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March 24, 2005
Ruth Gilmore Interview in Your Black Eye
For the extended interview go to:
http://www.yourblackeye.org/YBE_Interview_Gilmore_1Q05.html
YBE: What is the number one myth about prisons and prisoners in America today? How does this myth contribute to or
sustain the problems you have addressed in your answer to the previous question?
RWG: Two myths vie for first place: (a)There are so many people in prison because private corporations exploit their labor,
which they can do because of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution and (b) there are so many new prisons because private
corporations team up with small-town folks hostile to prisoners (generally because they’re presumed to be racists) to create jobs
and profits. On the labor question: very few private corporations use prisoner labor because it isn’t cheap to set up a satellite
production platform in a prison. Most prisoners who work do so for a public entity (e.g., the Prison Industries Authority in
California). But many prisoners are idle, having no work, no school, no training, nothing. As for the second point: it is rare that
prison hosting towns have benefited economically from the prison, for reasons that have to do with the dynamic economic
geography of rural places – especially places where the topography is easy and the climate is mild. In addition, 95% of all prisons
and jails in the United States are publicly owned and operated. That was true 10 years ago and I suspect it will be true 10 years
from now.
These myths channel the energy of well-meaning folks into pointless projects and campaigns. Certainly, the enormous amount of
money that circulates because of prisons goes into somebody’s pocket. Closer understanding of public finance and the public
sector in general would do activists a lot of good, and save people from rushing down blind alleys. Of course, this presumes that
activists who decry over incarceration don’t simply mean they think it is bad only IF a big corporation or a few folks from a rural
community get money from the system. Making U.S. prisons 100% public, or putting them in communities where prisoners come
from, would not undo any of the generation-destroying consequences of keeping modestly educated women and men in cages for
part or all of their lives.
Posted by lois at March 24, 2005 08:50 AM