Cuban prisoners exploited – so what should we say about our own?
Al’s Loupe
Cuban prisoners exploited – so what should we say about our own?
By Alvaro F. Fernandez
alvaro@progresoweekly.com
The most recent orchestrated campaign by U.S.-influenced media seems to revolve around the “scandalous” use of prisoners on behalf of Cuban enterprises. On Tuesday, The Miami Herald’s Juan Tamayo wrote a detailed article highlighting “Cuban prisoners earn little to nothing while working for numerous government enterprises…” Previously, we had learned that our always-vigilant Cuban-American members of Congress have attempted to meet with officials from the IKEA furniture chain because of claims that they may have contracted a Cuban state-owned company to do work for them in 1987.
I must give Tamayo credit. His piece, not surprisingly slanted to please his anti-Cuba Miami audience, also states correctly, “Prison labor is common around the world.” And adds, “Most [prisoners] earn nothing…”
Of course, and something we’ve become accustomed to, if it’s in Cuba malevolent forces are behind it. Elizardo Sanchez Santa Cruz, a well-known island dissident, referred to it as “like the dark side of the moon.” And Sanchez argued that it cannot compare to other prison labor systems, like the U.S.’ for example, because “Cuba is a dictatorship.”
But what about our own, right here in the U.S.?
Florida, for example, charges prisoners for room and board in order to offset the cost of prisons to taxpayers. In other words, some Florida prisoners are paid minimal wages. And the state gets most of it back by charging them room and board. Others are not paid for their work in exchange for shorter sentences.
Let’s get something straight. I don’t find the idea of a prisoner paying his or her way such a bad idea. That is until you start looking into why prisons in the U.S. have become such a big, growing and profitable business – for the few who are politically connected.
The fact is that the trend is to privatize prisons in the United States. Why? There’s a lot of money to be made.
Let me explain.
In Florida, Prison Rehabilitative Industries and Diversified Enterprises (PRIDE), a privately held not for profit corporation, is charged with the state’s prison work programs. If you check PRIDE’s website you’ll note the diversity of products they sell through contracts with private companies. As one of many possible examples, and this is according to a 2011 article written in The Nation, “PRIDE has become one of the largest printing corporations in the state, its cheap labor having a significant impact upon smaller local printers.”
But there’s more. Much more. With new laws being approved by state legislatures throughout the country, there’s a greater need for prisons. Currently, we can’t keep up with the number of persons being incarcerated. And as I mentioned there is a general movement, being led by politicians and those who finance them, to privatize prisons.
Where do you think the money comes from to build these new prisons? Money which ends up in private hands?
Taxpayers! (For those who like to compare, think Miami Marlins baseball stadium.)
Alex Friedman, associated editor of Prison Legal News, expressed it succinctly when he wrote that prison labor is part of a “confluence of similar interests.” That interest is what is known as the “prison industrial complex” – or politicians and corporations working in tandem for a profit.
Then there’s the American Legislative Exchange Council or ALEC – which we’ve written about at Progreso Weekly. As the ALEC Exposed website defines them: ALEC is not a lobby; it is not a front group. It is much more powerful than that. Through ALEC, behind closed doors, corporations hand state legislators the changes to the law they desire that directly benefit their bottom line.
According to The Nation, ALEC has been “instrumental … in the explosion of the U.S. prison population in the past few decades.” This was achieved by pioneering some of the toughest sentencing laws on the books today. Oftentimes for non-violent drug offenders and others who too often are wrongly incarcerated. And, by the way, the majority of these “offenders” are the poor – including a large number of blacks and Latinos. In other words, ALEC is at the center of the “confluence” I mentioned earlier. Assuring that as prisons get privatized more people become incarcerated. And taxpayer dollars start rolling in…
Some of the results include a more burdened American taxpayer while at the same time cheap inmate labor contributing to lost jobs, unemployment and decreased wages among workers. But… corporate profits keep soaring.
Getting back to The Miami Herald article on Cuban prisoners. Some dissidents have labeled them “slave laborers.” I do not doubt their facts, but the article was mostly hearsay.
Still, I wonder, what then to call cases just mentioned right here in Florida? Prisoners working for their room and board – or shorter sentences. And corporations, which run the prisons they live in, raking in the big bucks. Oh, but I forgot, I live in a plutocracy referred to as democracy: exploitation of the less fortunate is allowed.
