Human costs” such as escapes, indadequate healthcare, shit security, and higher recidivism rates

Public Private Partnerships (3 P’s)

A clandestine arrangement between public sector and private sector entities to deliver public services or infrastructure projects, often sharing risks and rewards.

A prison on the outside is seemingly a publicly funded institution, but is actually run by private companies

• e.x. construction, maintenance, food delivery, etc

• Privatization of prisons means punishment is now an economic outcome

  • Private companies affect CJS policies now cause they want people to do time

The Prison Indsutrial Complex

A system where prisons are operated as profit-driven enterprises, involving a collaboration between government and private entities to manage incarceration and rehabilitation.

Neoliberalism

An economic and political ideology that emphasizes free market policies, deregulation, and reduction in government spending, impacting social services and public welfare.

• Individual responsibility over community/system

• “The system didn’t mess you over, you did”

“Removes” governments from decision making, emphasizing the private sector

Neoliberalism and the PIC

Neoliberalism looks at why individuals didn’t make better choices, as opposed to the conditions they were in that led to their incarceration

Sees prison as a “site” to correct poor choices

Four Causes of the PIC

1. Scale of the prison population & impact on certain groups

2. Result of Social policy

• Related to the Inevitability of Criminalization

3. Systems of State Control

• Done to exert power over certain groups and contain populations systemically

4. Colonial Violence

• Related to peculiar institutions

Inevitability of Criminalization

The neoliberal destruction of social safety nets that lead to criminalization

• e.x. Public healthcare, social services, education, etc

• Leads to increased criminalization of vulnerable communities

Think of homeless people not receiving adequate care - more interaction with the CJS

Peculiar Institution

An institution that has evolved, shifted, and resurfaced itself (PRISON INSTITUTION)

• Prisons aren’t new, just amalgamations of previous stages of oppression

The prison institution has evolved from these areas:

• Chattel Slavery - Abduction and Commodification of Black people

• Jim Crow Laws - Social segregation

• Ghettos - Location exclusion and segregation into underfunded communities

The final stage would be prison, which represents all of these areas

Consequences of Mass Incarceration

Coercive Mobility

Deskilling

Exile and Extraction

Years lost to prison

Mass imprisonment generates social wealth through reproducing criminogenic conditions that lead people to prison

• Money is put into “reaction” rather than “proaction” against criminality

  • e.x. Money is going into policing and corrections rather than programs

• Done to maximize profits through cyclical incarceration and recidivism

Less $$ going into social programs —→ more interaction with the cjs → more people in prison → more money for prisons → profit

Coercive Mobility (consequence of mass incarceration)

Prison restricts the individual’s ability to move in their own free will

• Tied to overcrowding in prisons

Deskilling (consequence of mass incarceration)

The idea that when people are incarcerated, they cannot develop the skills required for jobs on their release

• e.x. usage of tech

• Keeps them restricted from opportunities when they come out, leading to higher recidivism

Exile and Extraction (consequence of mass incarceration)

Prison is a form of extraction, enabling people to be “removed” or extracted from local communities as if they were commodities such as natural resources

Years of life lost to incarceration (consequence of mass incarceration)

The time people spend incarcerated has linked to:

• Mental health issues

• Health outcomes from poor conditions

Bell, Let’s Talk about the PIC (Acquino, Dobson) (2021)

Bell, the telephone company, is the #1 service provider for the PIC

• Charges ludicrous prices for prisoner calls

Calls are reported to be necessary for prisoners’ “mental health”

• Despite charging bullshit prices

• Made $64 mill off of prison calls, with prisoners having to pay for these calls

Who does the PIC benefit"?

Through prison labour and poor pay, private companies such as Corcan benefit

Corcan

The Canadian organization that manages and oversees the employment of federal inmates in Canada, providing job training and skills development while generating revenue for the correctional system.

• Most prisoners don’t work in the Corcan programs, often working on prison tasks

90% of products/services created by prisoners through Corcan’s programs are sold back to federal governments,

• e.x. Making office cubicles, materials used for the Department of Defense, etc

GOAL OF CORCAN - give people transferable skills when they are released

Prisoners’ Rate of Pay (1991)

Split into 3 categories - Minimum, Medium, and Maximum

• Minimum security level paid the most at higher pay levels

• People were paid relatively the same as minimum wage work

Even if people refused to work, they were given $1.60 (about $3.20 today)

Prisoners’ Rate of Pay (NOW)

The security classification is gone - replaced with Pay levels ranging from A-D, and Zero pay

• The most you can make now is $6.90, way below minimum wage

Majority of inmates working are paid at level C, $5.80/day

The way inmates maintain their job classes is also restrictive

• for Maintaining a Level A job one must have no unauthorized absences, or no unjustified late arrivals

How is the PIC maintained?

The public allows that shit to happen, often through Nimbyism

Nimbyism

The phenomenon where people within a community push back against a new development or change as it’s deemed inappropriate in their local area

• e.x. Pushbacks against alternative methods of sentencing besides prison due to crime control beliefs in media

NIMBY - not in my backyard (often reflects rejection of social policies)

Piche, Kleuskens & Walby argue that Nimbyism mindsets are a part ofthe strategies the PIC uses to get the public to back them through crime control philosophies

Erving Goffman - stage interactions

Social interactions are a “play” where people present themselves and play a character to appear in the best possible light

Front stage - Where people play social characters to look good and do what is expected of them

Back Stage - The true self outside of character

How does the stage interactions analogy apply to the PIC?

In order to get people on board with allowing the PIC, they use these methods

Front stage - published materials that talk about the benefits of the prison system

• e.x. the idea of integrated rehabilitation systems, job opportunities, adequate treatment, etc

• All lip service and bullshit

Back stage - Unpublished materials they don’t want to tell the public

• Public might fight back against the PIC

Supportive and Negating Components of the PIC’s “stage play”

Supportive Component - highlights strats used to paint the prison system as a needed institution (front stage)

Negating Component - ideas used to critique the PIC and propose alternative responses

Front Stage in PIC (Piche et al.)

1. Appeals to Public Safety

• Emphasis on surveillance to prevent future crime

2. Healing and Rehabilitation

• Emphasis on rehabilitation of prisoners

3. Indigenizing Corrections

• Attempt to say a space is more “indigenized” and has elders living on sites

• Doesn’t address historical mass incarceration

4. Economic Stimulus

• Mega prisons as “providing job opportunities to prisoners”

5. “Green Practices”

• Fronting about “sustainable practices” such as reducing garbage and planting trees