Incarceration companies turn profit for imprisonment

Editor,

If you haven’t already heard, this week marks the second annual “Free the Prisoners” week here at UNM. A collaborative effort between a variety of student and community organizations, Free the Prisoners week draws attention to the plague of issues related to the Prison Industrial Complex as it criminalizes our communities locally and internationally.

The term Prison Industrial Complex is used to refer to the rapid expansion of the U.S. inmate population as it relates to the increasing political influence of private prison companies and businesses that supply goods and services to government prison agencies. The Prison Industrial Complex has already proven capable of manifesting itself in many different nightmarish forms in the 21st century.

Throughout the week, organizations will discuss such issues as the school-to-prison pipeline, ICE detention facilities, prison abolition, gendered and homophobic violence against queer and transgender prisoners, imprisoned asylum-seekers in Israel, prisoner hunger strikes, the criminalization of men of color and more. These events are meant to challenge our understanding of why people are locked up, how they are treated once they are locked up and who makes money off of their imprisonment.

The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world; as members of an institution of higher education, our privilege also affords us the obligation to critically interrogate these systems that target marginalized communities in order to turn a profit.

For many members of the broad UNM community, these issues are close to home: from having spent time in prison, to witnessing family or friends spend time in prison, to constantly being threatened with being imprisoned. We cannot continue to ignore these issues.

Sincerely,

Julie Jaynes,

Students for Justice in Palestine