PRISONER EXPRESS

Over the past twenty to twenty-five years the quality of public education in California has deteriorated to the point that according to the Rand Corp. California's public education now ranks amongst the lowest of all states in the quality of education.

What's interesting is that this deterioration coincides with California's big boom in prison construction which began about twenty years ago. Right now the state of California spends $5.7 billion per year just to operate the California Department of Corrections, and this does not even include the costs of operating county jails and federal prisons that are located within California. That's $5.7 billion per year just to operate it's state prisons alone.

Just as the national economy is so dependent upon the military-industrial complex which employs millions of workers either directly or indirectly, the economy of the state of California is now dependent upon the state's prison-industrial complex for the following reasons:
1. Building prisons creates massive constructive projects requiring the employment of many workers, thus creating jobs.
2. To operate state prisons, the state must hire guards and administrators, and this creates more jobs.
3. The more prisons that are built, the larger the enslaved prison labor force the state has to lease out to private sector businesses.

The state's desire to maintain a large prison labor force explains why many prisoners are currently serving terms of 25 years to life or double length terms for such minor crimes as petty theft. California has created it's prison labor force based on the same principles that Stalin had used to create his prison labor camps. Our modern judicial policies are now determined by the economy and not by justice. This is the reason why the state of California is both unable and unwilling to adequately fund its public schools.

By denying our children a meaningful education today, our state government is denying them a positive future for tomorrow. Today's uneducated children will become the recruits for tomorrow's enslaved prison labor force. This means that our government has a financially vested interest in maintaining a deteriorating public school system. Our children are the victims of our own government's ideology. This is clearly evident form the following facts"
1. Our state government has intentionally allowed our public school system to deteriorate to the low point when it is currently at.
2. Over the past twenty years, our state government has spent tens of billions of dollars building and maintaining it's state prisons. Our state economy is now largely dependent upon our prison-industrial complex.
3. Many prisoners are currently serving terms of 25 years to life or double length sentences for minor crimes, such as petty theft, thus becoming long term laborers for the state.

The process of converting a democracy into a police state does not come cheap. Over the past twenty years California has spent tens of billions of dollars on this conversion. This has been done at the cost of reduced aid to the poor, the underprivileged, and the handicapped, and has also caused the drastic reduction in the quality of education in our public schools. This has also created an even more prominent class division between the poor and the wealthy, since the conversion is being accomplished at the cost of the poor, while at the same time the wealthy continue to profit from California's prison-industrial complex.

We need to question the American public's apathy towards our government's use of such a doctrine.