With all of the recent publicity surrounding the current state of public schools in major cities, I have been meaning to write this piece for the last few weeks but just keep getting sidetracked.  I am not one to jump on just any old bandwagon that passes my door nor am I a devout conspiracy theorist but recently I have heard and read up on some information that is, without a doubt, food for serious thought.

Some countries used to decide what occupation a person would enter by using a standardized test.  What you scored on that test would determine what occupation a person was going to do to earn a living.  If a person scored high enough, they would be allowed to receive higher education and enter into a professional arena.  If they scores were not high enough then the test taker would be remanded to a life of manual labor.  I am beginning to think that we are doing something very similar in the U.S. but using a different method.

28 states have passed legislation to allow for the existence of privatized prisons.  Those are prisons that are not state owned or state funded per se however they are allowed to bill the state or federal government for the care of the inmates.  Many of these corporations are now planning how many more prisons they will need to build based on 3rd and 4th grade reading scores as there has been a direct link established between lack of education and the crime rate.  Most inmates do not possess a high school diploma upon their entry into the penal system.

That said, I think that there is a weeding out process taking place in the public school systems in most cities.  Classrooms are overcrowded, students are exhibiting negative and sometimes dangerous behaviors and many public schools have cut funding for advanced placement programs to try and meet the educational need.  This weeding out process allows for some children to be voluntarily bussed to suburban schools to receive an education.  For those children who are not bussed but show some sign of academic promise, there is the opportunity for them to test and then be placed in a lottery system to attend a magnet or charter school.  Some of the magnet and charter schools are funded by the public school systems and some are private.  Along with the students that are going to the magnet or charter schools, so are some of the best teachers.  They are going to the magnet and charter schools because the class sizes are smaller and they are less dangerous.  Many of the teachers who have transferred believe that it gives them a better opportunity to educate.  Finally there is the option of attending a parochial school, there are scholarships available for those whose families cannot afford tuition.

Now, lets step back and take a look at this, you start with a school system that has good teachers and educable students, start taking the “best” of the students and the teachers and filter them out, leaving the “rest” in the pubic school system.  Many of those who are left eventually drop out and end up where…you guessed it, in prison.

It’s a known fact that slave labor was used in the U.S. because it was inexpensive.  When that was no longer legal, many businesses and corporations began using inexpensive immigrant labor or shipping their industrial work to countries where workers get paid pennies on the dollar and the company can still receive tax incentives.  Enter the prison systems, public and private.  The average inmate makes approximately $15.00 every two weeks working a job at the prison during their incarceration, that’s $30.00 per month to manufacture goods that are then resold by large companies.

Some companies that benefit from the use of prison labor include Chevron, IBM, Victoria’s Secret, Texas Instruments, Honeywell and Motorola.  The federal prison system trades under the name Unicor but the private prisons stand to benefit the most from inmate labor because they get first crack at the contracts since they have to raise most of their operating costs on their own.

In my opinion, we have managed to create a new type of “involuntary servitude” or “slavery” if you will.  Most of the immigrants and overseas employees are making more than thirty dollars a month so it’s actually less expensive for those companies to contract with prisons to make their goods.  I think that the “system” has found a way to isolate those who are the most “at risk”, under-serve them by “educating” them in crowded classes, sub par building conditions with ill equipped teachers with the hopes that the data remains correct, those who do not complete high school are more likely to transition into the prison system.

I completely understand that committing a crime and going to prison is a choice that’s made by a person but face it, many kids are raising themselves, baited by the temptation of “fast money” and in some other cases, trying to help support the family.  Those are not always the case with someone who is doing time but the reality still exists big business stands to profit in a big way on the backs of undereducated people, especially minority men.

I can’t say that if was not for inmate labor that those jobs would be available to the American worker because it’s obvious that big business will find cheap labor but I do struggle with the idea that certain groups are singled out to self distruct.  It’s almost seems as if a family is not able to get their child into one of the funnels that takes them into an alternative school setting that those children end up in a whole different funnel and that funnel leads to $30.00 per month.  Hence all of the lobbying that states and large corporations do to ensure access to privatized prisons.

So, what say you?  Do you think that disallowing big business to partake in the benefits of inmate labor further put our “at risk” youth more at risk than they started out or are some of these links sheer coincidence?  Second question is, would big businesses be as motivated to USE inmate labor if they had to relinquish a percentage of their profit and donate it to the local public school systems?

If you want to read more about this, I found a really good article on the use of prison labor and the economic impact it has on society.  Prison Labor Cheats Society

Originally Posted 9/28/09