One of the more insidious aspects of our Republican administration is the push to fill our jails, and in doing so, increase the private prison industry. It is not simply the fact that having a society that incarcerates millions of people for nonviolent crimes is a terrible way to run a country, it’s the simple economics that every man and woman and child that is put in these prisons are used like slave labor for private prison profiteering. Our prisons, both private and state-run, have a long history of being inhumane and strikes have broken out these past two years that highlight this fact. Since last week, a hunger strike that started at Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma, Washington, with 100 prisoners refusing to eat lunch, has grown to around 750. These men and women are protesting the conditions in the prison as well as the maddening labor-extortion going on inside. Maru Mora Villalpando, an activist and undocumented immigrant, spoke with Democracy Now! and explained how the privatization of incarceration facilities creates systemic problems.
We know this is one of the largest detention centers in the West Coast and the nation. They make a lot of money out of encaging our families in there—$165, I believe, per day per person. And the jobs that people are getting paid to do inside for a dollar a day is not everything that they do inside. We have reports that people are asked to paint the walls or wash the floors in exchange for having a piece of chicken or a piece of candy, and sometimes not even that. They’re just promised that, and that doesn’t happen. We also have seen a lot of reports that the food is always bad, but sometimes it’s not only that, it’s the fact that the portions are getting smaller. And when people complain about that, GEO guards say, "Well, there’s just too many of you. What do you want us to do?"
We know that conditions in these jails and prisons are terrible, with the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general recently releasing a report showing that prisons have served immigrant detainees rancid meat like wild dogs. All of this doesn’t even touch on the fact that thousands of people are being ripped from families as we speak, whose only “criminal” behavior is being undocumented in our country. There have been discussions between the ICE guards and the strikers, but their demands have yet to be met.
According to the Seattle Times, the ICE spokesperson wouldn’t release the details of how many people had refused to eat for the 72 hours that it takes to start the hunger-strike protocols that have begun:
The strike was in its fourth day on Thursday with no sign of ending despite ongoing negotiations between detainees, Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the GEO Group, the prison contractor that operates the facility.
Detainees are reportedly protesting the quality of food, facility hygiene, access to medical care, lack of recreation and what they allege are exorbitant commissary prices. The detainees also are seeking an increase in the $1 a day they are paid for performing menial jobs around the detention center.
Keep your eye on the GEO Group. Their name suggests they would like to imprison the world.