NAACP Reps Tour Prisons After the Georgia Prison Strike

After the Georgia prison strike that took place earlier this month, the NAACP in Georgia took notice. Officials from the Georgia State NAACP have decided to address the issue head on by touring one of the prisons in the state to determine the depth of concerns by the inmates.

The inmates said that their strike was organized to ask for educational opportunities, adequate health care, just parole decisions, less expensive access to their families, and an escape from cruel and unusual punishment. Most significantly, they are leading the public to question the 13th Amendment's slavery exemption, which allows corporations to earn profits from slave labor as long as the state finds a way to label someone a convict. Similar to slavery a century ago, a disproportionate number of those controlled by the system are black.

Georgia State NAACP President Edward DuBose said that there was evidence to support the complaints of some of the inmates:

"We were able to confirm that there were some serious concerns in health care and, as well as lack of educational opportunities."

NAACP officials claim that they will be visiting Smith State Prison on Thursday. This is in response to the massive prison strike that took place in Georgia earlier this month.

The fact that the NAACP has jumped ahead of African American public officials, including members of the Congressional Black Caucus on this issue speaks to its relevance, at least within the state of Georgia. When I sent a message to national NAACP President Ben Jealous about the issue, I heard nothing back. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, however, were responsive and supportive, but I was fundamentally disappointed by the fact that many of our African American leaders are not concerned with what happens to many of our relatives who rot away in the criminal justice system.

We must fully recognize that the prison industrial complex is primarily a black and brown problem. Laws created by those in the racial majority are designed to have a disproportionate impact on those in minority groups. As a result, one in three black boys born this decade is expected to spend time in prison before his life is over. This is a problem that affects us all, and black men don't fill up the prisons just because we are fundamentally bad people. We are searched more often than others, receive an inferior education, have the highest unemployment rates, have less money to pay our attorneys and are given longer sentences for the same crimes. These human rights abuses create the foundation for perpetual inequality in America as it relates to race.

Additionally, the further destruction of felons by refusing to educate them, allow them to vote or to even find gainful employment should be an insult to us all, since it deprives millions of black children of the right to have parents with the ability to provide for them. This doesn't even begin to discuss the use of prison slave labor to make corporate profits. As a finance professor, I strongly speculate that prisons don't allow inmates to get an education or to leave the system because they want them available to work for less than minimum wage. Yes, the NAACP, the Congressional Black Caucus, President Barack Obama, Attorney General Eric Holder and all of us should be on top of this issue so that our sons and daughters might have a chance to be successful. If you are black or brown person in America and the prison system hasn't affected you in some way, then you're probably lying. Almost all of us are affected, and we can get moving on this issue by clicking here.

Dr. Boyce Watkins is the founder of the Your Black World Coalition and a Scholarship in Action resident of the Institute for Black Public Policy. To have Dr. Boyce's commentary delivered to your e-mail, please click here.