* *  The Maoist Internationalist Movement  * *

     -   MIM Notes 110, March 1996  -

MASSACHUSETTS UPS THE ANTE ON CRIMINAL INJUSTICE 

On January 22nd, the Massachusetts State House and 
Senate both unanimously passed a bill to fund more 
prison and jail cells, providing money for 3,000 
new and renovated cells. In a publicity trick to 
get this bill passed, Massachusetts Governor 
William Weld took 299 prisoners hostage, sending 
them to Texas to illustrate the supposed 
overcrowding problem in Massachusetts prisons. Weld 
wants to build more prisons, so he created an 
overcrowding problem by moving prisoners from lower 
security to higher security prisons to make it look 
like there was a lack of high security facilities. 
These state-sponsored criminals play games with 
prisoners' lives in the newspaper and the 
legislature, all to boost their own 'law and order' 
images and improve the state's economy.


The bill authorized a total of $486,255,860 in new 
expenditures for the Massachusetts criminal 
injustice system. Rehabilitative services such as 
education, family visits, drug and alcohol 
programs, and even medical care have been cut 
recently, yet in this close to $500 million bill 
the only rehabilitative services of any kind are 
new "boot camps" being built for 
juveniles. The bill included provisions to pay for police 
facilities and grants for "publicly owned 
capital projects" as an incentive to communities 
building more prisons. 


OPPRESSED NATIONALS PRONE TO CRIME?


Another measure hidden in this bill was the 
following: "...the department of correction, 
in conjunction with the department of public health 
and the department of education, shall conduct a 
study into the biological causes of crime based on 
the premise that scientists have been studying 
biological risk factors which they believe 
predispose individuals to criminal behavior; 
provided further, that said study should 
incorporate these findings to work toward a more 
effective approach toward criminology..."

Since Blacks and Latinos are locked up at a 
disproportionate rate relative to their numbers in 
the population, this so-called study will find that 
race determines criminal behavior. Capitalist 
society does not recognize the murder, theft, rape 
and pillage conducted by our government against 
peoples of the Third World and oppressed nations 
within U.S. borders as crime. This "more 
effective approach toward criminology" just means 
expanding the lockdown in communities of oppressed 
nationalities.

RAIL held a rally in Springfield, Massachusetts on 
February 10. The really marked the second 
anniversary of the police execution of Black 
motorist Ben Schoolfield, the February 7 national 
day of action for Mumia Abu-Jamal and protested the 
expansion of the police in Springfield. Springfield 
already has the second largest police force in New 
England with 500 armed oinkers, but it is far from 
the second largest city. Apparently the masses of 
Springfield are not adequately locked down, and the 
city's new mayor wants to spend $3 million adding 
100 new cops to the force. See the next issue of 
MIM Notes for an article about this rally.