ALEC is a non-profit. They facilitate the buying and selling of legislation by influencing legislators in back rooms and on golf courses.
The private prison industry has benefited enormously from the American Legislative Exchange Council, specifically through the so called “Truth in sentencing law” which caused a doubling in the African American prison population in Wisconsin in the time after it was signed into law by the corporate puppet Scott Walker. ALEC is also responsible for the “three strikes” laws and mandatory minimum sentencing laws which have jammed our prisons with nonviolent offender.
The use of prison labor has been intended as an end around to the law which ended slavery. “The 13th Amendment states: “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”.
At the time when slavery was ended the constitution was revised to include language which allowed for the use of prisoners as an unpaid labor force. The use of unpaid labor gives an enormous advantage to any company which chooses slavery over paid labor. This is why ALEC created legislation to allow for the award of contracts to companies which use prison labor, they wanted to create yet another end around to slavery. Though it took time to develop the process of exploiting prison labor the rewards have been significant, and the companies who use prison labor like to keep a low profile.
There are many layers of exploitative practices built into the prison system in the USA, whether it’s the way in which prisoners are allowed to communicate, how prisoners are allowed to buy items from the commissary or the cost of room and board being passed along to the convicts, the prison industry has been steadily removing safeguards for prisoners and exploiting their captivity for labor at levels which continue to gain in profitability. Meanwhile the services which are required by inmates are continuing to become a vector for profit by these parasites.
When politicians meet behind closed doors with industry insiders to craft model legislation, secretly, without public access or input the appearance is one of graft and bribery. The fact that the public is locked out of ALEC meetings speaks to the criminality of the behaviors this group engages in. Whether there is direct bribery or not seems trivial when you think of the number of laws which this group has gotten onto the books. They create these laws explicitly to benefit their membership. They are not meant to benefit the public or the state, rather these laws are created in a effort remove public oversight and eliminate state power.
The mandatory minimum sentencing laws along with the three strikes laws were created by ALEC on behalf of their prison sector membership, specifically for GEO Group and Core Civics, although at the time these mega corporations had different names Wackenhut and Corrections Corporation of America. There are multiple companies whose profits are driven by prison labor, these organizations use ALEC to create laws which allow for more prisoners and therefore more access to slave labor. The individuals who are used for labor in prisons have a large portion of the earnings taken to pay for their incarceration, another huge portion is take to fund future prison labor. In essence these companies use their earnings to off of prison labor to create more prison labor. It’s a system which is created to sustain its own existence.
I believe that our nation of liberty and justice cannot afford to allow entities such as ALEC to continue violating the tenants of our nation’s democracy. They use their non-profit status to funnel corporate money into the pockets of politicians by way of it’s scholarship program. The scholarship program funds travel and expenses for politicians to travel and stay in the locations where ALEC holds their meetings. These scholarships are in essence graft, non-profit dollars being used to effect the stance of politicians on legislation. This is precisely what I believe bribery is. Meals, gifts and lodging paid for by corporate interests to affect public policy.
The state of our democracy is in decline due to inaction in the face of these sorts of groups. Not just ALEC acts to prevent the citizens from self governing, another group which poses a threat to the well being of our democracy is the National Chamber of Commerce, but those chumps will have to be a subject for another day.
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