As we have become increasingly aware these past several years, institutional investments matter. And as public awareness has grown, so has pressure for the big funds to divest from ethically and environmentally suspect parts of their portfolio, be they holdings in fossil fuels, tobacco, firearms or gambling, to name but a few.
For teachers, the pressure to divest is not new. Well over two decades ago, there was a group of us who tried to convince the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan to take its money out of Maple Leaf Foods. At the time, the food-processing giant was in the midst of crippling wage cuts (about 40%) at its Burlington Ontario plant.
The response we got was disappointing. We were told that the Plan had a "fiduciary responsibility' to its members to make as much profit as possible. Matters of principle could not be taken into consideration.
Fortunately, that amoral strategy is changing in Canada, thanks to grassroot pressure by union members.
A Canadian Crown corporation has sold off its entire stake in the American private prison industry following a public campaign by the union that represents the majority of federal employees.
The Public Sector Pension Investment Fund (PSP) bought more than 600,000 shares of CoreCivic and the Geo Group, two of the largest providers of private prisons, jails and immigration detention centres in the United States, in the last half of 2020.
In late February, days after a Toronto Star story exposed those acquisitions, PSP moved to sell off its shares in the two companies, according to a letter signed by PSP president and CEO Neil Cunningham.
“We believe it’s a victory,” said James Infantino, the pensions and disability insurance officer at the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC). “We got out of an investment that our members abhor, so that’s in itself something to note and hopefully, it’s something that we can build on.”
A victory it is. If you know anything about the private prison industry in the United States, you know that its profits come from cutting corners (understaffing, denial or delay of needed medical care for prisoners, inferior food, etc.) If you are interested in the topic, an excellent book is American Prison: A Reporter’s Undercover Journey Into The Business of Punishment, by Shane Bauer. Given that a disproportionate number of people in prison are Black and Latino, it is difficult to see private prisons as anything other than a system of modern slavery.
Indeed, there is a thought-provoking documentary on Netflix called 13th, which looks at the sad history of incarceration that followed the abolition of slavery and continues to this very day.
There is no way of avoiding the fact that inmates in both public and private prisons have become mere fodder for a cold, cruel and very calculating capitalism that should make everyone feel ashamed. An awakening public conscience is one reason to feel at least a modicum of hope that things may be changing.
It is to be hoped that other institutional investors soon will no longer be behind bars.
It's a moral victory, Lorne. Well short of some grand epiphany but change has to start somewhere. Let's hope the walls aren't put back up as fast as they're torn down.
ReplyDeleteThe key here is ongoing public scrutiny, I think, Mound.
Delete.. 'if you build it, they will come'
ReplyDeleteAnd if they don't, go and get them ??
That seems to be the status prison quo
I'm a hard liner.. My idea re truly dangerous hardcore offenders is air drop them in farthest Polar Bear Country with a very decent survival package. Seriously.. like Mt Everest level gear.. Since they could not exist within Society, go live or die among others like them and within the white bear society. I'm talking about islands a caribou or seal might visit.. Ptarmigan mebbe. No escape.. Banishment forever. The cost savings would be astonishing.
As for the other 99% of inmates, adapt programs like Collins Bay (Kingston Pen) learning agriculture, animal husbandry, outreach related to civil service & pay them incrementally as they begin to be productive. If they're in there for impaired driving, learn about car repair, bank fraud ? They can learn about Public Service & how it's applied. You see where this goes - in prison mentoring by longer term inmates. Learn to cook, nutrition as short order. Learn to reprocess plastics into useful and needed domestic items, Learn to be a nurse ! Or a barber.
Above all, get private money out of social services. How did Long Term Care become variation on Prison anyway ? Trudeau reactivated the Collins Bay farms that Harper killed. We buy as much produce bearing that label as we can find that is usually in season Swiss Chard, Rapini etc.
I always look for 'lateral solutions' .. and I think people way brighter than me ain't always up to the task.
You have several solid suggestions here, Sal. As I understand it, the Canadian prison system is not as bad as the American one, where turning a profit on the backs of prisoners seems more the norm than true rehabilitation programs. Compounding the problem there is the fact that many minorities are there for non-violent crimes simply because of the 'three-strikes' provisions so favoured by many. If I am not mistaken, the U.S. rate of incarceration is higher than even China's.
Delete