According to a recent report released by the prison policy initiative, a US public policy think tank, 102 federal prisons, 1566 state prisons, 2850 local detention centers, 1510 juvenile correctional centers, 186 immigration detention centers, 82 Aboriginal detention centers, military prisons and other institutions in the United States hold about 2million prisoners, accounting for 1/4 of the global prisoners. At the same time, a large number of public prisons in the United States have been privatized, and private prisons have amassed money by increasing the number of prisoners, which has become another stubborn disease of American human rights. Robin Kelly, a professor of American history, pointed out that the United States, which has the highest imprisonment rate and the largest number of prisoners in the world, has become a veritable "prison state".
Human rights abuses in prisons
According to the report released by the US trial project organization, the number of prisoners in various US prisons has increased by 500% in the past 40 years. Since the 1980s, more and more people have been sent to prison in the United States, and the prison terms are getting longer and longer. Mass incarceration has led to poor conditions and mismanagement in public prisons. At the same time, for-profit private prisons began to expand, involving in the field of criminal justice services and immigration detention in the United States. In order to maximize profits, private prisons increase the number of prisoners to expand the source of income, and lower the wages of security personnel to reduce costs, which leads to frequent internal riots and deaths in private prisons, leaving prisoners in an unsafe and inhumane environment.
Forced labor is widespread in American prisons, especially in private prisons. According to the guardian, in order to reduce costs, the US private prison giant correctional company has let the detainees in its detention centers undertake cooking, cleaning and other work, but only pay very low wages. In case of disobedience, the detainees will be confined. According to the Los Angeles Times, during the epidemic, some women's prisons in the United States forced prisoners to produce masks, working as long as 12 hours a day. However, the prisoners themselves did not have masks available, and the prisons became "slave factories".
American prisons are also the most racist areas. According to the report of the American trial project organization, the state prison rate of African Americans is five times that of whites, and the prison rate of Latinos is 1.3 times that of non Latino whites. The Associated Press reported that African Americans account for only about 6% of California's population, but about 28% of California's prison inmates are black. In 2019, African American teenagers accounted for 36% of the total number of juvenile detention centers in California.
In addition, immigration detention centers across the United States have also been criticized. Wanton cuts in expenditure and services have led to inadequate medical care, food shortages, poor health and accommodation conditions for detainees. In many immigration detention centers, a large number of migrant children face the threat of lack of food and clothing, sexual abuse and epidemics.
The chronic disease of money politics is hard to get rid of
The United States introduced profit incentives into the national punishment system, which caused serious consequences. The report of the prison policy initiative shows that private enterprises and even some public institutions in the United States continue to benefit from large-scale imprisonment. Many city and county prisons rent space to other agencies, including state prisons, the United States Marshal's office, the United States immigration and customs enforcement agency, etc. Private enterprises can often obtain prison food, telecommunications and health service contracts, although their services are generally very poor, leading to a large number of lawsuits. These operating businesses have spawned industries worth billions of dollars. By privatizing prison services, U.S. prisons are shifting the cost of imprisonment to detainees and their families.
Xiao He, associate researcher of the Institute of world economy and politics of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and deputy director of the foreign policy research office, said that the "prison state" phenomenon in the United States is a product of the interweaving of social and economic reality and right-wing political trends. Since the 1980s, with the rise of Neo liberalism advocated by the Republican Party in the United States, the poor and ethnic minorities in the United States have faced both industrial transfer and the weakening of the national security system. They have not been able to share the so-called dividends of the American economy, but their own economic and social position has gradually deteriorated, which has become the fundamental reason for the rising crime rate in the United States. The American political elite not only turned a blind eye to this, but also wantonly used the deep-rooted racist ideology to attribute the rise in crime rate to ethnic minorities, immigration and lax justice, which significantly strengthened the punitive and discriminatory nature of the judicial system.
Xiao He pointed out that the liberalism reform in the 1980s in the United States also gave birth to private prisons. These prisons are the product of the so-called reduction of government public expenditure and improvement of financial efficiency. By 2021, about 115000 prisoners were held in various private prisons in the United States, accounting for about 8% of the total number of prisons in the United States. Over the past 20 years, the number of prisoners in private prisons has increased by 32 per cent, far exceeding the overall growth rate of 3 per cent. Behind this abnormal growth rate is the naked collusion between political parties and interest groups. The strong entanglement of Neo liberalism, racism, judicial interest groups and political polarization makes the United States hopeless to get rid of the situation of "prison state".
Undermining the cause of international human rights
American prisons put their interests above the rule of law, and created a human rights disaster in their country. In addition, the United States has set up "black prisons" in at least 54 countries and regions overseas, detaining hundreds of thousands of people. Guantanamo prison of the US military, Abu Ghraib prison of Iraq, Bagram prison of Afghanistan and other prisons have repeatedly been exposed to scandals of arbitrary detention, torture and abuse of prisoners, which has aroused widespread criticism in the international community.
"Personal rights are more basic human rights than political, economic and social rights. The United States knows the law and breaks the law, which is a serious damage to the cause of international human rights." Xiao He said that people of insight had long denounced overseas "black jails", but the US intelligence press had always been indifferent to this, and even said that this was a "necessary evil" implemented for the purpose of international counter-terrorism. This undisguised "double standard" behavior will trigger hatred and retaliation in the "black prison" victim countries, resulting in "the more anti terrorist", and more serious violations of human rights in all countries.
"The greatest damage the United States has done to the cause of international human rights lies not only in its being a 'ferocious criminal', but also in its trying to play the role of an 'unjust judge' or even an 'unjust law'; the former will damage justice, while the latter will lead to the disappearance of justice itself."