Page 48 - Middle Georgia State University - Knighted 2019

Realistically this privatization translates to private prison facilities aiming to operate at full
capacity to maximize profits.

And much as how Black Codes and convict-leasing served to maintain white political
power during Reconstruction, the “War on Drugs” and prison-industrial complex of today
serve to maintain that same power in modern America. When a person is convicted of a
felony in America today, they are disenfranchised for the duration of their prison sentence.
But in thirty-four states, a felon remains disenfranchised after their sentence has been served
(McLeod). Shadman Zaman observes that disenfranchisement has a “disproportionate impact
on minority communities” (235). Brandi Blesset corroborates this assertion by arguing that
African Americans are “the target population for felony disenfranchisement policies.” (16).
An estimated 5.85 million people in America are affected by felon disenfranchisement today,
with 1 out of every 13 African Americans of legal age being unable to vote due to felon
disenfranchisement (Blesset 17).

It is no coincidence that the era following the Civil Rights Movement and consisting
of the “War on Drugs” and the rise of the prison-industrial complex is often referred to as the
Second Reconstruction. Dennis Childs declares that the current system of mass incarceration
in the United States “represents a centuries-old regime…that began well before the term PIC
[prison-industrial complex] was ever uttered.” (2). Raza supports this assertion by referring to
the prison-industrial complex as a modernized version of the convict-lease system (167).
Alex Lichtenstein also expresses this idea in his comparison of today’s prison system with the
penal system of the Reconstruction era following the Civil War. He elaborates that both
prison systems served to reinstate racial order and “tailor[ed] punishment to a rapidly
transforming political economy” (“Flocatex” 124). Raza notes that both the prison-industrial

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