Tag: carceral state

What’s actually IN the US “Covid Stimulus Bill”?

The US congress just passed their Covid stimulus bill, or the “Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021” to give its official title. So what’s actually inside it? What has just been passed into law?

The answers to that is “nobody really knows”, least of all the members of congress, who passed the law without reading it, as they so often do. It’s the longest bill in US history, at over 5500 pages and it sailed through the voting mostly sight unseen.

We’ve downloaded a copy of the full document and will embed it below for those of you patient or masochistic enough to tackle the whole thing. We’ve read some already, and will point out the highlights:

  • “Foreign aid” is a big winner. Egypt is getting $1.3 billion, Sudan, Israel and Ukraine get over 500 million each, and many other countries around the world sizeable contributions, much of which will be spent on “defense”. Which is to say sent straight back to America via massive arms purchases.
  • Not all the money being sent overseas is for buying weapons, some is for backing coups. Venezuela and Belarus get special mention here, each getting their own section of the bill detailing how terrible their “illegal regimes” are. There’s also a large section on “combating Chinese influence”.
  • For some reason there’s another section on copyright law, which makes illegal streaming copyrighted content a federal crimes, punishable by up to three years in prison.
  • Nearly 300 million is put aside to develop influenza vaccines and prevent a future influenza pandemic.
  • 4 BILLION dollars for the Gates-funded GAVI, the Vaccine Alliance.
  • Vaccine “misinformation” is also a concern, and the bill provides for a pro-vaccine propaganda campaign – or rather a “PUBLIC AWARENESS CAMPAIGN ON THE IMPORTANCE OF VACCINATIONS”

So – huge amounts of foreign aid, support for various coups, totally irrelevent copyright laws, provisions for pro-vaccine propaganda campaigns…it’s not your typical “stimulus bill” so far, is it?

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American Teenagers Jailed For 4 Months For Violating COVID-19 Quarantine Rules In Cayman Islands

Skylar Mack, 18, of Georgia, broke her two-week quarantine after two days because she wanted to watch her boyfriend, Vanjae Ramgeet — a 24-year-old jet ski racer from the Cayman Islands — compete in a local race on Nov. 29, People reported.

Under Cayman’s coronavirus guidelines, travelers are required to undergo a 14-day quarantine-in-residence upon arriving on the island.

Mack pled guilty to removing her geo-fencing bracelet and breaking quarantine for seven hours in order to watch her boyfriend compete in a local jet-ski race. He pled guilty to aiding and abetting her.

The couple was initially sentenced to a fine and community service by Magistrate Angelyn Hernandez.

However, Patrick Moran, the Director of Public Prosecutions for the Cayman Islands, appealed the sentence. He claimed it was too lenient and therefore, unlikely to deter others from breaching COVID guidelines.

Moran then sought prison terms for Mack and Ramgeet for the nonviolent transgression. Neither were infected with COVID-19 when Mack breached quarantine.

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New Report Details the Shocking Growth of the Prison Exploitation Across the US

Anew report from prison abolition group Worth Rises has exposed the extent to which corporate America profits from the desperation of the incarcerated. The 132-page study, entitled “The Prison Industry: how it started, how it works, how it harms,” blows the lid off the scandalous business practices organizations involved in what has become known as the “prison industrial complex” employ to reap billions in annual profits.

“The prison industry is ubiquitous in our society. And yet we pay so little attention to it and we know so little about it. This report is really hoping to unveil the prison industry, the government and corporate actors who are exploiting the fact that they have been in the shadows,” Bianca Tylek, Worth Rises’ founder and executive director told MintPress.

In economics, a “captive market” is a situation where consumers face a severely limited number of suppliers, meaning their only choice is to purchase what is available (usually at a much higher price) or make no purchase at all. Most people resent and feel exploited by the higher prices in captive market situations like stadiums, movie theaters, and airports. But prisons take captive markets to a whole new level.

Being incarcerated is expensive, with inmates forced to pay for extra food and many things most would consider basic necessities, such as toothpaste and phone calls. Often just being sent to a correctional facility incurs a $100 “processing fee” prisoners must pay, while visitors are often charged “background check fees” as well. Prisoners’ friends and families transfer $1.8 billion into correctional facilities every year. Faced with no other choices, they are forced to accept money transfer fees up to an outrageous 45%. Financial corporations like JPay and JP Morgan Chase partner with correctional facilities in order to ensure the best deal for them — and the worst deal for the prisoners.

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Mass. Prisoners Among The First To Get COVID Vaccines

Among those first in line for the COVID-19 vaccine in Massachusetts are correction workers and the nearly 13,000 people incarcerated in jails and prisons in the state. The news comes as COVID cases continue to spike behind bars.

Gov. Charlie Baker included both groups in the first phase of his COVID vaccination plan, which he announced last week. The first phase also includes health care workers, police, fire and emergency responders and residents of long term care facilities and those living and working in homeless shelters. Massachusetts is one of six states to specifically include prisoners in the first phase of vaccinations, according to the Prison Policy Initiative.

The Department of Correction referred questions about the vaccine process to the state’s COVID-19 Response Command Center. It says those working and living in congregate care settings, like homeless shelters and correctional facilities, are prioritized for phase one because of the high-risk, high-exposure setting. The state estimates that 22,000 vaccines will be needed for those living and working in correctional facilities, and officials expect the vaccines to be distributed between December and February. Details about how the vaccines will be given behind bars will be clearer once the state receives vaccine shipments.

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Mass Incarceration: The Whole Pie 2020

Can it really be true that most people in jail are being held before trial? And how much of mass incarceration is a result of the war on drugs? These questions are harder to answer than you might think, because our country’s systems of confinement are so fragmented. The various government agencies involved in the justice system collect a lot of critical data, but it is not designed to help policymakers or the public understand what’s going on. As public support for criminal justice reform continues to build, however, it’s more important than ever that we get the facts straight and understand the big picture.

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HOW THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM FAILS PEOPLE WITH MENTAL ILLNESS

How those with mental illness are treated in the system has become a focus in the ongoing calls for criminal justice reform that have increased in volume since the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer in May. At least 25 percent of fatal police encounters involve a person with mental illness, and individuals with untreated mental illness are 16 times more likely to be killed during an encounter with police, according to a report from the Treatment Advocacy Center.

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