Autoplectic wrote:-----------------------------
>"If the rapid expansion of the penal system in the 1980s and 1990s in
>the US is regarded as an intervention in the labour-market and the
>incarcerated are counted among the ranks of the unemployed, the US
>male jobless rate rises to a level above the European average for most
>of the period since 1975. It hardly needs to be pointed out that
>incarceration on a per capita basis is rather more expensive than
>unemployment benefit. More importantly, since the job prospects of
>ex-convicts are significantly eroded such that they invariably leave
>prison to join the ranks of the long-term unemployed, the impressive
>employment performance of the US in the 1980s and 1990s has in fact
>depended in large part on a high and increasing incarceration rate at
>an increasing cost to the US taxpayer. Arguably, then, the US has a
>very expensive non-welfare state."
><http://www.bham.ac.uk/POLSIS/department/staff/publications/hay_inaugural.htm>
>
This is absolutely true, but it leaves out two essential facts: 1. The
money spent is going to jailers rather than the working class, further
dividing the white collar from the blue collar and 2. It's perfectly OK
to fleece the taxpayer in the cause of increasing general social terror
-- fear of losing your job + fear of going to jail.
After all, the goal is control/power not social justice or efficiency.
Joanna
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