å Saturday, March 25th, 2017

In Gilmore’s article, she writes about an existent crisis and surplus regarding prison population and the reconstruction of the state. The crisis, being of social matter, is the actuality of imprisonment, who is being imprisoned, and historical content relating to potential reasons correlating with their imprisonment. Prison, masking as a solution for social crises among a population, has caused and continues to cause a new state, a state that she refers to as a “prison industrial complex,” (p. 178). This solution, un-coincidentally, and simultaneously rids problems associated with minorities, domestic enemies, minorities, and anyone causing civil disorder, making the state feel out of control.

“Objectively, crises are neither bad nor good, but crises do indicate inevitable change, the outcome of which is determined through struggle. Struggle, like crisis, is a politically neutral word: in this scenario, everyone struggles because they have no alternative,” (p. 178). The significance within this text, relating to prison population, is this idea that struggle is inevitable due to inexistence of an alternative. This idea, however, seems inaccurate, considering that historical events that have contributed to many particular people’s struggles, and some people’s advantages. For example, after the Great Depression, there was a heavy diminishing of work for a lot of employees, and yet, the hierarchy of the structured society still held up. This means, people in power and wealth, considerably higher classes, remained in superior classes, while the lower classes, continued to struggle within that status. Another example, emphasizing on the class issue in a hierarchy, African Americans and Latinos, who, still today, make up the majority of lower class statuses, make up the majority percentage and surplus of people in prison.

Now, without ignoring the racial factors, referring to Michelle Alexander’s “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness,” it is stated that there are more African Americans recorded in prison in the U.S, than there have been slaves. There’s obvious controversy that this is a race issue, and it very well might be, but it goes deeper than that when the actual structure of a society is coercing Social Darwinism. The need for survival, especially considering the economic instability that ultimately limits the access and opportunity for some to educate themselves, progress, and better themselves, contributes to illegal ways of earning compensation. To assume that everyone struggles because there are no alternatives, neutrally, is an understatement.

 
Prison, which is a huge contributor to Capitalist economies, is a way to continue a flow of currency when other markets and contributors fall or downsize. “Alternatively, all prisoners might well be required to work in the public sector, both to pay their own costs and to make profit for the state, as was the case in prisons of the US South starting at the turn of the twentieth century,” (p. 186). Referring to publicly owned prisons and reconstructions, prisoners forced to work can be one solution to society’s tax struggle. This surplus labor tax, as Gilmore calls it, or new way of industrialization to preserve the economy, can be well connected to former slavery, forcing predominantly colored, caged people to work for little to nothing. The very foundation of prisons depict a strong aligning with racism and exploitation – and is clearly being used as an alternative plan for restricting and improving the state’s political and economic standing, as opposed to being concerned of the welfare of citizens due to actual crime and danger.

The surplus that Gilmore is referring to are the surplus of people mostly poor people of color that were left unemployed due to economic recession, surplus of land that was left unused due agribusiness and the industrialization of farming and the increased investment in high tech military industries resulted in large groups of people being unemployed. For those in government they understood that warfare spending produced wealth. This in turn created a social crisis where people  were fighting for social welfare rights because they were deliberately excluded which created various forms of activism and in turn created a moral panic which included civil disorder, political alliances among organizations. In order to cure society of the social crises ( people of color out of control, idle youth in the streets, and women and children without husbands and fathers) the state began to incarcerate large numbers of African American and Latinos. The prison system is the answer to the social crisis and deviant behavior.

Gilmore also explains that structural changes to employment opportunities  could also be another reason for prison expansion in California. These structural changes forced large groups of people to find other ways to support themselves and generate income. Many people resorted to property crimes or drug dealing and those convicted of such crimes made up a large number of the prison population because even laws changes which affected how a person would be charged and how long their sentence would be. People would not have resorted to crime had they not been forced out of work and if the social programs and resources were still available to them.

Media, policies and government were also influential in creating the social or moral crisis. The use of such terms as “law and order” and safety and crime  were used to justify the building of so many prisons in a short  period. Society was more concerned with crime rates and drugs than they were about unemployment and inflation. Society continued to worry about crime and safety even though crime rates were down.

The crisis was not necessarily economic the crisis seemed to be people especially those of color wanted fair treatment and employment. The surplus consisted of finance capital, land, labor (people) and sate capacity.

Crisis is usually what happens when something in society, ( people, land, buildings) becomes surplus or more than what was expected or needed and “society” decides that it should do something about it. In California the prison system is the answer to the crises: Land was made a surplus because of agribusiness (industrial farming), finance capital was made surplus by California’s budget and tax laws and the people in the urban areas were made surplus by uneven development, structural changes to employment opportunities and racism.

In this reading immediately Gilmore points out how crime was ran and influenced by minorities reeking havoc on society, which I felt was somewhat true but really unfair to say. Gilmore expresses that civil disorder has created a moral panic. The U.S has time and time again proven to be in a crisis state. Her perception of ” crisis” is that it is never bad or good but that its purpose if to influence change due to a struggle. She observes that people only struggle because they have to. Gilmore goes on to talk about the depression which was a depression which was a struggle, crisis forced people to want something better for themselves and to want something different for their lives. This is when many people started to move the suburbs out of the city. Gilmore also talks about how prisoners sought out reform not only for better living conditions but the way the sentencing is which was very interesting to be because they were getting sentenced to 1 year to life which by todays standards is crazy. instead of the state changing or improving the conditions of prisons they just wanted to create more prisons, mega prisons. instead of using the new prisons to house some of the population who were in over crowded prisons they put all new offenders into these prisons. The voters who voted for the prison project were persuaded that Crime was the countries problem and the prison was the answer. Prison was supposed to “fix” the nations crisis. The people who voted for the prison project were the same people who received major tax breaks and had secure housing so they could really careless about who was effected by a prison being built in their state. This is not unlike the poitical scene today in which people in power vote for things that will greatly  negatively effect many people but will positively effect the voter exclusively. Prison is big business, both for the land owners and for the state in general which is what the voters used as a defense. At first in the cities where the prisons were expected to be built the idea was rejected but after they were persuaded that prisons would be a recession proof endeavor and that it would improve local development they jumped onboard with the idea this is just another way that prison was seen a the “fix it ” solution.