Internationally, the role of the private sector in the criminal justice system is now substantial and set to expand. On top of contracted services such as food, cleaning, laundry and medical care, the last 20 years have seen private companies take charge of designing and building prisons as well as managing them, particularly in the US, Australia and Britain; with Puerto Rico, Canada and South Africa following closely.
A cheap deal?
In the US, the prison-industrial complex…
Early morning on 4 March an alliance of anti-capitalist activists and human rights campaigners, held a successful blockade of Coca-Cola's distribution centre and full service vending depot in Longwell Green, Bristol.
The protest prevented lorries from leaving the depot and disrupted shipments intended to come into the site, causing (it is believed) shortages throughout the region. Protesters were taking direct action against the multinational company to highlight Coca Cola's…
As thousands of protesters filled the streets of Washington in April 2000, closing the US capital to oppose the policies of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, their peers in Bolivia were demanding the right to drinking water.
Following massive protests against the privatisation of the nations water supply, the Bolivian government had declared martial law. A leader of the Bolivian movement, Oscar Olivera, escaped the repression just in time to join the Washington…
Several years ago the Croatian Department of Tourism led a big marketing campaign to try to attract the long dreamed about tourists who were still afraid of the instability in the region. The Department promised a small country for a great holiday. The only thing left out of the entire advertising trick is in the title of this article.
The minister who devised this tourism slogan subsequently had to step down from government due to being exposed for nepotism, after hiring his wife who…
“Only one thing can reverse the corporate take-over of Britain. It's you” ends Captive State and, wow,given the extent of corporate capture of public life that the book describes, what a task you will have. A long road ahead then, butat least mapped and made so much more comprehensible by Monbiot's Manifesto of Multinational Malevolence.
That's not really a fair reference - whilst the book makes compelling reading and calls for some response, Monbiot avoids painting a cliche'd…
