Sovereignty is an issue of self-rule. The authority (at various levels) to make decisions, rules, policies, and take action without the intervention of other powers or authority. In our system of government in the United States, each level of government has its own level of sovereignty with the lowest levels being superceded by the higher levels when there is a conflict of law. The constitution of the United States also grants individual citizens and residents with certain sovereignty, and guarantees access to a number of rights that protect that sovereignty.
Recent international agreements directly challenge sovereignty at all levels. NAFTA, GATT, the proposed MAI, and FTAA are all international agreements and as such supercede the rule of nation. The broadest and most invasive of these agreements at this time is GATT. NAFTA, even though passed into law before GATT has had to be harmonized with GATT.
From NAFTA Article 301: National Treatment
http://www-tech.mit.edu/Bulletins/Nafta/03.market
1. Each Party shall accord national treatment to
the goods of another Party in accordance with Article III of the General
Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), including its interpretative notes,
and to this end Article III of the GATT and its interpretative notes, or
any equivalent provision of a successor agreement to which all Parties
are party, are incorporated into and made part of this Agreement.
Article 1001: Objectives
http://www-tech.mit.edu/Bulletins/Nafta/10.procure
The Parties shall strive to achieve
the liberalization of their measures regarding government procurement,
as specified by the obligations in this Chapter, so as to provide balanced,
non-discriminatory, predictable and transparent government procurement
opportunities for the suppliers of each Party.
Under the guise of “National Treatment” foreign nations and business have the same rights as do local and national businesses to pursue and conduct business. This includes contracting, or out-right ownership of certain properties. Further, GATT allows nations to sue other nations for barriers to free trade which includes both tariff and non-tariff items - including policies, laws, and regulations at all levels of government. NAFTA, and surely the FTAA, also provide investor-to-state rights which allows businesses to sue the government for the imposition of regulations or criteria that might infringe business profits. There is little argument that these agreements undermine sovereignty and give enormous power to the private arena.
Privatization in the context of these international agreements poses another threat. While these agreements erode sovereignty and are the anti-thesis of democracy, they also make it difficult to turn back. Once a function or agency of government moves into the private arena, it also moves directly into the arena of business, trade, and tariffs covered by these agreements. As such, attempts to returns these functions back to the public sector most likely would be challenged under GATT. Given the trend of rulings in the WTO, it is unlikely that the challenged government entity would prevail. In other words, once something is in the private sector, it is most likely to stay there.
Privatization of corrections poses a special challenge to all levels of sovereignty within society because of its special nature of denying the rights of those incarcerated – it is only magnified within the context of globalization as characterized by NAFTA, GATT, and surely the FTAA.
Since the Regan administration there has been an ongoing push to privatize government functions at all levels of government. The movement has been forwarded by the rhetoric of government inefficiency and “pork barrel spending,” and that private business runs in a more cost efficient manner. Therefore private companies do a better “job” that government. Unfortunately, on several levels there are problems with privatization. First, the functions of government are not (and should not be) a profit arena. Government has had these functions because of the nature of the services provided. Certainly, as we have moved into the era of vast interlinked computer databases, the issue of protecting the privacy of that information and the individuals it represents, has become a major and growing concern. Privatizing government functions such as social security, medicare, aid to families with dependent children, etc allow access to intimate information no private company should have. Combine this access with what is available from other sources and individuals lives become totally transparent. Arguably this undermines individual sovereignty.
Second, while privatization has been running at full pace, there is little evidence (and virtually no way to get that evidence) that these corporations run any more efficiently, or at less cost than government agencies performing the same functions. In fact, job one of any private business is profit - not service. What studies are available seem to indicate that the savings, if any, are marginal at best. However, the social and personal costs may be unmeasurable.
Lastly, when government turns over its functions to private corporations, the rules and protections that existed in the public sector do not transfer to the private sector. Let me offer two examples of this problem that have arisen in relation to privatization of corrections. Texas, which arguably has the highest amount of corrections functions privatized had two problems. In one case, two inmates escaped from the Houston Processing Center (a facility owned and operated by Corrections Corporation of America). They contacted the Houston police department to have the police capture the escaped inmates. However, the police had no authority to capture the escapees because there is no law against escaping from private property. (Eric Bates. The Nation. Private Prisons).
Another consequence of private facilities ( and this would extend to all institutional settings), there is no protection of inmates (or patients) First Amendment rights. As noted in an “In These Times” article, “the Texas Department of Corrections has its hands tied when it comes to protecting prisoners' First Amendment rights in such cases, according to Glen Castlebury, a spokesperson for the Texas Department of Corrections. "There's no regulation whatsoever of the private prisons (in these matters)," he says. "They're scot-free to do whatever they please." (IN THESE TIMES MARCH 17, 1997. Prisons America's Newest Growth Industry. By Kristin Bloomer Lockhart, Texas).
These two examples show the threat to sovereignty on two levels. In order to remedy the first problem of escape from a private facility not being a crime, the government would have to extend its powers and authority to private corporations. In the second example, individual rights (even those limited ones given to prisoners) would either have to be given up, or the blanket of public rights and responsibilities would have to be extended to private corporations.
These extensions of government authority to private corporations is frightening. My guess is that the corrections industry (and corporations in general) would push for the extension of governmental authority, and fight extension of personal liberties. This is at best a slippery slope that extends far beyond prisons. The thought of the combination extension of the government authority to corporations and the denial of constitutional rights inside corporation is a nightmare scenario.
The privatization of corrections touches a number of issues - especially
within the context of globalization. At the current time there are over
140 correction and detention facilities under private contract or ownership
in the U.S. At this point in time, somewhere around 6% of the total inmate
population is in these facilities. However, private prisons have grown
at four times the rate of public prisons over the last ten years and that
growth is expected to continue. Wackenhut (one of the largest of the corporations
involved in corrections) posted revenues of 1.168 Billion in 2000 for their
security related divisions alone (an increase of 16% from 1999). The correctional
division alone had an increase of 22%.
Let me paint you a scenario.
The War on Crime and the War on Drugs have significantly increased the prison population. The get tough on crime approach (mandatory sentencing, and three strikes laws) have increased the length of time people are incarcerated – also increasing the total population under correctional supervision. [Currently, over 6% of our population is in jail or under correctional supervision.] This has had dramatic consequences on our society, not the least of which is the hugely disproportionate number of people of color who have been incarcerated. One of the consequences of these crime approaches is that while crime has been decreasing for at least the last seven years, the incarcerated population has been booming, and the general public still has the perception that crime is out of control and even stricter measures are needed. This scenario has made corrections one of the top growth industries in the United States.
As we all know, the dramatic increase in the number of those incarcerated has called for the building of new facilities. As we also know, it is very expensive to keep someone incarcerated. This has opened the path for at least three means to reduce the costs which are being used in various combinations around the country. First is privatizing the corrections arena. Second is liberalizing prison industries, and third is requiring prisoners to pay room and board (the last two now being implemented in Oregon).
The expense of retaining someone in custody at a public prison is estimated to cost over $20,000 per year. Building new facilities to house an ever-growing population is also expensive. Tax payers carry the burden of these costs. With demands to decrease taxes and public spending, strategies to reduce costs have been popular. The first cost-saving measure was to turn corrections over to private industry which is perceived as more efficient than government. However, there is little evidence to support the argument that we have saved money through corrections privatization. However, private industry operates on profit and growth. This raises the question of how a private company can profit from this business.
First, the public still pays for prisoners to be incarcerated except that now we are paying a corporation. Second, the private corporations have “creamed” the prisoners. This means that they take the lowest “maintenance” prisoners, leaving the most expensive in the hands of government corrections. Third, private corrections facilities generally pay lower staff costs and keep prisoners confined more than do public facilities. This decreases the number of staff needed. Third, rehabilitation programs are reduced or cut and inmates per unit are increased - setting the scene for increased violence among inmates. Fourth, there is incentive (and proof to back the allegation) that private facilities extend the incarceration period of those confined because they are being paid on a per diem basis for each prisoner.
Bates The Nation “Private Prisons”
The company (CCA)won its first bid to run a prison by offering
to operate the Silverdale Work Farm near Chattanooga for $21 per inmate
per day. At $3 less than the county was spending, it seemed like a good
deal--until a crackdown on drunk drivers flooded the work farm with new
inmates. Because fixed expenses were unaffected by the surge, each new
prisoner cost C.C.A. about $5. But the county, stuck with a contract that
required it to pay the company $21 a head, found itself $200,000 over budget.
"The work farm became a gold mine," noted John Donahue, a public policy
professor at Harvard University.
A perception has been fostered in the public that we are too soft on prisoners. They have too many nice things and their time is not “hard” enough. Many feel that they should be given bread and water, locked in a small cell with one blanket to sleep on a wooden board, and that they should be working. In fact, Oregon passed a law requiring prisoners to work. This work requirement creates a problem in that public agencies cannot compete with private industry. In order to get around this blockage, the issue of competition has been dramatically relaxed. However, it is still illegal to enslave people in the United States, so prisoners are paid a minimal amount for the labor that they do. The average seems to be about 83 cents an hour. The “excess” amount goes back into prison funds, into victim repayment, and most recently to pay room and board for prisoners.
Prison Labor serves another profit arena -- corrections corporations. In 1995 prison businesses (those based on prisoner work) netted 1.8 billion dollars (In These Times). This certainly brings increased profits into private facilities while not reducing the costs to tax payers. Therefore we have industries such as (From In These Times):
- Inmates in Vermont, make snowshoes for Stowe Canoe and Snowshoe Co.
- Prisoners in California raise pigs for D.R. Ranch of Avenal.
- Oregon Prison Industries, which goes by the name of UniGroup, markets a line of convict-made blue jeans called "Prison Blues.
While prisoners are engaged in prison business producing goods and services, they are also utilized as a contract labor force for other businesses. Examples of the utilization of prisoners includes the following examples:
- TWA has used inmate labor to break strikes. During a flight-attendant strike in 1986, TWA turned its reservation clerks into flight attendants and put inmates to work on the phone. The airline company still pays $5 an hour to inmate reservation clerks at a juvenile facility in Ventura, Calif. That same work, when unionized pays $18 an hour.(In TT)
- San Francisco-based Data Processing Accounting Services moved U.S. assembly jobs to a maquiladora in Tecate, Mexico. But increased competition sent the company back to the United States in 1992—to San Quentin State Prison."Some of the work went to China and some of the work we sent to San Quentin," DPAS owner Bob Tessler says. "Our objective is to find low-cost labor." The company left San Quentin in 1996 because of high prisoner turnover, but it's looking for an alternative site, ideally at another prison.
The primary argument for why the U.S. has lost most of its manufacturing base is that the U.S. worker is not economically competitive on the global market. Quite simply, this means that workers in the United States are paid too much. Certainly prison labor addresses this problem. As Leonard Hilt, at Lockhart prison notes says he enjoys having "a captive work force." "They're here every day," Hilt says. "Their cars don't break down, they're rarely ill, and they don't have family problems.... They're delightful to work with." (ITT)
Conclusion
Privatization of corrections poses a threat on many levels but two are paramount. First, it is a threat to sovereignty as the power and authority of government is extended to private corporations. Sovereignty is further challenged by allowing corporations to deny rights (including freedom) to the population. This is driven by a profit motive to “grow” the business through increased numbers incarcerated, increased length of stay, prison products competing on the open market, and prisoners paying for their own incarceration. The second preeminent threat is the ability of corporations to set their own rules in defiance of standards established by the people and government through mechanisms such as “investor-to-state” rights.
While privatization of corrections has been growing on many fronts it is being driven by the collusion of our politicians, business, law enforcement, and special interests. While corrections corporations and collateral prison industries lobby and contribute to politicians and parties, it has been, ironically, the gun lobby and especially the NRA (National Rifle Association) which has been the big push behind longer sentences, mandatory sentences, and three strikes your out legislation. While I could find no direct connection between the NRA and the corrections corporations, it seems likely that they are supported in some way by this industry.
Given that those with the least resources, and those of color are most likely to be incarcerated, the concerns of creating a privately controlled “captive” labor force raises issues of both racism and classism - a struggle in the criminal justice system even without the overlay of privatization and globalization. Further, this is a labor force that can be extended virtually at will with a few strokes of the pen. For example, changes in drug regulations have dramatically increased the prison population, and mandatory sentencing has extended the length of incarceration.
The “national treatment” and “investor-to-state” rights issues also raise the specter of extra-national corporations controlling a nations corrections industry. Corrections Corporation of America, for example is a multinational corporation which holds the majority of corrections contracts globally. Wackenhut, which specializes in privatizing government functions in general, seems to be focusing on the global market (it holds approximately 58% of its corrections contracts outside the U.S.) is in second place. It is possible (even probable) that most of the nations of the world could have a corrections system that is beyond the control of government and in the hands of foreign corporations.
Corrections privatization is not just a U.S. issue, but a global one. What has proven so successful here is being duplicated globally – Australia has the second largest number of privatized corrections. The same assaults to sovereignty and personal rights; the same potential for exploitation and profit; are occurring around the world. Given the thrust of globalization and transfer of power from people to corporations, places those corporations fighting for the corrections market in a highly competitive position. If they can control the global labor force, if they can serve as the contractor of choice for the labor needs of other corporations, then they could very possibly end of ruling the world. Earth - prison planet.
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Information Sources
IN THESE TIMES MARCH 17, 1997. Prisons America's Newest Growth Industry.
By Kristin Bloomer Lockhart, Texas.
Privatization Study. Montana League of Women Voters ?January, 2000
Private Prisons in the United States: An Assessment of Current
Practice
Abt. Associates. 7/16/98
Bureau of Justice
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/correct.htm
NAFTA -http://www-tech.mit.edu/Bulletins/nafta.html
May Day in Mexico City: A Second Look at Neoliberalism by John Tarleton
May 1996 http://cybertraveler.org/STORY14.html