<nettime> The Twisted Incentives of Captive Labor

[Alan Sondheim <sondheim@panix.com>]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 16 Feb 2000 21:00:53 -0500
From: Rick Shenkman <Rick@tompaine.com>
Reply-To: editor@tompaine.com
To: brc-announce@lists.tao.ca
Subject: [BRC-ANN] The Twisted Incentives of Captive Labor

February 14, 2000

WELCOME TO TOMPAINE.COM
http://www.tompaine.com/

CLICK HERE TO SEE THIS WEEK'S WEDNESDAY NEW YORK TIMES OP AD:
http://www.tompaine.com/op_ad.html

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THIS WEEK:  THE TWISTED INCENTIVES OF CAPTIVE LABOR
================================================================

This week the prison population of the United States broke a record. TWO
MILLION people are now behind bars in this country, quadrupling the inmate
population in the past twenty years. We now have more people behind bars
than China. States now spend more on prisons than on universities. Click
here for the facts: 

http://www.tompaine.com/features/2000/02/14/2.html

More surprising ... tens of thousands of these prisoners now work for
private corporations, creating what some critics have begun to call, THE
PRISON INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX. Workers who spent decades fighting for
health-care benefits, vacations and holidays now have to compete for jobs
with convicts in prison. You think corporations pay those convicts full
benefits? Of course, not. That's one reason corporations like prison
labor: it saves them money. And, oh, yes, THEY NEVER GO ON STRIKE: 

http://www.tompaine.com/features/2000/02/14/3.html

Meanwhile, in California voters in March are being asked to approve Prop
21, which would vastly expand the already- burgeoning prison population. A
kid convicted of spray painting a park bench could be found guilty of a
felony and sentenced to a year in prison. And who's behind this
proposition? Some believe it's corporations which stand to benefit from a
captive prison labor force: 

http://tompaine.com/features/2000/02/14/index.html

================================================================
================================================================

ALSO this week we'll be featuring:

TOM WICKER ON CLINTON AS A LAME DUCK.

GIL TROY ON RONALD STEEL'S NEW BOOK ON BOBBY KENNEDY

AND YOUR LETTERS ... always the most exciting and
controversial part of our magazine.


Rick Shenkman, Managing Editor
TomPaine.com
Rick@tompaine.com
(202)332-2881, ext. 11

-30-


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