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Where does the phrase "prison industrial complex" come from? People often tend to credit Mike Davis's "Hell Factories in the Field: A Prison Industrial Complex" article from @thenation in 1995. http://archive.li/RF45D 1/
Or Eric Schlosser's 1998 article for @TheAtlantic, "The Prison-Industrial Complex" https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1998/12/the-prison-industrial-complex/304669/ 2/
But as with so much writing & thinking about prisons, punishment, & state violence, the ideas came from incarcerated people and their loved ones. 3/
In 1974, the North Carolina Prisoners Labor Union called for an end to "the judicial-prison-parole-industrial complex" b/c it "places unrealistic & harsh prison sentences on persons largely from the poor classes while those with wealth go free." 4/
The NCPLU was one of several dramatic, impressive attempts to form labor unions in prison in the 1970s. While the effort was hard everywhere, NC was particularly tough, given the state's extreme hostility to labor unions *outside* of prison. 5/
The NCPLU took their case to the Supreme Court and lost (Jones v NCPLU, 1977). In a devastating blow to prisoner rights that continues to force suffering on incarcerated people, the court ruled that prisoners had no 1st Amendment rights to form/join union. 6/
But their thinking & strategizing remains as influential & needed 4+ decades later. Many of the demands in their original platform--fair treatment & adequate health care; end to sentencing disparity & capital punishment, civil rights restorations upon release--are still needed 7/
Consider this another love letter from the archives, an indicator of how past struggles continue to shape the present--in deeper, more fluid ways than we often realize. 8/
. @ekhobson & I are including the NCPLU goals in our forthcoming primary source anthology. @thetous & I discuss 1970s prisoner labor unions in Rethinking the American Prison Movement. But to really learn about NCPLU, check out @abhughett's work--esp her forthcoming book! fin/
Postscript: While the re-emergence & circulation of “prison industrial complex” since the 90s has been a collective endeavor, I would also call attention to this critical essay by Angela Davis, “Masked Racism”: https://www.colorlines.com/articles/masked-racism-reflections-prison-industrial-complex
