"The American experiment in mass incarceration has been a moral, legal, social, and economic disaster. It cannot end soon enough."

Did these words come from Angela Davis and the "prison abolition" movement?  Or from Michelle Alexander and "All of Us or None"? 

No!  They came from the New York Times editorial board, mouthpiece of US imperialism, on Sunday, May 24, 2014.   As in "the so-called debate over climate change," they declared, mass incarceration "shows a crisis that threatens society as a whole."  It's actually a political crisis of capitalism.

This editorial signals a major policy shift that is starting to have real effects on incarcerated people, their families, and the working class.  When the liberal-Democratic American Civil Liberties Union joins forces with the conservative-Republication American Legislative Exchange Council, you can bet that core interests of US imperialism are at stake.

   * What are those interests?

   * Why would it be a mistake to conclude that radical reform movements can overcome racism and social injustice?

   * And why do we say that mobilizing the masses for communism, and nothing less, can end the "criminal injustice system"?

Imperialist Interests:  Economics, Politics, and War Plans

The NY Times cites the "astounding economic cost" of mass incarceration, reported by the Brookings Institution to be $80 billion a year in direct prison costs,  "and more than a quarter-trillion dollars when factoring in police, judicial and legal services."

That's real money, even for Wall Street.  A quarter-trillion dollars is over half of the Pentagon's base budget for 2015, and almost ten times what Defense Secretary Hagel requested in additional funds to minimize budget cuts. 

As Congress cuts the military budget while conflict sharpens among imperialist and regional powers, Hagel wants the US Army to maintain a level of 440,000 active-duty troops.  In 1940 the Army had 267,000 active-duty members.  It surged to 1.46 million just before the US entered the war. The money now tied up in the prison system would make such a surge possible.  And companies like GEO, which now make huge profits on private prisons, will morph into war profiteers.   

Meanwhile, the US imperialists face a political problem:  how to mobilize young workers to kill and die for a system that treats them like criminals and throws millions into prison.  Immigrant youth see parents snatched away, locked up, and deported for things they supposedly did 20 or 30 years ago.  

Capitalism needs a "reserve army of the unemployed" but it also needs loyal workers, especially in war industry.  The US labor force is aging, with fewer workers in the 16-24 age group.  Some imperialists saw prison labor (at pennies per hour) as the solution.  For example, the Defense Department started buying more uniforms and other gear from UNICOR (which runs slave labor in federal prisons), and less from companies like American Apparel.    

The NY Times speaks for a section of the ruling class that has changed its mind.  Mass incarceration, long-term solitary confinement, and cases like the Trayvon Martin murder have inspired strikes in prisons (California, Alabama) and immigrant detention centers (Washington State and Texas) and angry street protests across the US. 

The viciously racist "criminal injustice" system has massively alienated the youth, especially black and immigrant youth, who have felt its lash themselves or have imprisoned friends and relatives.  The rulers have a big problem building a political base among these youth, who threaten to become capitalism's gravediggers. 

The Rev. Emory Berry, a Virginia organizer against mass incarceration, wrote last November that "we still have an expensive and ineffective criminal justice system that doesn't work well, is riddled with unfairness, [and] undermines our faith in the system."

And that's why we're seeing policy changes such as reformed drug sentencing laws, the release of elderly prisoners, limits to long-term solitary confinement, and ending "life without parole" sentences for juveniles. 

These are not steps on the road to ending racist capitalism.  They are part of the US rulers' march to world war.  We must take this communist understanding to the angry masses whose lives, families, and communities have been destroyed, including those fighting mass incarceration.  Red Flag is the shovel they need to bury the racist system and dig the foundation for the communist world we need.

Next: The dangers of "radical reform" movements and the opportunities created by mobilizing the masses for communism.