But I think it’s worth looking beyond ballot initiatives and the particulars of this election cycle, and instead examining how elections intersect with the prison state. One obvious intersection is felon disenfranchisement. According to the Sentencing Project, “an estimated 5.85 million Americans are denied the right to vote because of laws that prohibit voting by people with felony convictions.” There are major racial disparities in this disenfranchisement, “resulting in 1 of every 13 African Americans unable to vote.” These disparities are exacerbated by what the Prison Policy Initiative calls prison-based gerrymandering. In many states, prisoners are counted on the census not for the communities or regions they have been forcibly taken from, but for the community in which the prison is located. This dilutes the voting power of black communities and other communities torn apart by mass incarceration. Moreover, it increases the voting power of communities that receive concentrated economic benefits from prisons, such as communities where prison guards live.

The result is that those most directly harmed by the state have no vote on how it is operated. Those who spend their lives not interacting in the voluntary sphere of communities and markets but under the constant power of the state’s prison guards get no vote regarding the government that controls the prisons. Those who have had their friends, family, and community members taken from them and locked in cages have their voting power diluted through prison based gerrymandering. And when prisoners are released, they typically remain disenfranchised. While the violence of the law has taken years of their life from them, and licensing laws restrict them from entering many professions based on their criminal records, they have no vote on the government that forcefully impacts their life. Clearly, the government does not operate with the consent of those who are most brutally governed by it.

My friend Ørn Hansen points out that this ought to seriously undermine arguments about every American having a duty to vote, writing:

Before you call people out for not voting or you call people stupid or worthless or privileged for not voting, remember that some of us people are legally prohibited from voting because of legal issues. Your system is a sham and cuts out a large portion of people from it because they have been convicted of certain crimes or because they don’t have certain forms of ID. Maybe that’s why we don’t trust your system: because they don’t want to hear from us.

The system excludes people from participating in its elections, and then the system’s sycophantic lapdogs blame and shame them for not participating in the state’s grotesque decision making rituals. Of course, it’s worth noting that even if everyone ruled by the U.S. government were permitted to vote, there would be no duty to vote, as Jason Brennan explains.

Just as mass incarceration impacts how electoral processes work, electoral processes have played a key role in the rise of mass incarceration. As the federal government gained control over sentencing policy and other criminal justice issues, crime became a key election issue. According to the National Research Council,  “The two parties embarked on periodic “bidding wars” to ratchet up penalties for drugs and other offenses. Wresting control of the crime issue became a central tenet of up-and-coming leaders of the Democratic Party represented by the center-right Democratic Leadership Council, most notably “New Democrat” Bill Clinton.”  These frenzies of punitive power tend to reach a boiling point in the lead up to elections. The National Research Council’s report notes that “the U.S. House and U.S. Senate have been far more likely to enact stiffer mandatory minimum sentence legislation in the weeks prior to an election. Because of the nation’s system of frequent legislative elections, dispersed governmental powers, and election of judges and prosecutors, policy makers tend to be susceptible to public alarms about crime and drugs and vulnerable to pressures from the public and political opponents to quickly enact tough legislation.”  Electoral politics likewise tends to make prosecutors and judges behave in more punitive ways. “In the United States, most prosecutors are elected, as are most judges (except those who are nominated through a political process). Therefore, they are typically mindful of the political environment in which they function. Judges in competitive electoral environments in the United States tend to mete out harsher sentences.”

So democratic participation in elections in a sense gave us mass incarceration, a policy that has disenfranchised and excluded many from participating in electoral democracy. Yet this disenfranchisement is one of the least destructive impacts of  mass incarceration. Rape, torture, murder, the caging and abuse of children, forcible denial of basic health care, the rich and well-connected stealing from the poor, and countless other atrocities mark the true costs of the carceral state. No election, no public opinion poll, no amount of political participation can make this just or acceptable. Even if all the prisoners and their families were given full voting rights, Lysander Spooner‘s words would ring true: “A man is none the less a slave because he is allowed to choose a new master once in a term of years. Neither are a people any the less slaves because permitted periodically to choose new masters. What makes them slaves is the fact that they now are, and are always hereafter to be, in the hands of men whose power over them is, and always is to be, absolute and irresponsible.”

The Growth of Incarceration in the United States: Exploring Causes and Consequences, a recent report by the National Research Council, helps explain the growth of America’s prison state. Last week I discussed the report’s findings regarding the impact of impact of mandatory minimum sentences, three strikes laws, truth in sentencing laws, and other harsh sentencing policies. This week I’ll discuss the report’s findings on the underlying causes of mass incarceration.

The authors begin by exploring how the federal government’s power and influence over criminal justice matters grew, and the substantial impact this had on the rising prison state:

Before World War II, the making, implementation, and enforcement of criminal justice policy in the United States were almost exclusively within the purview of the states or local authorities, not the federal government. From the 1940s onward, public officials and policy makers at all levels of government—from federal to state to local—increasingly sought changes in judicial, policing, and prosecutorial behavior and in criminal justice policy and legislation. These changes ultimately resulted in major increases in the government’s capacity to pursue and punish lawbreakers and, beginning in the 1970s, in an escalation of sanctions for a wide range of crimes. Furthermore, criminal justice became a persistent rather than an intermittent issue in U.S. politics. To a degree unparalleled in U.S. history, politicians and public officials beginning in the 1960s regularly deployed criminal justice legislation and policies for expressive political purposes as they made “street crime”—both real and imagined—a major national, state, and local issue. (105)

In response to race riots and other social unrest, “President Harry S. Truman and his supporters invoked the need for more “law and order” as they sought a greatly expanded role for the federal government in the general administration of criminal justice and law enforcement at the local and state levels and in the specific prosecution” (107). While Truman and his allies largely did not see their legislative proposals enacted, “all this legislative activity in the 1940s and 1950s deeply influenced how future discussions of law and order, crime, and the federal role in law enforcement would unfold. In advocating these measures, Truman and his allies helped establish a federal role in state and local law enforcement” (108).

The process of increasing federal control over criminal law continued, fueled by voices across the political spectrum. Civil libertarian impulses paved the way for an end to indeterminate sentencing and the rise of mandatory minimums. “The American Bar Foundation’s expansive research agenda in the 1950s and 1960s on the problem of discretion and arbitrary power also was a contributing factor to the political push for more uniformity, neutrality, and proceduralism in law enforcement and sentencing.” Also influential was “the American Legal Institute’s project to devise a Model Penal Code (to guide sentencing policy)” (108).

Of course, much of the political push for increased penal power came from the right. For example, the Goldwater campaign was among the first to push “law and order” as a key issue. After the Goldwater campaign, “the law-and-order issue became a persistent tripwire stretching across national and local politics. Politicians and policy makers increasingly chose to trigger that wire as they sought support for more punitive policies and for expansion of the institutions and resources needed to make good on promises to “get tough”” (108).

The 1965 Law Enforcement Assistance Act was a bipartisan bill that helped expand federal power in the realm of law enforcement. Liberal Democrats initially supported the act as a way of pushing proceduralism, police professionalism, uniformity, and fairness. However, more conservative politicians in both parties placed provisions into the act that served to expand police power and undermine the various rights that had been granted to suspects, defendants, and prisoners by the Warren Court. “Thus, with mixed motivations, both liberals and conservatives helped clear the political ground for this and subsequent measures that expanded the criminal justice system and ultimately gave local, state, and federal authorities increased capacity for arrest, prosecution, and incarceration” (110).

A similar process occurred with the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968. The bill was initially supported by liberals, because early drafts “provided federal grants to police for equipment, training, and pilot programs and also greater federal investments in rehabilitation, crime prevention, and alternatives to incarceration” (110).  Republicans and southern Democrats substantially influenced the bill, however, and “successfully inserted provisions on wiretapping, confessions, and use of eyewitnesses that curtailed the procedural protections that had been extended by Supreme Court decisions” (111).

There were a variety of racial factors at play in the rise of the “tough on crime” politics that pushed increased incarceration. The Democratic Party’s split on Civil Rights issues enabled the Republican Party to use crime as a wedge issue and a key component of their “southern strategy.” Associating crime and racial fears for political gain was nothing new. The major distinction was the coded nature of this racism:

The southern strategy was different in that it rested on politicizing the crime issue in a racially coded manner. Nixon and his political strategists recognized that as the civil rights movement took root, so did more overt and seemingly universally accepted norms of racial equality.14 In this new political context, overtly racial appeals like those wielded by Goldwater’s supporters in the 1964 campaign would be counterproductive to the forging of a new winning majority. Effectively politicizing crime and other wedge issues—such as welfare—would require the use of a form of racial coding that did not appear on its face to be at odds with the new norms of racial equality. As top Nixon aide H.R. Haldeman explained, Nixon “emphasized that you have to face the fact that the whole problem is really the blacks. The key is to devise a system that recognizes this while appearing not to [emphasis in original]” (Haldeman, 1994, p. 53). (116)

The southern strategy was key to the rise of mass incarceration, and white voters consistently support more punitive policies than blacks. However, it would be an oversimplification to suggest that black leaders and voters played no role in supporting the rise of punitive policies. For example, “some black activists in Harlem supported the Rockefeller drug laws, as did the city’s leading black newspaper (Barker, 2009; Fortner, 2013). In New York City and elsewhere, black leaders called for tougher laws for drug and other offenses and demanded increased policing to address residents’ demands that something be done about rising crime rates and the scourge of drug abuse, especially the proliferation of open-air drug markets and the use of illegal drugs such as heroin and then crack cocaine (Barker, 2009; Fortner, 2013; Forman, 2012)” (119).

Republicans often led the way in pushing punitive policies, but the push was generally bipartisan. Indeed, “The two parties embarked on periodic “bidding wars” to ratchet up penalties for drugs and other offenses. Wresting control of the crime issue became a central tenet of up-and-coming leaders of the Democratic Party represented by the center-right Democratic Leadership Council, most notably “New Democrat” Bill Clinton (Stuntz, 2011, pp. 239-240; Murakawa, forthcoming, Chapter 5; Schlosser, 1998; Campbell, 2007)” (120).

Ultimately, the U.S. government’s institutional features play a key role in explaining the rise of mass incarceration. As the National Research Council report notes, “the U.S. House and U.S. Senate have been far more likely to enact stiffer mandatory minimum sentence legislation in the weeks prior to an election. Because of the nation’s system of frequent legislative elections, dispersed governmental powers, and election of judges and prosecutors, policy makers tend to be susceptible to public alarms about crime and drugs and vulnerable to pressures from the public and political opponents to quickly enact tough legislation” (124). Electoral politics likewise makes prosecutors and judges behave in more punitive ways. “In the United States, most prosecutors are elected, as are most judges (except those who are nominated through a political process). Therefore, they are typically mindful of the political environment in which they function. Judges in competitive electoral environments in the United States tend to mete out harsher sentences (Gordon and Huber, 2007; Huber and Gordon, 2004)” (124).

This fits what we would expect from a public choice perspective. Research by Daniel D’Amico explores the perverse political incentives that give rise to disproportionate punishment in detail. Similar problems have also been explored in Paul Larkin‘s work on public choice theory and overcriminalization. This research can help us understand how America became the world leader in mass incarceration. Hopefully it can give us an idea of the institutional and ideological shifts that are necessary to change it.

In April, the National Research Council released a report, The Growth of Incarceration in the United States: Exploring Causes and Consequences. The report explains many of the reasons incarceration rates have increased so dramatically in the United States, and analyzes the consequences of mass incarceration. 

The report largely ascribes the growth of America’s prison population to changes in sentencing policies. Until the 1970’s, the federal and state governments employed a system of “indeterminate sentencing,” in which “sentencing was to be individualized and judges had wide discretion” (72). But over the next few decades, America’s sentencing laws changed drastically. The report identifies three phases of this shift. During the first phase, from “1975 to the mid-1980s, the reform movement aimed primarily to make sentencing procedures fairer and sentencing outcomes more predictable and consistent. The problems to be solved were “racial and other unwarranted disparities,” and the mechanisms for solving it were various kinds of comprehensive sentencing and parole guidelines and statutory sentencing standards.” These changes were designed with liberal goals in mind, and often featured “population constraints” to control the growth of prison populations. The second phase, however, was far more punitive. “The second phase, from the mid-1980s through 1996, aimed primarily to make sentences for drug and violent crimes harsher and their imposition more certain. The principal mechanisms to those ends were mandatory minimum sentence, three strikes, truth-in-sentencing, and life without possibility of parole laws.” The authors characterize the third phase as a “period of drift” with relatively few increases in punitive policies (73).

The authors primarily blame the prison population’s growth on this second phase. They note that “truth-in-sentencing” laws, which require prisoners to serve a minimum percentage of their sentence before being released on parole, substantially increased prison populations. Citing research from the Urban Institute, the authors note that “When implemented as part of a comprehensive change to the sentencing system, “truth-in-sentencing laws were associated with large changes in prison populations”” (80). These laws primarily increase prison populations over the long term. The authors quote Spelman, who notes “Truth-in-sentencing laws have little immediate effect but a substantial long-run effect. This analysis makes sense: Truth-in-sentencing laws increase time served and reduce the number of offenders released in future years; the full effect would only be observed after prisoners sentenced under the old regime are replaced by those sentenced under the new law.”  Because these laws only show their full effects in the long term, many studies understate their impact on incarceration rates. “The Urban Institute, Vera, and RAND studies underestimate the effects of truth-in-sentencing laws on prison population growth because they cover periods ending, respectively, in 1996-1998 (for Ohio), 2002, and 1997. Mandatory minimum sentence, truth-in-sentencing, and three strikes laws requiring decades-long sentences inevitably have a “sleeper” effect,” the report notes (82).

In addition to expanding the prison population, these sentencing policies put a lot of discretion in the hands of prosecutors. The authors note that “Two centuries of experience has shown that mandatory punishments foster circumvention by prosecutors, juries, and judges and thereby produce inconsistencies among cases (Romilly, 1820; Reekie, 1930; Hay, 1975; Tonry, 2009b). Problems of circumvention and inconsistent application have long been documented and understood.” While mandatory minimums, truth-in-sentencing laws, and other mandatory punishments were designed to produce more standardized, consistent, and certain punishment, they can actually have the opposite impact. The authors provide specific examples of how this operates:

“Legislative prescription of a high mandatory sentence for certain offenders is likely to result in a reduction in charges at the prosecution stage, or if this is not done, by a refusal of the judge to convict at the adjudication stage. The issue…thus is not solely whether certain offenders should be dealt with severely, but also how the criminal justice system will accommodate to the legislative charge” (Remington, 1969, p. xvii). Newman (1966, p. 179) describes how Michigan judges dealt with a lengthy mandatory minimum sentence for drug sales: “Mandatory minimums are almost universally disliked by trial judges…. The clearest illustration of routine reductions is provided by reduction of sale of narcotics to possession or addiction…. Judges … actively participated in the charge reduction process to the extent of refusing to accept guilty pleas to sale and liberally assigning counsel to work out reduced charges.” Newman (1966, p. 182) tells of efforts to avoid 15-year mandatory maximum sentences: “In Michigan conviction of armed robbery or breaking and entering in the nighttime (fifteen-year maximum compared to five years for daytime breaking) is rare. The pattern of downgrading is such that it becomes virtually routine, and the bargaining session becomes a ritual. The real issue in such negotiations is not whether the charge will be reduced but how far, that is, to what lesser offense” (Newman, 1966, p. 182). Dawson (1969, p. 201) describes “very strong” judicial resistance to a 20-year mandatory minimum sentence for the sale of narcotics: “Charge reductions to possession or use are routine. Indeed, in some cases, judges have refused to accept guilty pleas to sale of narcotics, but have continued the case and appointed counsel with instructions to negotiate a charge reduction.” (78-79)

This has a variety of consequences. It erodes the deterrence that is supposed to come with harsher sentencing. But perhaps more importantly, “Mandatory punishments transfer dispositive discretion in the handling of cases from judges, who are expected to be nonpartisan and dispassionate, to prosecutors, who are comparatively more vulnerable to influence by political considerations and public emotion” (79). In addition to putting leniency in the hands of prosecutors, harsher sentences enable prosecutors to secure convictions without due process, as they can stack charges in order to coerce defendants into accepting plea bargains.

These harsher sentences also play a key role in producing racial disparities. The report summarizes the literature on racial bias at various points in the criminal justice process, including bias against black people who match particular stereotypes. While this racism is clearly present, the authors argue it is statistically small compared to the impact of sentencing policies. They argue that, “The reason for increased racial disparities in imprisonment relative to arrests is straightforward: severe sentencing laws enacted in the 1980s and 1990s greatly increased the lengths of prison sentences mandated for violent crimes and drug offenses for which blacks are disproportionately often arrested” (96).

If social science had played a leading role in policy discussions, these harsh sentencing laws would likely have been seen as undesirable when they were proposed. Unfortunately, “consideration of social science evidence has had little influence on legislative policy-making processes concerning sentencing and punishment in recent decades. The consequences of this disconnect have contributed substantially to contemporary patterns of imprisonment. Evidence on the deterrent effects of mandatory minimum sentence laws is just one such example. Two centuries of experience with laws mandating minimum sentences for particular crimes have shown that those laws have few if any effects as deterrents to crime and, as discussed above, foster patterns of circumvention and manipulation by prosecutors, judges, and juries” (90). It’s predictable that the state would ignore social science evidence. Voters are rationally ignorant, as the cost of studying relevant social science exceeds the benefits to voters of understanding issues. But worse still, as Byran Caplan documents in The Myth of the Rational Voter, voters are rationally irrational. That is, it is instrumentally rational for them to persist in irrational biases that are directly counter to social science, rather than simply being ignorant and agnostic.

The harsh sentences passed during the 1980s and 1990s have been extraordinarily destructive. They have shifted more power into the hands of prosecutors, undermined proportionality, exacerbated racial disparities in the criminal justice system, and played a key role in bringing us an America that incarcerates more people than any  other nation on earth.

Knefel discusses the various norms that bias jurors in favor of conviction, from legal norms that prohibit lawyers from mentioning jury nullification in court to an authoritarian bias that inclines jurors to defer to police and prosecutors. She then describes nullification’s history, from its origins in 1670 to its use in the trial of the Camden 28, a group of peace activists who broke into a draft board office in protest of the Vietnam War.

The article’s conclusion is excellent:

People must know their rights before they get called to jury duty. Telling a sitting juror about nullification can be considered illegal tampering. But ensuring that all potential jurors know about nullification is not only legal but critical to the administration of justice. “When people start to understand the power they can exercise as jurors, I think that makes them more enthusiastic about jury service,” Butler says. And in an era of mass incarceration, harsh sentencing, racial profiling and police repression, the jury box is arguably the most powerful spot in the courtroom.

Now this is what I’m talking about!

Late last month I presented alongside Kirsten Tynan of the Fully Informed Jury Association on how jury nullification can be used as a tactic against a growing and brutal prison state. Kirsten discussed much of the history that Knefel covers in her piece. I mostly focused on the abuse that occurs inside American prisons, and why jurors should be aware of this as they consider whether someone should be convicted of a crime.

I’ve considered jury nullification a key part of any prison abolitionist toolkit for a while. About a year ago, in my op-ed Prison Abolition Is Practical, I mentioned jury nullification as one tactic for restraining the prison state, writing:

Resist the prison growth industry. Organize against construction of any new prisons, jails, and detention centers. Divest from banks that profit off prisons, such as Wells Fargo, and urge others to do the same. Expose prison profiteers like Jane Marquardt and undermine their political influence. Film cops, finance legal defenses, and promote jury nullification, so fewer people are sent to prison.

But this perspective on jury nullification has in my experience been too often absent from leftist movements against mass incarceration. The Fully Informed Jury Association does amazing work for jury nullification, but has mostly been heard by the libertarian right. So when left-wing publications like The Nation bring up jury nullification explicitly as a tactic against mass incarceration, this gives me hope and suggests I’m not alone. Let’s fight against mass incarceration, disproportionate punishment, and abusive power on all fronts, with juror education and jury nullification as one key tactic.

Por esta época do ano todos nós ouvimos falar da importância da família. Algumas pessoas receiam encontros embaraçosos com parentes, enquanto outras prezam a oportunidade de convívio com aqueles a quem mais amam. Quaisquer sejam os sentimentos que você nutra no tocante à família, contudo, provavelmente você ficaria chocado se o governo usasse a força para proibir você de ver sua família no Natal.

Para muitas pessoas, porém, isso não é simplesmente uma pavorosa hipótese de feriado; é, isto sim, cruel realidade. A guerra às drogas presenteou-nos com Estados Unidos que trancafiam mais seres humanos em jaulas do qualquer outro país na Terra. Isso tem efeito devastador nas famílias. De acordo com Michelle Alexander, o governo dos Estados Unidos já trancafiou tantos pais pretos que “Uma criança preta nascida hoje tem menor probabilidade de ser criada por ambos os pais do que uma criança preta nascida durante a escravidão.”

Embora Michelle Alexander concentre-se principalmente no encarceramento de pais pretos, as prisões estadunidenses também trancafiam mães, com consequências devastadoras para os filhos delas. De acordo com Victoria Law, “62% das mulheres em prisões estaduais e 56% das mulheres em prisões federais informaram ser mães de filhos menores.”  Muitas delas são mães solteiras, o que significa que os filhos vão para lares adotivos em vez de continuarem com membros da família. As mulheres são amiúde encarceradas longe dos filhos, tornando as visitas difíceis. E mesmo quando visitas são logisticamente possíveis, administradores de prisões têm controle sobre se essas visitas serão permitidas. A lei prescreve que as autoridades prisionais “usem seu controle referente a visitas para punir prisioneiros que questionem as condições existentes na prisão.” Isso pode ser usado para dissuadir prisioneiros de questionar sérias violações de direitos humanos. Por exemplo, Stacy Barker foi impedida de receber visitas depois de, com sucesso, ter processado o Departamento de Correções de Michigan por abuso sexual.

Sentenças de pena mínima obrigatória podem adicionalmente exacerbar o impacto do encarceramento em massa sobre as famílias. Recente artigo no New York Times explica como Stephanie George, mãe solteira, está atualmente cumprindo pena de prisão perpétua sem direito a condicional por ter desempenhado apenas papel menor em transações envolvendo drogas. Embora o juiz, no caso dela, tenha reconhecido que sentenciá-la a prisão perpétua era inadequado e injusto, as leis de pena mínima obrigatória impunham tal sentença por causa da quantidade de droga em cuja venda se comprovou estar envolvida a Sra. George. Essa é a realidade do encarceramento em massa: Mães são separadas de seus filhos pelo resto da vida, simplesmente por terem desempenhado papel menor em operações de negócios com drogas. A maioria das mulheres encarceradas está atrás das grades por ofensas não violentas.

E o encarceramento em massa não é a única forma de violência do estado que dispersa famílias. Deportações subtraem imigrantes de suas famílias, forçando-os a ir para abusivos centros de detenção antes de bani-los do país onde trabalharam para construir um lar. Recente relatório da ColorLines atestou mais de 200.000 deportações de pais com filhos cidadãos estadunidenses num período de dois anos. E muitos desses pais nunca cometeram crime sério. De acordo com a ColorLines, “cerca de 40 por cento dos deportados com condenações foram acusados dos crimes do menor nível, inclusive ofensas de trânsito.”

Encarceramento em massa e deportação em massa não são políticas separadas que ocorre de, ambas, destruírem famílias. Antes, são duas facetas diferentes do complexo industrial prisional. As mesmas corporações que administram prisões com fins lucrativos, tais como Corrections Corporation of America, GEO Group, e Management and Training Corporation, também lucram com administrar centros de detenção de imigração. Essas empresas apoiam políticos favoráveis a leis autoritárias relativas a questões tanto de imigração quanto criminais. Quando pessoas de cor têm suas famílias violentamente despedaçadas pelo estado, o complexo industrial prisional lucra.

Neste Natal, peço encarecidamente a você que mantenha as famílias juntas. Rogo que você se articule contra o complexo industrial prisional e o aparato do estado que já fizeram em pedaços tantas famílias.

Artigo original afixado por Nathan Goodman em 25 de dezembro de 2012.

Traduzido do inglês por Murilo Otávio Rodrigues Paes Leme.

For many people, however, this is not simply a horrifying holiday hypothetical; it’s a cruel reality. The drug war has given us an America that locks more human beings in cages than any other country on Earth.  This has had devastating impacts for families. According to Michelle Alexander, the US government has locked up so many black fathers that, “A black child born today is less likely to be raised by both parents than a black child born during slavery.”

While Michelle Alexander primarily focuses on the mass incarceration of black fathers, American prisons also lock up mothers, with devastating consequences for their children. According to Victoria Law, “62% of women in state prisons and 56% of women in federal prison reported being mothers of minor children.”  Many of them are single mothers, meaning that their children go into foster care rather than staying with family members. Women are often incarcerated far from their children, making visits difficult. And even when visits are logistically possible, prison administrators have control over whether these visits are permitted. Law writes that prison authorities “use their control over visits to punish prisoners who challenge existing prison conditions.” This can be used to deter prisoners from challenging serious human rights violations. For example, Stacy Barker was barred from receiving visitors after she successfully sued the Michigan Department of Corrections for sexual abuse.

Mandatory minimum sentences can further exacerbate mass incarceration’s impact on families. A recent article in the New York Times  explains how Stephanie George, a single mother, is currently serving a sentence of life without parole for playing merely a minor role in drug dealing. While the judge in her case acknowledged that sentencing her to life imprisonment was inappropriate and unjust, mandatory minimum sentencing laws demanded such a sentence given the quantity of drugs Ms. George was convicted of being involved in selling. This is the reality of mass incarceration: Mothers are separated from their children for life, simply for playing a minor role in drug dealing operations. The majority of incarcerated women are behind bars for non-violent offenses.

And mass incarceration isn’t the only form of state violence that breaks up families. Deportations steal immigrants away from their families, forcing them into abusive detention centers before banishing them from the country where they’ve worked to build a home. A recent report from ColorLines found over 200,000 deportations of parents with US citizen children over a two year period. And many of these parents never committed a serious crime. According to ColorLines, “nearly 40 percent of deportees with convictions were charged with the lowest level crimes, including driving offenses.”

Mass incarceration and mass deportation are not separate policies that both happen to destroy families. Rather, they are two different facets of the prison industrial complex. The same corporations that operate prisons for profit, such as Corrections Corporation of America, GEO Group, and Management and Training Corporation, also profit by running immigration detention centers. These companies back politicians that support authoritarian laws on both immigration and criminal justice issues. When people of color have their families violently broken apart by the state, the prison industrial complex profits.

This Christmas, I urge you to keep families together. I urge you to organize against the prison industrial complex and the state apparatus that have broken so many families apart.

While Marquardt is praised by establishment liberal organizations like Human Rights Campaign and Equality Utah for supporting LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender) rights, her company profits from the disproportionate caging and abuse of LGBT people, especially transgender women.

As I’ve written previously, LGBT youth are disproportionately likely to be homeless, putting them at increased risk of criminalization. Furthermore, the poverty inflicted on members of the LGBT community through employment and housing discrimination increases their risk of incarceration. Transgender people have their risk of incarceration further exacerbated by being profiled for “prostitution” charges and sometimes even locked up for using public restrooms. There is also homophobic and transphobic discrimination in America’s immigration system, leading LGBT immigrants to be disproportionately sent to immigration detention centers, which MTC profits from.

Once locked in prison or an immigration detention center, LGBT inmates face horrific abuses. A 2007 study found that “[s]exual assault is 13 times more prevalent among transgender inmates, with 59 percent reporting being sexually assaulted.” The same study found that 67% of LGBT inmates reported being sexually assaulted. That’s 15 times the rate for their straight and cisgender counterparts.

Transgender inmates are also often placed in solitary confinement due to their gender identity. Voices across the political spectrum recognize solitary confinement as a form of torture. Yes, Jane Marquardt, a leading Democrat and “LGBT rights activist,” profits from the torture of transgender people.

There have also been abuses unique to facilities Marquardt’s company operated. An investigative report by PBS’s FRONTLINE found that MTC’s Willacy Detention Center was a site of rampant sexual abuse, and that guards were covering it up. When activists from the Prison Divestment Campaign told Jane Marquardt in a cordial meeting that this had happened in her facilities, she looked shocked and said “That would be terrible if that were happening in our facilities!” When we told her it was and handed her a copy of FRONTLINE’s report, she changed the subject.

MTC has not just been corrupt in their operation of prisons, but in their political donations. They donate money to politicians whom they expect will open new for-profit prisons. Furthermore, they donated to supporters of Arizona’s infamous anti-immigrant bill SB 1070, which would send new unwilling immigrant customers to their cages.

When activists called out Marquardt for profiting from human rights abuses, Democrats were appalled not at Jane’s profiteering, but that anyone would be so rude as to shout about it. Yet the Democratic Party claims to stand for immigrants, the poor, people of color, and the LGBT community, all of which are groups that Jane Marquardt’s company cages and abuses for profit.

People who care about equality and human rights should see this as a wake up call. They should abandon the Democratic Party, and instead resist the corrupt system that enables Jane Marquardt to profit by caging human beings.