Suburbs tremble again, fearing the have-nots at the window, collecting their fair share. Guns and alarms aren't enough. They demand justice, and every criminal locked away, as well as any kid who might do something wrong. There's a jail out of town with fences so high we won't think about who's inside. Neighbours are disappearing behind the bars. Kids are doing time for petty crimes. It don't matter who they are. It don't matter that they're alive. A warehouse for victims of circumstance. Cops are rounding up slaves; workers that can't complain or come late. A workforce behind bars. They'll make gadgets, circuit boards or fix cars. It don't matter who they are. It don't matter that they're alive. Crime pays, ask the bankers floating bonds to build cages for the inner-city's "idle-hands” instead of schools. Factories with fences meet the prisons without walls. We shall have your skulls. They'll kick you to the ground. You'll find yourself employed again. On the inside.


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    General Comment

    This is about the prison-industrial complex, a boom industry in the United States. Mass incarceration and the criminalisation of the poor is the politicians' modern solution to the war on poverty. Prisoners provide free/cheap labour to be exploited. Prisons are not 'correctional' facilities in any sense of the word.

    Read 'All Things Censored' by death-row inmate Mumia Abu Jamal for a perspective on the prison system that you'd never get in the mainstream, mass media.

    Tom Mon January 11, 2002   Link

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