You're taking to events, that are 15 years apart, and tying them together. But I've given you another event that's closer on the timeline, and you deny it's connection.
The Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act was passed in 1970. Nixon pushed drugs as "Public Enemy #1" in 1971. The DEA was founded in 1973. All of these things were done/created to chase drugs. To imprison people who were associated/profited from drugs. All of these things coincide with the prison population inflection point.
The recent revelation that the Nixon administration focused on associating subversives (black people and young educated white kids) with negative "illegal" actions (black people with drugs and young white kids with communist/socialist) only underscored my argument. Especially if you take into account things like the CIA association with the Contras. The government had/has a hand in making certain segments of society illegal and imprisoning them.
I agree, the public supported a tough on crime approach. They supported it with Nixon, Bush Sr. and even with Clinton. But the government told/tells people what crime is. And it is fact that a lot more "crime" came to our attention at the start of the drug war. A drug war that happened to take place in "problem"/"subversive" communities. A drug war that happened to take place when an agency in our own government, which was tasked with stoping subversion, had it's hand in moving drugs into those same communities.
Move the drugs, lets the drugs proliferate, let the increased police presence from the drug war quell subversion.
The fallout was the prison industrial complex and the private prison industry.
I'm not saying that the private prison problem came first, but at this point they damn sure have enough power and money to make sure that they're not going away any time soon.
The Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act was passed in 1970. Nixon pushed drugs as "Public Enemy #1" in 1971. The DEA was founded in 1973. All of these things were done/created to chase drugs. To imprison people who were associated/profited from drugs. All of these things coincide with the prison population inflection point.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_Drugs#/media/File:US_in...
The recent revelation that the Nixon administration focused on associating subversives (black people and young educated white kids) with negative "illegal" actions (black people with drugs and young white kids with communist/socialist) only underscored my argument. Especially if you take into account things like the CIA association with the Contras. The government had/has a hand in making certain segments of society illegal and imprisoning them.
I agree, the public supported a tough on crime approach. They supported it with Nixon, Bush Sr. and even with Clinton. But the government told/tells people what crime is. And it is fact that a lot more "crime" came to our attention at the start of the drug war. A drug war that happened to take place in "problem"/"subversive" communities. A drug war that happened to take place when an agency in our own government, which was tasked with stoping subversion, had it's hand in moving drugs into those same communities.
Move the drugs, lets the drugs proliferate, let the increased police presence from the drug war quell subversion.
The fallout was the prison industrial complex and the private prison industry.
I'm not saying that the private prison problem came first, but at this point they damn sure have enough power and money to make sure that they're not going away any time soon.