The Roots of the PIC in American History

by Daniel Horowitz de Garcia, Walda Katz-Fishman, Clark McKnight

All periods in history have social control methods appropriate for the moment. The Prison-Industrial Complex (PIC) is one of the key control methods for our time. With this in mind, the popular education materials within this toolkit critically examine the Prison-Industrial Complex and why the ruling interests (e.g. politicians, corporate executives, the wealthy, etc.) consider it appropriate for today.

Slavery: 1600-1800s

The PIC as we know it today - with a militarized police force and prisons as the only answer to current social problems - dates to the late 1960s and early 1970s. However, the roots of this system date to a key founding institution of the US: slavery. Slavery, as an institution, codified brutality as a means of control for those deemed social undesirables. Of course popular movements attacked the morality of slavery from its inception, but it wasn’t until the mid-19th century that the economy itself began an assault on this institution.

The Civil War was a conflict between two competing sections of capital: Northern industrial capital and Southern plantation capital. When the free labor of enslaved Africans was seen as a threat to northern industrialism, the issue split the state and both sides used whatever force necessary to protect their interests. By prohibiting Southern plantations from profiting off slavery, Northern industrialists ensured their financial success. The war was fought not to insure freedom for all, but greater profit for some. With the 1877 Hayes-Tilden Compromise setting the stage for the dismantling of Reconstruction, a new institution of brutality, cheap labor & social control rose from the ashes of slavery: the convict lease system.

Convict Lease System: 1870s to 1930s

If slavery is the grandparent of today’s PIC, then the convict lease system is its parent. Although defeated in the war, Southern plantation owners still needed cheap labor and a way to divide the growing alliances between poor people of color and whites. Their answer was the Black Codes, a set of laws which criminalized African-American existence. Everyday activities of Blacks - like standing on a street corner - were deemed criminal. Additionally, sentences for other "crimes" were extended for African-Americans. Finally, those convicted served their sentences doing manual labor for counties, the state or private companies.

The system actually proved to be more cost-effective for owners than slavery. Since companies paid for a mass of convict workers, rather than individual slaves, the death of one of the prisoners did not affect profits. A new convict would replace a dead worker without economic impact on the company. This system also created a population that could be used to beat down worker resistance. As the Tennessee miners’ strike of 1891 showed, employers would not hesitate to use convict labor to break strikes.

Learning Lessons from History: 1960’s to Present

The state (e.g. police, military and the criminal injustice system) and its laws serve those who own society’s wealth and run the society. But it is the race, class and gender interests of the time that determine what form the control will take. For example, at a time when people of color were defined by law as being less than human, slavery was considered appropriate. The form of social control changes over time, but its essential nature remains the same. Although it has been about 70 years since the convict leasing system was abolished, we still live with its legacy. Its essential qualities - criminalizing a targeted population, undermining worker strength and subsidizing cheap labor for private corporations - exist today in the prison-industrial complex.

Reforms that do not address the social control aspect of the PIC cannot end the brutality it causes. These reforms will only succeed in changing the form of the brutality. Prison labor, the electric chair, and even the concept of prison itself were all introduced as reforms designed to end extremes of institutional violence. These reform efforts of the past did address fundamental issues of social control and, not incidentally, have become the subject of reform efforts today.

To end this brutal and unjust system and make true, lasting change, we must work beyond just reform of the PIC and think broadly about its impact. In short, we have to have a wide definition of the problem and recognize that reforms alone won’t solve it.

PIC in the Age of Globalization

History only helps us if we bring lessons from the past into the present day. And today the force driving most, if not all, aspects of our society is corporate globalization. Globalization - i.e., capitalism in the electronic age driving expansion of the economic market system across the globe in search of maximum profits - is directly linked to the PIC. As the gains of past movements are stripped away and we are forced to work longer hours with less security and no benefits, social control becomes a greater concern for the ruling elite.

Globalization forces societies to accept the notion that an individual is only entitled to what they can earn. Education is restricted to only those deemed worthy. Technological advances in production, which make corporate globalization possible, mean there will simply not be enough jobs for everyone. Health care and other vital services are only available to those who can afford them. The social contract between the government and the people is broken and public services become privatized. In this society, social control of the "undesirables," meaning anyone who cannot consume in the global economy, is not only desired, it is required. While slavery was social control based on race, globalization has made the PIC social control based on class, race and gender.

Looking at the PIC historically and in the context of globalization, one has to define it broadly. We define the prison-industrial complex as:

Neoliberal policies, practices and institutions of all levels of government designed to remove the discarded (those who are unemployable, poor, uneducated, etc.) from society to further the social control of those negatively impacted by globalization.

Many issues fit within this definition. A short list includes: discriminatory arrest and sentencing, police brutality, prisons, zero tolerance, racial profiling, the death penalty, voter disenfranchisement, youth criminalization, militarized border, political prisoners/prisoners of war, immigration "reform," supermax prisons, prison labor and private prisons.

Strategy & Vision to End the PIC

Such a wide definition has a significant impact on our organizing. It means single-issue organizing will not win. We can’t stop a prison from being built without understanding the need for rural economic development. And we will leave ourselves vulnerable to splintering and wedge issues (between whites and people of color, LGBT and straight, Latino/a and African-American, etc.) if we do not build strategic alliances. Although reforms are necessary to end immediate brutality, we cannot win if we only fight for reform. We must struggle in a broader context and link the organizing against the PIC to the fight against corporate globalization. We hope this toolkit will help you ask the questions that must be asked to make this link. Questions like:

lWhy should the brute force of social control be tolerated?

l Why are we expendable? Don't we all deserve an education? A living wage job?

l Who is served by wedge issues ?

And, of course, the most important questions: What would a society without prisons look like? How do we get there?

Sources

Castells, Manuel. 2000. End of Millennium 2nd Edition. Blackwell Publishers, Inc.

Brecher, Jeremy. 1997. Strike! South End Press.

Mancini, Matthew J. 1996. One Dies, Get Another: Convict Leasing in the American South, 1866-1928. University of South Carolina Press.

Rosenblatt, Elihu (ed.). 1996. Criminal Injustice: Confronting the Prison Crisis. South End Press.