Four whores of the apocalypse
To the editor:
Many voters are familiar with political payola. For instance, Big Corporation’s-crony capitalism: Big Pharma’s-12 percent R&D (Research and Development) and 18 percent net-profit with copy-cat drugs: and Big Banking-The Federal Reserve System with their (Quantitative Easing) QE 1, QE 2 and QE 3.
Well, for the Republican Party of Florida there is a new way to game the system. It is the Private Prison Industry which has become one of the major financial contributors to the Republican Party’s ample coffers. Apparently, the incarceration and oppression of Florida’s most vulnerable citizens plays second fiddle to the Party’s need for corporate sponsors.
Florida’s Republican Senator, Marco Rubio is one of its biggest beneficiaries. Rubio’s history of close ties to the nation’s second largest for profit prison company, GEO Group, stretches back to his days as Speaker of the Florida House of Representatives. During that period GEO was awarded a state contract for $110 million. GEO and Corrections Corporation of America now rake in a combined $3.3 billion in annual revenue and the private federal prison population more than doubled between 2000 and 2010 according to the Justice Policy Institute. Over his career Rubio has received nearly $40,000 from GE. At the federal level there is even a lockup quota for private prisons. Debtors’ prison was supposed to have been done away with, via the Magna Carta of 1215. Not so in the USA where fiat money is king and expanding private prisons is the shell game of the day.
The Republican Party of Florida PAC (Political Action Committee) has received nearly $2.5 million from GEO and Corrections Corporations of America (CCA) since 1989. In 2011 Florida Governor Rick Scott pushed (unsuccessfully) to privatize 27 prisons south of Orlando. (Washington Post April 28, 2015, How for-Profit Prisons have become the Biggest Lobby no one is Talking About.)
In this alleged Christian nation we have almost 3 million individuals in our penal system which is approximately 25 percent of those in prison world-wide. One of the most important human issues facing the citizens of the United States is the proliferation of private prisons and their political influence.
My recommendations:
Release all non-violent first-time drug offenders within 30 days from the Lee County jails.
For victimless crimes there should be no jail terms only a monetary retribution. If there are no victims, where is the crime?
The abolishment of all sting operations. This is as hypocritical as a police officer picking someone up for a minor speeding infraction.
Our judicial “just-us” system is leading to the diabolical destruction of the moral code of a free society.
It’s time for a change!
Jon Larsen Shudlick
Fort Myers