------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the Oct. 25, 2001 issue of Workers World newspaper -------------------------
OMINOUS GROWTH INDUSTRY: MASS DETENTIONS PUSH UP PRISON STOCKS By Monica Moorehead The House of Representatives passed "anti-terrorism" legislation on Oct. 12 that gives the government sweeping new powers for wiretapping, surveillance and investigation. Civil liberties advocates had argued against the bill, warning that its passage could usher in dangerous infringements on privacy and constitutional rights. But one small minority group is salivating at the passage of this legislation. These greedy investors in private prisons have dollar signs for eyes. They are anticipating a huge boom in profits as private prisons, already crowded with a reported 700 new detainees, are expanded to detain more thousands who may be accused of connections to "terrorism." The Bush administration and all the repressive arms of the state are using the tragic events of Sept. 11 as an excuse to legalize racist profiling on a broad, sweeping scale. Those particularly vulnerable are Arabs, South Asians and all who practice the Islamic faith, as well as Black, Latino, Native and other peoples of color and immigrants. The newly created Office of Homeland Security will be the main administrator of these unconstitutional mass detentions. This office will have a $15 billion budget and will combine the repressive forces of the FBI, CIA, INS and other agencies. And who will head up the Office of Homeland Security? The former governor of Pennsylvania, Tom Ridge, who signed more death warrants than any other governor. Not all have been carried out. Mass protests have led to the vacating of two execution warrants Ridge signed against the best-known U.S. political prisoner on death row, Mumia Abu-Jamal. George W. Bush himself, as governor of Texas, was dubbed Governor Death because he presided over the most executions of any state. As governor, Ridge not only was a vicious pro-death penalty, anti-labor, anti-environmental politician, but he had very close ties to Pennsylvania's corporate elite. In Bush's eyes, that made him the perfect choice to head up this new cabinet post. As the head of the Homeland Security Office, he will be able to have a direct say on how the Bureau of Federal Prisons will divide up prison construction projects among the privately owned prison corporations next year. PRIVATE PRISON STOCK SOARS Wall Street can also depend on the judicial arm to do its bidding. The U.S. Su pre me Court is scheduled to make a ruling very soon that could bar inmates from suing private prisons for civil rights violations. The role of these corporations is to build privately run prisons on behalf of the U.S. and governments abroad. Wall Street sustains itself by buying and selling stocks based on speculative bidding on which can bring in the highest profit margins. Once the "anti-terrorism" bill came before Congress, the value of stocks in some private prison corporations zoomed by as much as 300 percent. The Bureau of Federal Prisons is now in the process of taking bids on prison construction contracts. The BFP has allowed Georgia to bid on two prisons and is seeking bids for three more prisons in the Southwest desert next year. The country's largest prison corporation, Corrections Corporation of America, is expected to make the biggest gains. Just a few months ago, the CCA was facing bankruptcy. It found a new business life after Sept. 11, when its stock value shot up by 308 percent. This corporation maintains 65 prisons in the U.S. and Puerto Rico that incarcerate 61,000 human beings, including 500 in Leavenworth Federal Prison. There is no question that the prisons-for-profits investors received a shot in the arm with the Sept. 11 events. But these bloodsuckers also cash in on economic hard times. James MacDonald, a prisons-security analyst at First Analysts Securities, stated, "Crime always goes up in a bad economy. Where there are good times and jobs are plentiful, people who get out of prison can usually find work and don't have to go back to their old ways. When the economy fails, so do the former inmates." (New York Post, Oct. 4) The Sept. 11 tragedy is helping to expose in an unprecedented way how the capitalist system takes full advantage of a catastrophe--not to benefit the people, but to carry out the aims and objectives of a tiny clique of bosses, bankers and their puppets to achieve political, military and economic domination over the entire world. The growing anti-war movement should take up the slogan: Money for jobs, schools, health care and human needs--not for prisons, racist repression and war. - END - (Copyright Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but changing it is not allowed. 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