Should Prisoners Be Used in Medical Experiments?
When Richard Nixon declares a "war on drugs" the transnational elite understood that incarcerating inmates at rates that ultimately rival the former Soviet Union and repressive Middle Eastern regimes is not only an excellent profit center but an effective, if unpleasant, method of social control.
Prisons grew overcrowded and understaffed in the conversion of public prison systems into new private systems of incarceration and forced labor.
This draconian 'war on drugs' is not a war on 'drugs'.
This draconian 'war' is a war on people that use drugs that have not either not been approved for consumption, have not been obtained from the licensed pharmaceutical corporation holding the monopoly or the drugs that have not been prescribed by a properly licensed and regulated physician.
US Prison Industry: Big Business or a New Form of Slavery?
"Prohibition of alcohol fell flat on its face. The prohibition of other drugs rests on an equally wobbly foundation. As a cop, I bore witness to the multiple lunacies of the 'war on drugs'. In declaring 'war on drugs', we have declared war on our fellow citizens. War requires enemies we can demonize, fear and loathe. As a nation we are long overdue for a soul searching coldly analytical look at the 'drug scene' and the war on drugs. Such candor would reveal the futility of our current policies, exposing the embarrassingly meager return on our massive law enforcement effort of $167 billion a year. It is time to accept drug use as a right of adult Americans, treat drug abuse as a public health problem and end the madness of an unwinnable war."- Norm Stamper, former chief of the Seattle Police Department.
Cannabis was made illegal to increase the fortunes of William Randolf Hearst, the DuPont family and all the quack medicine producers of Rockefeller Medicine. Cannabis has a natural oil base so it remains visible in the body for 30 days whereas coal ash derivative water soluable chemicals wash out of the body in a few hours.
"Prisons are temples where devils learn to prey.
every time we cage a man we close him in with hate."
Supreme Court Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, a Ronald Reagan appointee, noted in a speech to the American Bar Association that "our resources are misspent, our punishments too severe, our sentences too long" and urged the American Bar Association to study "the inadequacies, and the injustices, in our prison and correctional systems". The resulting study suggested that Congress repeal mandatory minimum sentences suggesting that the laws tend "to be tough on the wrong people".
1982 US spent $9 billion on incarceration.
1985 US spends $36 billion on police, courts and incarceration.
1999 US spends $49 billion to incarcerate individuals.
2002 England, Italy and Germany have incarceration rates of around 100 per 100,000 of population whereas America has in an incarceration rate of 436 per 100,000.
2004 2.1 million prisoners behind American bars which is comparable to the rate of incarceration in the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin and Iraq under Saddam Hussein.
An individual convicted of petty theft in California - a theft of less than $400 - who is sentenced to serve any time in jail may be charged with a felony if caught stealing again and punished with up to three years in state prison.
5,500 individuals are serving third strike prison sentences in California including more than 100 serving a minimum of 25 years for petty theft.
2005 America spends $167 billion on incarceration. Seven million Americans, about 3% of the total American population, is incarcerated or on parole or probation.
California spends $573 million. 13,000 individuals, 9% of California prison population are three strikers. For a three striker, 25 years, the cost of incarceration is $750,000. Those sentenced to 25 years to life will effectively be wards of the State for as long as they live.
In North Carolina Junior Allen, 65, is released after 35 years of incarceration for stealing a black and white television set worth $140 in 1970.
2007 California imprisoned residents at 4 times the rate it did in 1980.
Govenor Arnold Schwarzenegger annonuces his new plan to borrow $7.4 billion to ease prison overcrowding by building new prisons. At this time 172,000 inmates are packed into space intended for 100,000 inmates.
2008 1 out of 100 American adults is incarcerated - the highest incarceration rate throughout recorded history.
California has built 30 prisons since 1980 but inmate levels are double design capacity. A federal judge finds that a least one avoidable death is occuring per week through sheer neglect and ineptitude even though spending on health care is up 263% from 2000 to $1.9 billion.
"Our prisons are crowded for one reason: We have too many people behind bars. We could start by finding a more appropriate way to deal with those prisoners who are more mentally ill than criminal, who were re-incarcerated for technical parole violations that pose no public safety threat, whose offense is mere drug possession, or who are serving 25-year mandatory minimum sentences for non-serious, nonviolent third strikes." - Sharon Dolovich, professor at UCLA School of Law.
Judge Mark A. Ciavarella Jr. and Michael T. Conahan appear in federal court in Scranton, Pa. to plead guilty to wire fraud and income tax evasion for taking more than $2.6 million in kickbacks to send teenagers to two privately run youth detention centers run by PA Child Care and a sister company, Western PA Child Care.
Judge Michael T. Conahan secured contracts for the two centers to house juvenile offenders while Judge Mark A. Ciavarella Jr. carried out the sentencing to keep the centers filled.
More than 500 sentenced juveniles had appeared before Mark A. Ciavarella Jr. without legal representation.
Former Luzerne County Judge Mark Ciavarella Jr. is sentenced to 28 years in federal prison for taking bribes from the builder of a pair of juvenile detention centers in a case that became known as "kids-for-cash."
2009 A federal three-judge panel rules that the California prison system must reduce overcrowding by as many as 55,000 inmates within three years to provide a constitutional level of medical and mental health care.