U.S. Planning Big New Prison in Afghanistan

[cal04]

Source: NYTimes

The Pentagon is moving forward with plans to build a new, 40-acre detention complex on the main American military base in Afghanistan, officials said, in a stark acknowledgment that the United States is likely to continue to hold prisoners overseas for years to come.

The proposed detention center would replace the cavernous, makeshift American prison on the Bagram military base north of Kabul, which is now typically packed with about 630 prisoners, compared with the 270 held at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

Until now, the Bush administration had signaled that it intended to scale back American involvement in detention operations in Afghanistan. It had planned to transfer a large majority of the prisoners to Afghan custody, in an American-financed, high-security prison outside Kabul to be guarded by Afghan soldiers.

But American officials now concede that the new Afghan-run prison cannot absorb all the Afghans now detained by the United States, much less the waves of new prisoners from the escalating fight against Al Qaeda and the Taliban.


Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/17/world/asia/17detain.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

[Goodnevil]

1. Now how do you dismantle

an international prison system? How will Sen. Obama do it? What about all those building contracts? The taxpayer eats them?

[Arctic Dave]

2. Prisons and blast walls. The only thing these fuckers are good at building.

Power plant? Nope. Waste water treatment facility? Nope. Hospital? Nope. Water purification plant? Nope. Schools? Nope. Electrical grids? Nope. Streets? Nope. Homes? Nope. Lasting peace? You must be a crack monkey.

[libodem]

7. Most excellent point, Dave

[kenny blankenship]

3. It will be called "Afghanistan"

[lib2DaBone]

4. More NAFTA and Offshoring....

There you go... Just when we could have had a nice new prison in America... they go and spend the money overseas.



Get out there and spend.. Keep China Happy. What, no job? Not our problem

[stillcool]

5. Someone's going to make a killing!

by Michael Darling, The Pitt News
November 15th, 2004
http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=12745
----------------
In 1995, states cut $954 million in funding for university construction, but increased funds for prisons from $926 million to $2.6 billion. From 1987 to 1995, prison funding increased by 30 percent, while spending for universities declined by 18 percent.

Twenty-one prisons were built in California in 1996, but only one university campus was. Though Pennsylvania does not report its annual inmate expenses, in Ohio, it costs $36,335 per year to keep one inmate incarcerated. For that money, at least three students could attend Pitt on a full scholarship.
-----------------------------------------------
U.S. incarceration rates reached an all-time high in 2003, meaning future demand for CCA's services is all but guaranteed. A study by the Justice Department in August of 2003 revealed that more than 5.6 million Americans are in prison or have served time. Today, with 9.3 percent of all black men between the ages of 25 and 29 in jail, meaningful reform is desperately needed.

http://www.curenational.org/new/image/oas_justice.pdf
JUVENILES. As of the end of the 2004 legislative sessions, 23 states had no minimum age for the purpose of the criminal justice system, and young children could be treated as adults in those states. 2 states have a minimum age of 10, 3 states have a minimum age of 12, 6 states have a minimum of 13, 16 states have a minimum of 14, and 1 state has a minimum age of 15.

There are separate prisons for juveniles, although in some states, juveniles are kept in the same facilities as adult prisoners, especially if they are awaiting trial. In a 2004 report of the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics, they report that 2477 inmates under the age of 18 were held in state adult prisons. There were certainly more than that number in adult jails.


PRISON SYSTEMS

Structure. The U.S. does have separate federal and state prison systems. The total jail and prison population at the end of 2004 was approximately 2,300,000 men, women, and children in secure facilities. There were approximately 183,000 national (federal) prisoners, and the balance were in state and local facilities. Some large local jurisdictions have more prisoners than many small countires. Los Angeles has 21,000; New York City 19,000; and Chicago, over 10,000. Approximately 75% of all prsioners are sentenced, and 25% are awaiting trial. Awaiting trial prisoners and sentenced prisoners with short terms, or waiting for transfer to state facilities are often in the same facility.

It should be mentioned that then number of prisoners in the U.S. is unique in the world. There are just over 9,000,000 prisoners in the entire world and more than 25% of them are in the U.S. The U.S. rate of incarceration is the highest in the world.

http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=867
US: America's Private Gulag
by Ken Silverstein, Prison Legal News
June 1st, 2000

What is the most profitable industry in America? Weapons, oil and computer technology all offer high rates of return, but there is probably no sector of the economy so abloom with money as the privately run prison industry.
Greasing the Wheels of Power to Keep Jails Full

To be profitable, private prison firms must ensure that prisons are not only built but also filled. Industry experts say a 90-95 per cent capacity rate is needed to guarantee the hefty rates of return needed to lure investors. Prudential Securities issued a wildly bullish report on CCA a few years ago but cautioned, "It takes time to bring inmate population levels up to where they cover costs. Low occupancy is a drag on profits." Still, said the report, company earnings would be strong if CCA succeeded in ramp(ing) up population levels in its new facilities at an acceptable rate".

"(There is a) basic philosophical problem when you begin turning over administration of prisons to people who have an interest in keeping people locked up" notes Jenni Gainsborough of the ACLU's National Prison Project.

Private prison companies have also begun to push, even if discreetly, for the type of get-tough policies needed to ensure their continued growth. All the major firms in the field have hired big-time lobbyists. When it was seeking a contract to run a halfway house in New York City, Esmor hired a onetime aide to State Representative Edolphus Towns to lobby on its behalf. The aide succeeded in winning the contract and also the vote of his former boss, who had been an opponent of the project. In 1995, Wackenhut Chairman Tim Cole testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee to urge support for amendments to the Violent Crime Control Act -- which subsequently passed -- that authorized the expenditure of $10 billion to construct and repair state prisons.

Cashing in on Crime

In addition to the companies that directly manage America's prisons, many other firms are getting a piece of the private prison action. American Express has invested millions of dollars in private prison construction in Oklahoma and General Electric has helped finance construction in Tennessee. Goldman Sachs & Co., Merrill Lynch, Smith Barney, among other Wall Street firms, have made huge sums by underwriting prison construction with the sale of tax exempt bonds, this now a thriving $2.3 billion industry

[daleo]

6. Neo-conservative democracy needs prisons

In fact, neo-con democracy's ultimate manifestation would be a giant prison holding the entire population of the world (less the one percent rich).

[mcollier]

8. DU is a place where we continue to preach to the choir

We need to hit the republican blogs and forums. Its time to go out and fight!

[Dover]

9. How fortunate that the contractors will remain so gainfully employed.....

certainly wouldn't want them running out of bases, prisons and fences to build. :sarcasm:
I'm sure Halliburton already has the plans drawn up and the money spent.

I met a man once who purchases land and digs huge holes for a living, selling the dirt and rocks and shredded tree bark for a great profit. Then he turns around and charges contractors and city construction companies a fee to fill the hole with 'whatever' soil or other refuse they need to dispose of. Sounds like Halliburton ingenuity, eh?

How unfortunate these job creations aren't happening here in the U.S.