at the thirty-odd prisoners with their families.
“Most of these people wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for Bill Clinton,” he said. “He and Barack Obama haven’t done anything for poor people but lock them up. And if our first African American president isn’t going to halt the growth of the prison-industrial complex, no president after him is going to do it. This prison system is here to stay. The poor and the destitute feed it. It is the empire’s solution to the economic crisis. Those who are powerless, who have no access to diminishing resources, get locked away. And the prison business is booming. It is one of the few growth industries left. It used to be that towns didn’t want prisons. Now these poor rural communities beg for them. You look down the list of the names of the guards and see two or three with the same last names. This is because fathers, brothers, spouses, work here together. These small towns don’t have anything else.”
The United States has the highest documented incarceration rate in the world—743 adults per 100,000. 6 Of the 2.3 million adults incarcerated in federal and state prisons and local jails, nearly 60 percent are nonwhite. 7 He who has not been in jail does not know what the state is, Leo Tolstoy said. 8
The Omnibus Crime Bill, pushed through the Senate with the help of Joe Biden, appropriated $30 billion to expand the nation’s prison program, state and local law enforcement, and border patrols over a six-year period. 9 It gave $10.8 billion in federal matching funds to local governments to hire 100,000 new police officers over five years. 10 It provided nearly $10 billion for the construction of new federal prisons. 11 It instituted the three-strikes proposal that mandates a life sentence for anyone convicted of three “violent” felonies. The bill permitted children as young as thirteen to be tried as adults. It authorized the use of secret evidence. The prison population during the Clinton presidency jumped from 1.4 million to 2 million. 12 Between 1982 and 2001, total state corrections expenditures increased each year, rising from $15.0 billion to $53.5 billion in real dollars, according to the Department ofJustice (DOJ). Between 2002 and 2010, according to the DOJ, expenditures fluctuated annually between $53.4 billion and $48.4 billion. 13
Abu-Jamal talked about being a Black Panther and the use of violence as a form of political resistance throughout history. He remembered visiting the Chicago apartment where Black Panther leader Fred Hampton was shot to death by Chicago police and the FBI while he slept on December 4, 1969. He called Hampton, who was twenty-one when he was killed, “one of the bright lights.” Abu-Jamal choked up and his eyes glistened with tears. “Fred …,” he said as his voice trailed off.
“It used to be that a politician promised jobs, a chicken in every pot,” Abu-Jamal went on. “But in our new national security state, they promise law and order. They get elected by saying they will be tough on crime and by calling for the death penalty. Death sells. Fear sells. What was a crime by the state in the 1960s is now legal. The state can wiretap, eavesdrop, listen to phone calls, and break into homes. And there is nothing we can do about it. The mass incarceration and the mass repression impact every community to make people afraid and compliant.”
Abu-Jamal has written: “In this place, a dark temple of fear, an altar of political ambition, death is a campaign poster, a stepping-stone to public office.… In this space and time, in this dark hour, how many of us are not on death row?” 14
“The brutality of the empire was exposed under George W. Bush,” he said to me. “The empire desperately needed a new face, a black face, to seduce the public. This is the role of Barack Obama. He is the black face of empire. He was pitched to us during the most recent presidential campaign by Bill Clinton, the same Clinton who gave us
“Most of these people wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for Bill Clinton,” he said. “He and Barack Obama haven’t done anything for poor people but lock them up. And if our first African American president isn’t going to halt the growth of the prison-industrial complex, no president after him is going to do it. This prison system is here to stay. The poor and the destitute feed it. It is the empire’s solution to the economic crisis. Those who are powerless, who have no access to diminishing resources, get locked away. And the prison business is booming. It is one of the few growth industries left. It used to be that towns didn’t want prisons. Now these poor rural communities beg for them. You look down the list of the names of the guards and see two or three with the same last names. This is because fathers, brothers, spouses, work here together. These small towns don’t have anything else.”
The United States has the highest documented incarceration rate in the world—743 adults per 100,000. 6 Of the 2.3 million adults incarcerated in federal and state prisons and local jails, nearly 60 percent are nonwhite. 7 He who has not been in jail does not know what the state is, Leo Tolstoy said. 8
The Omnibus Crime Bill, pushed through the Senate with the help of Joe Biden, appropriated $30 billion to expand the nation’s prison program, state and local law enforcement, and border patrols over a six-year period. 9 It gave $10.8 billion in federal matching funds to local governments to hire 100,000 new police officers over five years. 10 It provided nearly $10 billion for the construction of new federal prisons. 11 It instituted the three-strikes proposal that mandates a life sentence for anyone convicted of three “violent” felonies. The bill permitted children as young as thirteen to be tried as adults. It authorized the use of secret evidence. The prison population during the Clinton presidency jumped from 1.4 million to 2 million. 12 Between 1982 and 2001, total state corrections expenditures increased each year, rising from $15.0 billion to $53.5 billion in real dollars, according to the Department ofJustice (DOJ). Between 2002 and 2010, according to the DOJ, expenditures fluctuated annually between $53.4 billion and $48.4 billion. 13
Abu-Jamal talked about being a Black Panther and the use of violence as a form of political resistance throughout history. He remembered visiting the Chicago apartment where Black Panther leader Fred Hampton was shot to death by Chicago police and the FBI while he slept on December 4, 1969. He called Hampton, who was twenty-one when he was killed, “one of the bright lights.” Abu-Jamal choked up and his eyes glistened with tears. “Fred …,” he said as his voice trailed off.
“It used to be that a politician promised jobs, a chicken in every pot,” Abu-Jamal went on. “But in our new national security state, they promise law and order. They get elected by saying they will be tough on crime and by calling for the death penalty. Death sells. Fear sells. What was a crime by the state in the 1960s is now legal. The state can wiretap, eavesdrop, listen to phone calls, and break into homes. And there is nothing we can do about it. The mass incarceration and the mass repression impact every community to make people afraid and compliant.”
Abu-Jamal has written: “In this place, a dark temple of fear, an altar of political ambition, death is a campaign poster, a stepping-stone to public office.… In this space and time, in this dark hour, how many of us are not on death row?” 14
“The brutality of the empire was exposed under George W. Bush,” he said to me. “The empire desperately needed a new face, a black face, to seduce the public. This is the role of Barack Obama. He is the black face of empire. He was pitched to us during the most recent presidential campaign by Bill Clinton, the same Clinton who gave us
Similar Books
