Year: 1997
Type: article
Abstract: DEMOCRACY AND THE INTERSECTION OF PRISONS, RACISM AND CAPITAL Review Essay: Worse Than Slavery : Parchman Farm and the Ordeal of Jim Crow Justice. By David Oshinsky.* New York: The Free Press, 1996. Pp. 306. $25.00. by David Cohen** I. INTRODUCTION As we approach the end of the millennium, this country is facing a crisis of incarceration. With the prison population growing dramatically, 123 new state and federal prisons were scheduled to open in 1996.1 In 1994 and 1995, the demand for new prison beds averaged about 1400 per week. At an average cost of $54,000 per cell, 3 the construction costs for this in- crease are close to $2.75 billion a year. 4 Corporate mammoths from many different industries are realizing the potential of prisons and pouring their assets into gaining a share of this rapidly expanding $31 billion dollar per year industry. 5 From architectural firms and construction companies, to drug treatment and food service contractors, to prison industries, to the whole gamut of equipment and hardware suppliers-steel doors, razor wire, communications systems, uniforms, 6 everyone from ATT J.D., Columbia University School of Law (1997). I would like to thank Professors Kimberld Crenshaw, John Ehrenberg, Phillip Genty, and Mary Marsh Zulack for assistance with this essay. Also, Randy Kim and Cassie Ehrenberg provided thoughtful comments and support. 1. David Lamb, The Soft Cell: Small Towns Lock Up Construction Dollars; Rural America Has Found the Perfect Way to Escape From the Economic Doldrums-Capture Prison Contracts, TAMPA TRIBUNE, Oct. 10, 1996, at 8. 2. DARRELL K. GILLIARD & ALLEN J. BECK, U.S. DEP'T OF JUSTICE, PRISON AND JAIL INMATES, 1995: BUREAU OF JUSTICE STATISTICS BULLETIN 4 (1996). 3. THE REAL WAR ON CRIME: THE REPORT OF THE NATIONAL CRIMINAL JUSTICE COM- MISSION 49 (Stephen R. Donziger ed., 1996). 4. This estimate uses an average of 1.5 beds per cell. 5. Sam Vincent Meddis & Deborah Sharp, Prison Business is a Blockbuster: As Spending Soars, So Do the Profits, USA TODAY, Dec. 13, 1994, at A10. 6. Phil Smith, Private Prisons: Profits on Crime, COVERT ACTION QUARTERLY, Fall 1993. 7. All Things Considered (NPR radio broadcast, Aug. 3, 1994). 8. See Paulette Thomas, Making Crime Pay: Triangle of Interests Creates Infrastructure to Fight Lawlessness, WALL ST. J., May 12, 1994, at Al. 9. THE REAL WAR ON CRIME, supra note 5, at 96-97.
Author: David S. Cohen
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W1544845486