On tour, Defiance, Ohio plays a song called “Tanks Tanks Tanks” that seems to be pretty popular with folks. It’s dancy, and easy to sing-along to, and I think that people identify with its general anti-war message, and its criticisms, echoed everywhere it seems, of the Bush administration’s rational for going to war. What is overlooked, a lot of the time, is the portion of the song that deals with the prison-industrial-complex. Will wrote the song, in part, after reading a Harpers article that much of the equipment used by US soldiers in the Middle East is produced using prison labor. I couldn’t quickly locate the Harpers article, but I found this article, The Prisoners of War by Ian Urbina that describes the relationship between Federal Prison Industries (FPI), also known as UNICOR, described as a “quasi-public, for-profit corporation run by the Bureau of Prisons”, and the U.S. military. To give an idea of the scope to which the US military is supplied by prison labor, the article mentions the production of the pants worn by most soldiers deployed in the Middle East:
Out of the 1.3 million pairs of these trousers bought by the Defense Department last year, all but 300,000 were produced by FPI, which means that at least three out of four active-duty soldiers in the region wear pants made by the inmates of the FPI factories in Atlanta and in Beaumont and Feagoville, Texas.
Critics argue that using prison labor is exploitative as the inmates are payed low wages (the article claims that FPI laborers are paid from $0.25 to $1.15/hour) and FPI does not have the same obligations to workplace safety standards or paying taxes as other employers. Advocates of this type of prison labor say that producing these goods with prison labor is preferable to having the goods produced by cheap labor abroad. Still, as most of these sort of manufacturing jobs are being exported to parts of the world with cheap labor, there are few jobs available upon release that would use the skills that prison laborers might gain while working to produce products for the military. Also, critics claim that the popularity (and income generated by) for-profit prison labor comes at the expense of other vocational, rehabilitative, and educational programs in prisons.
The bottom line is this: currently, the US military is dependent on supplies from prison labor. The implication is that the war effort benefits from having a large population of incarcerated people to cheaply produce its uniforms and other equipment.
Today, I came across an article in the Herald-Times that described the detention of suspected undocumented immigrants, and the effect that their detention had on children and families of the detained. From the article:
NEW BEDFORD, Mass. — Dozens of young children were stranded at schools and with baby sitters after their parents were rounded up by federal authorities who raided a leather goods maker suspected of hiring illegal immigrants, authorities said Wednesday. Gov. Deval Patrick said the children of the detainees — most of whom are from Guatemala and El Salvador — might not be receiving proper care. “We are particularly concerned about the Guatemalan community and the risk that they may be fearful about disclosing the existence or whereabouts of their children given their history with government agencies,†Patrick wrote in a letter asking U.S. Rep.
The company where the detained workers were employed, Michael Bianco Inc, received multiple government contracts to make products for the military:
Company owner Francesco Insolia, 50, and three top managers were arrested. A fifth person was arrested on charges of helping workers obtain fake identification. Authorities allege Insolia oversaw sweatshop conditions so he could meet the demands of $91 million in U.S. military contracts to make products including safety vests and lightweight backpacks. Investigators said the workers toiled in dingy conditions and faced onerous fines, such as a $20 charge for talking while working and spending more than two minutes in the bathroom.
Finally, the article shows this image of one of the children of the detained:
So again, there is another example of the war effort requiring resources that are produced through exploitative circumstances. It is not surprising, of course waging war is expensive, and to try to reduce those expenses, it makes sense that we would use labor that relies on those with little voice in our society and few options – the imprisoned and recent immigrants. Here is another example of how waging war disproportionately affects women and children. These costs, these effects of waging war are unavoidable. Waging war requires too many resources, too much expense for there to be scruples about where those resources come from. If we find the exploitation of prisoners troubling, if we find the welfare of children troubling, we have to find war troubling. Period. But this argument seems redundant, I would suspect that most people who are troubled by the war in Iraq, or any war, are troubled by the plight of the incarcerated in our prison system, are troubled by the welfare of children, by the role that many immigrants play in our society, and those who support the war, are willing to do so at even these costs. Drawing these connections, for me, only serves to be honest about the costs of our decisions, whether it is our support of the war, or the combination of our decisions that, despite our personal objections, allow the war effort to be continued. But this doesn’t really make me feel any better, because inaction seems worse, somehow, more cruel, when you know the consequences.
To bring things full circle going from prisons to the military, to immigration, to children, and then back to prisons, Democracy Now! reported yesterday that the ACLU was filing suit on behalf of children detained at a controversial immigrant jail in Texas. At this facility, families are detained pending decisions on their legal status in the US. Of the approximately 400 people detained at this privitized prison facility, around half are children.
Link to Arrests of illegal immigrants leaves their kids stranded at school and daycares