The Economy of Incarceration: Ruth Wilson Gilmore

What do the conservative Koch Industries, the liberal Ford Foundation, and the ACLU agree on? Not much. But earlier this year, they announced they’d formed a broad coalition to invest millions of dollars in Criminal Justice Reform. Our next guest has some real concerns about that. A professor at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, Ruth Wilson Gilmore’s spent decades analyzing the political geography of prisons. Overcrowding and discrimination are bad, she says, but our broken system’s the result of decisions that go way deeper -- to the nature of our economy itself. Among her many publications is the prize-winning book Golden Gulag: Prisons, Surplus, Crisis, and Opposition in Globalizing California. She was also a founding member of the anti-prison group Critical Resistance. Also in this episode: a discussion with activist Monica Jones, who was arrested for what she calls "Walking while Transgender", and Laura discusses the millions missing from the conversation about incarceration.
Follow GRITtv on twitter: / grittv
Follow Laura Flanders on twitter: / grittv
Subscribe to The Laura Flanders Show on iTunes: itunes.apple.c...
Subscribe to The F Word on iTunes: itunes.apple.c...
Like us on Facebook: / grittv

[@xochilramirez2158]

still so relevant today. #AbolishthePoliceState

[@nonyafourthreetwoonezero7350]

“Freedom wasn’t merely the absence of enslavement” - says it all

[@sarka74]

laura as usual thank you for a great talk

[@henryberrylowry9512]

A non reformist reform is a reform that abolishes reform, or the need for it.

[@williamoverton7414]

my demands are these #1 minimum wage for all prison laborers #2 access to all telephone service providers #3 access to all catalog merchants for commissary. personal access to funds from private bank accounts without the need for private prison trust accounts.

[@jrsbailbonds1109]

Great videos! Keep it up!

[@nonyafourthreetwoonezero7350]

I expected better from the UK for some reason.

[@Cyberphunkisms]

two big issues: prison abolition and liberal complicity

[@zsedcftglkjh]

North Carolina released 4000 prisoners in McDowell County during the Covid hysteria. Almost all of them are back in prison for repeat offenses.

[@000snowy]

because they received little to no rehabilitation as well as it is much harder to get a job with a criminal record. All the odds are stacked against you when you leave prison. You often can't get a lease, get a job, or get public assistance, leaving many to just be forced to give up.