Previously I discussed PIECP and how it is being used to increase prison labor while eliminating private sector jobs to reduce labor costs, overhead and increase profits. In this and the following segments I'll discuss the entire length of the money chain from arrest through bonding and incarceration to release. I'll provide the names of the corporations, organizations, and private businesses who make large profits off of arrests and incarceration and those who profit after release from reentry program funding and donations from you.
Today I want to explain the machination that make insourcing possible and who is involved, how they're involved and who funds these efforts. To understand the concept I need for you to form a mental image of a wagon wheel. This wheel is composed of: an outer iron rim, spokes that radiate and carry the weight and pressure from the rim equally to the outer hub that holds it all together. At the center of the hub is an inner hub that fits the entire wheel to an axle.
Without any one of those four necessary components, a wheel will not function: no spokes it collapses, no rim and the spokes will collapse without something to hold it together at the outer end. No outer hub, and the spokes dangle uselessly from the rim and no inner hub for an axle and the entire wheel has no purpose and could not function at all.
These mental images demonstrate that for a wheel to work properly there must be a way for several parts to work cohesively to perform a particular task, in this case roll while distributing weight evenly. This is also an apt description of how insourcing works.
For insourcing to work correctly for corporations, lawmakers and prison industries, everything must work together toward one goal: using inmate labor to produce products or provide services to consumers and other companies. When this is done properly, corporations and prison industries make lots of money and thousands of private sector jobs are eliminated.
In this case - back to the wheel - the "axle" represents the U.S. Government's Prison Industry Enhancement Certification Program - 18USC 1761(c). It fits nicely into the inner hub which in our wheel represents the National Correctional Industries Association (NCIA). NCIA is the connector between government program and prison industries and compliance with that program's laws and mandatory requirements.
The solid space between inner and outer hub represents the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). The Outer hub represents lobbyists, donors and affiliated sponsors who fund and support corporate and key legislative interests. The spokes radiating away from the hub are the U.S. Corporations and state lawmakers represented by the lobbyists and sponsors. The rim represents companies, associations and organizations that profit from arrests and incarceration (other than housing, care and labor) and serve as magnets that directs individuals to the wheel and transforms them into inmates. With all parts working in unison and smoothly the wheel rolls along the ground, accumulating inmates.
Attached to the axle (PIECP) is the authority and weight of the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs (OJP), Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) and the Surface Transportation Board housed under the Department of Transportation that enforces the Interstate Commerce Act (this is important since PIECP statutes were created under the Interstate Transportation Act addressing interstate commerce involving prison made goods).
As the foregoing demonstration shows, the full weight of several United States Agencies and Departments - from the Secretary of Commerce through the DOJ, OJP to the BJA - bear authority for the PIECP program, that connects to our wheel. In reality this is the relationship between the highest level of our government, through a federal program to prisoners - state and federal. Interspersed within that link are private corporations, lobbyists, lawmakers, ALEC and the NCIA...all with a financial interest involving inmates (housing, banking, phone rates, medical services, food service and labor).
Tomorrow I will explain how our "wheel" operates in a most efficient manner to generate corporate profits from initial arrest through eventual release from prison. You won't have thought about the connections before and will be surprised - and angered to learn just who all profits and how.
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