With the closure of 11 state facilities this year, FL. Lawmakers continue to attempt to justify the privatization of 29 additional facilities in Southern Florida. Of the thousands hired by the FDOC over the years that now make up a staff workforce of more than 26,000 at least 1,300 are facing termination or transfers with the prison closures. From this article it appears projections of crime waves predicted by lawmakers and criminologists they depended upon for research, never materialized – yet the state continued to build more and more prisons and the hiring of hundreds to staff each. This is an endemic problem felt all across the U.S. as every state begins to realize true costs associated with the “tough on crime” pursuits of the 80’s, 90’s and 2000’s.
Some hardcore proponents of this outdated policy continue to cling to a policy of "lock 'em up and throw away the key" in states such as Illinois, CA., Montana and a handful of other states. Continuing to gird themselves for the waves of crime certain criminologists have told them are going to take place fuels this philosophy and contributes to state lawmakers still seeking the building of new prisons in many states.
I continue to be flabbergasted as I look upon undeniable facts surrounding just Florida's situation - and the facts that have started to come to light:
"Policymakers 20 years ago, extrapolating on then-current crime trends, expected an explosion of offenders and started building prisons. In particular, the early data suggested the rise of “superpredators,” a wave of juvenile delinquents that would flood the criminal justice system in the early 2000s.
"When the prison expansion began two decades ago, it seemed certain more space would be needed. Crime rates had been climbing for 30 years, crack cocaine usage was on the rise and South Florida was in its violent “Miami Vice” period. The state also eliminated parole for new inmates and required that they serve no less than 85 percent of their sentences. That also was expected to keep lockups full.
"From 1991 to 2010, Florida saw the per capita major crime rate — including homicide, rape, robbery, burglary, aggravated assault, theft, auto theft and arson — drop by 52 percent, according to FBI statistics. The per capita violent crime rate went down almost 55 percent in that same time.
"From 2008 to 2010 alone, the overall number of Florida arrests decreased more than 11 percent." (from the article linked to in the first paragraph)
Throughout this period predominantly GOP state and federal policymakers and lawmakers continued a push to incarcerate in the face of such statistical analysis - refusing to believe the numbers, thinking they would "improve" and thus fuel their lust for imprisonment of thousands.
Government often grows far beyond its traditional core functions, but most people would agree public safety is a legitimate and core governmental function, and taxpayer funds are necessary to sustaining the government’s role in it. Since public safety is one of the few core functions of government, it is especially critical that policymakers hold criminal justice agencies accountable for their performance and seek to maximize a taxpayer "return" on their investments.
With crime and punishment, the "investments" in incarceration is made by the public taxpayer. It is made by lawmakers determining where their tax dollars are to be spent most effectively. In a real sense, lawmakers serve as brokers determining where our dollars are "invested" - and keepers of our public funds and funding. If we compare what happened in 2008 and 09 in the run-up to the collapse of our financial system to what has been happening for more than 30 years now with criminal justice, we see some similarities.
Under the Reagan administrations of the 80's, a cadre of "economists" such as Art Laffer developed and began to assert their "trickle down" and "supply-side economics" theories of economy in the U.S. The now infamous "Laffer Curve" is an example of what I'm speaking of.
Not only did this lead to the transfer of much of the wealth from the lower and middle class into the hands of the wealthy and corporate owners...it eventually led us to a another near-depression in 2008.
Many times cause and effect situations are lost to time as years pass and subsequent generations evolve with less knowledge or understanding about our history. Bad times in our past are overcome by relief that they are over and the belief that a given problem or circumstance will not occur again, by our having "learned our lesson". An example of this is the "Great Depression" of 1929. Many of us understand the depression as a terrible financial time in world history but most are unaware of one of the key contributing factors causing the financial collapse - the lowering of tax rates from 73% to 24% in 1921. It only took 8 years of this tax change for Wall Street to ultimately collapse, taking the world economy with it.
In 1974 the first inkling of the "Laffer Curve" began to take shape when it was presented to Donald Rumsfeld (President Ford's Chief of Staff) and Dick Cheney (Rumsfeld's Deputy) by Laffer who was arguing against proposed tax increases proposed by President Ford. It took another twenty six years of Laffer advocating his faux economic principles and theorem - eight of those under President Reagan who both raised and lowered tax rates during his tenure - until Rumsfeld, Cheney, Laffer and the "Laffer Curve" were presented to George W. Bush in 2000. As we now know, all of these players were welcomed with open arms by Bush as he ascended to the presidency in January 2001. Once he accepted the premise and arguments advanced by Laffer with the support of Cheney and Rumsfeld, President Bush passed sweeping changes in the tax codes resulting in a reduction in tax payments by businesses, corporations and the wealthiest among our society. Bush didn't stop with lowering these tax rates to the wealthiest, he pursued other tax changes and tried to eliminate inheritance tax and lower capital gains taxes. By the time Bush was finished - so were we and our economy. The rest - as many often say - is "History".
Why have I mixed this discussion on recessions, depressions, taxation with issues of criminal justice? How is crime rates and the costs of incarceration linked to taxes and the collapse of our economy?
I've done this because it is important for all of us to understand that the Bush tax cuts and criminal justice legislation, Laffer, Rumsfeld, Cheney are all an agenda of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC)...and Laffer, Rumsfeld(1995 Chair of ALEC Business Policy Board) and Cheney (1991 recipient of ALEC's Jefferson Award)each have ties to ALEC from before the Bush election and during his terms in office. I want to make the observation that many of the key elements that have led to our middle classes now being anchored in a sea of financial despair are all interconnected.
From the time of the first Bush Tax Cut -Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001 (EGTRRA) the Heritage Foundation predicted the cuts would result in the complete elimination of the U.S. national debt by fiscal year 2010. Many of the tax reductions in EGTRRA were designed to be phased in over a period of up to 9 years. Many of these slow phase-ins were accelerated by the Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003 (JGTRRA), which removed the waiting periods for many of EGTRRA's changes.
As I wrote above, the outcome of this action by Bush resulted in our economy beginning to collapse in 2008 and culminating in a full economic meltdown in 2009 - mimicking an identical period of time elapsing between changes in the tax rates in 1921 and the onset of the Depression in 1929.
History did, in this case, repeat itself. During the same period beginning in 1974 when Laffer was pushing his "Curve" theorem through ALEC (which had just formed and was in its infancy), another theorem was being advanced by ALEC - reform of the U.S. criminal justice system and codes. From 1984 through today ALEC has led the charge to increase the type and number of criminal laws in the U.S. They have advocated longer terms of incarceration for most criminal acts, legislation to abolish the possibility of parole, reductions in earned gain time to keep prisoners in longer on all sentences, three strike laws to enhance and increase sentences and on mandatory minimum sentences on gun and drug laws. ALEC wrote, sponsored and helped enact the legislation enabling all of these changes. During Reagan's term hundreds of such laws were proposed and eventually became the "law of the land" in the U.S.
Much of this legislation pursuing locking up millions - and allowing for private companies to house inmates for profit - was based upon reports, studies and recommendations of theorists such as Morgan O. Reynolds through groups such as the Criminal Justice Center at the National Center for Policy Analysis, Heritage Foundation, Heartland Institute, CATO Institute, etc. Heartland Institute also files briefs in key criminal justice cases to support the position held by ALEC and other Cabal member organizations, corporations or individuals.
Through Laffer and his faux economics research and "Curve" this cabal of intertwined institutes, foundations and organization such as ALEC, disseminated incorrect information that led us down the path to financial collapse. This is the same group that has also led us down the path to mass incarceration and is driving many states today to the brink of bankruptcy as they continue to fund prison and criminal justice initiatives sponsored by ALEC.
As the article I linked to above provides, crime has been decreasing steadily across the board since roughly 1990 - yet ALEC and their supporters have continued to present phony charts, graphs and analysis' that they say shows crime rates are (and have been) increasing since the mid 1980's. Myself and others have been advancing the argument - based on FBI and National Institute of Justice statistics and reports - that crime was down, continuing to decline and thus the need for more prison and incarceration were a phony argument used to promote privatization of incarceration offering profits to those companies involved in such efforts. Our arguments and official national crime statistics have all gone ignored by the Cabal and others (including the MSM) for years now. One of the reasons contributing to this ignorance of the facts is due to the positions of those affiliated with ALEC. For instance with the election of George Bush in 2000 there was a change within the office of the Attorney General...
Bush selected John Ashcroft as his Attorney General in 2001. Ashcroft was co-chair of ALEC's 1987 Conference in Minneapolis, MN. and gave the keynote speech at that conference. As Atty. Gen. Ashcroft spoke again to ALEC in 2001. One of the first actions taken by Ashcroft upon accepting the Bush appointment was to settle a key DOJ case against Koch Industries. In his "settlement" order, Ashcroft let Koch off the hook for hundreds of millions in fines as well as criminal charges that would have led to prison for 4 Koch executives:
"According to an August 30, 2010 article in The New Yorker magazine, "In 1999, a jury found Koch Industries guilty of negligence and malice in the deaths of two Texas teen-agers in an explosion that resulted from a leaky underground butane pipeline. (In 2001, the company paid an undisclosed settlement.)
During the months leading up to the 2000 presidential elections, the company faced even more liability, in the form of a 97-count federal indictment charging it with concealing illegal releases of 91 metric tons of benzene, a known carcinogen, from its refinery in Corpus Christi, Texas. The company faced liability for three hundred and fifty million dollars in fines, and four Koch employees faced up to thirty-five years in prison.
Off the hook after GWBush became president
"After George W. Bush became president the U.S. Justice Department dropped 88 of the charges. Two days before the trial, John Ashcroft settled for a plea bargain, in which the company pled guilty to falsifying documents. All major charges were dropped, and Koch and Ashcroft settled the lawsuit for a fraction of that amount.
"David Uhlmann, a career prosecutor who, at the time, headed the environmental-crimes section at the Justice Department, described the suit as “one of the most significant cases ever brought under the Clean Air Act.”
Bottom line - or moral to the story - this pro-corporate agenda spewing from the Conservative Koch funded cabal through ALEC has been using disinformation and in most cases out and out lies to drive their agenda. "There is no climate change," the "EPA must be abolished," our "education is failing and must be privatized," "U.S. Crime is rampant and renders our communities unsafe" and "privatization works" are all cries we've heard from ALEC and their corporate and 2,000+ legislative members for years now.
We now know that Laffer's formula readily accepted and put into place by George Bush ultimately contributed to the 2008-09 financial collapse. With it the majority of the middle class lost most (if not all) of their retirement savings, equity in their homes, jobs and ability to provide for their families. From the recent articles on crime rates - such as the one that led off this diary - we're learning that the same set of characters are responsible for pushing this tough on crime agenda that today cost taxpayers as much as $75 billion dollars a year. Yet with both the financial crisis, this criminal justice crisis is still being denied by the cabal through ALEC as a mouthpiece.
Everything out of the mouths of this cabal, their members, their corporate supporters and legislative enablers has turned out to be nothing but lies used to financially rape the middle class and redistribute wealth to the upper 1% of Americans. I know most of you remember the arguments put forth by the GOP and tea party during the 08 and '10 elections about Candidate (then President) Obama and the Dem's wanting to "Redistribute wealth"? Well he - and they (Dems) - did want to do that by returning some of that lost wealth back to the middle class. This is what has driven the huge wedge between the political parties over the past 4 years: The Haves wanting to keep the Have-Nots from recovering what had been stolen from them through the Bush and ALEC policies.
The word is already out about the financial collapse along with who and what was responsible for it - or at least a major contributing factor - yet many Americans continue to believe the rhetoric from ALEC and the GOP about it is all Obama's fault; the lack of jobs, terrible economy, etc. The word is also now leaking out about the lack of need for prisons and incarceration - yet ALEC and the GOP is still pushing an agenda to lock up more and more Americans and turn the key over to private companies who profit off of that unnecessary incarceration.
Today we are having arguments against privatization of public schools, long distance learning, financing of college programs and departments by Koch and others affiliated with ALEC. In indiana, Ohio, WI. and Minnesota and Oregon there are ALEC efforts of enacting Right-to-work laws that are anything but "Right" to work. Must we wait another ten years to discover they were wrong about privatizing education and ending Unions and lowering wages before acting? I think history and what we've experienced over the past decade especially demonstrates that ALEC and their entire cabal are full of shit on every issue, aspect, initiative and statement they have ever uttered. Everything they do and have done has been geared with but one thing in mind - dominion. Dominion over Democracy, politics and over us as a society and class.
Everything they have done, presented, passed and enacted has turned out to be profitable to a few - at the expense of the majority. I believe our entire cumulative situation today is attributed directly to ALEC and their Koch funded cabal. Americans simply have to stop listening to their BS, stamp their collective feet and say enough is enough, already. ALEC has got to go - and their members, agenda and pursuits taken with them. If we fail to eliminate them, the biggest issues of today; healthcare and education will follow the same path as our economy and criminal justice. We're slowly losing our places on the world stage - and while we continue that slide ALEC continues to argue that it is because of us; minorities who don't want to work, a middle class that believes the "Haves" owe them something, a government that is trying to assist the middle class and by that ruining our nation. In the end it's all rhetoric, bullshit and designed to keep us in our places with them holding dominion over the masses. We have only to look at the recent picture of Governor Jan Brewer pointing an accusatory finger in the face of President Obama to understand it all:
The above picture epitomizes the ALEC story:
Jan Brewer is an ALEC alum. During her tenure as AZ.'s Governor she has increased prison privatization, pushing for more and more tax dollars to be earmarked for her friends at CCA who hold contracts to house Arizona and federal prisoners. Through State Sen. Russell Pearce, CCA and ALEC wrote and proposed SB 1070 in AZ. to incarcerate and detain immigrants and allow for "paper's please" policies to allow cops to question those appearing Hispanic for their residency documents. Brewer cut funding for critical life saving transplants while setting aside $58 million for more prison privatization. Brewer and the state GOP majority pushed through ALEC's Charter School and School voucher legislation. Following that, Basis Schools, Inc. moved in and developed 27 state charter schools - with more than one board member of BSI having direct ties to ALEC and the Koch funded Goldwater Institute. Brewer's staff includes two CCA lobbyists as top advisers.
ALEC has reached the maximum saturation point. We can no longer accept their rhetoric or agendas. For them to continue their rhetoric is pointless as the masses no longer can afford to buy their products, suggestions or agenda. We are morally, financially and mentally a broke society with nothing left to spend - they already have everything we previously owned or held precious to us individually or collectively. The nation can no longer afford them either. The reputation of the U.S. has seen a lessening since Bush took office. President Obama has made great strides in overcoming the world assessment of the U.S. but even as he makea attempts to restore our former place in the world ALEC and the GOP is fighting even those efforts here at home.
ALEC's reality and ours is at odds. They live in a parallel universe where up is down and wrong is right and there simply is no way to mix the two. Let 2012 be the year of restoration for the U.S. - and our society. Let's dismiss ALEC and the stupid, non factual rhetoric and suggestions for our world that they espouse daily as we work together to put our country back together and take back that which has been stolen from us while we listened to their siren song of Conservativism and pro-corporate philosophy.
"Corporations are people too, my friends"...really? In this election cycle the GOP front runners are made up of corporatists representing the party. Gingrich? An ALEC alum who has spoken at ALEC meetings more than once after leaving as the House Speaker and Representative. He made lots of money off Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae - as well as money from other activities involving corporations and tax dollars. Mitt? Same thing only multiplied. Once ALEC and GOP led Congresses over the years changed, amended or weakened our IRS Tax Codes, he made hundreds of millions - and is still capitalizing off of those laws ALEC and the pro-corporate cabal helped promote. Former candidates Perry and Bachmann? Both affiliated with ALEC
More than any other time in our political history - the GOP candidate represent the pure unadulterated face of the upper 1%. Collectively the millionaires battle each other for the right to take on President Obama and the other 99% this November...to protect the rights and positions of those at the top of our society - against the rest of us who want equality.
It's time for ALEC and their agenda to end and for us to literally "let our people go" and "Restore our Nation". We can do both with the disappearance of ALEC and their influence. Lawmakers who belong to them are merely bullies - like others who belongs to gangs; they have no courage of their own and depend upon the collective support of their gang to get their way. Weak legislators are no different...