Salt Lake City Anarchists Protest Prison Profiteer Management and Training Corporation

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July 6, 2011 by tristan savage

Direct Action for Freedom of Movement

In Nashville, we’ve been participating in the campaign against CCA, the largest private incarceration business in the country, headquartered a few miles from where we live. But they aren’t the only players looting the goldmine of migrant criminalization, and I just saw this news release on an action against MTC in Utah, a place I think will become the site of a major showdown between nativism and inclusivity on a continental scale, in which a homegrown anticapitalism of Mormon theology and anti-border anarchism/libertarianism could be just the ticket for a significant movement to take on the ruling class that’s trying to divide us.

A simultaneous action took place in Tucson

from Infoshop News:

Management and Training Corporation employees were met early Wednesday, June 29th, by a group of angry community members- largely composed of anarchists. Activist’s beds were left vacant during the wee hours of the morning in preparation for a protest taking place in Centerville, Utah where MTC corporate headquarters are located. The protest focused both on the prison industrial complex and recent legislative efforts to normalize racism through oppressive laws.

Management and Training Corporation is the third largest private prison company in the country and gave campaign contributions to Russell Pearce, the sponsor of Arizona’s immigration law SB1070. MTC also runs the largest immigration detention in the country, the Willacy Processing Center in Raymondville, Texas, where they profit off each of the inmates that house the 2,000 beds in the “tent city.” The Willacy Processing Center is only one of 20 prisons operated nationwide by the MTC. MTC also received an astounding $121 million contract with the federal government for the soon-to-be-expanded Dalby Correctional Facility in Post, Texas.

The prison system in the US is a direct extension of slavery. It maintains white supremacy and incarcerates people of color at astronomically higher rates than their white counter-parts. The Prison Industrial Complex compliments capitalism by profiting off the criminalization and caging of women, queers, people of color, and the poor by ensuring their oppression and exploitation behind bars or outside, where they are threatened daily by the violent police.

Numerous corporations profit from exploiting cheap labor, ensuring that workers have no rights and cycled constantly across borders and through prisons where even more corporations profit in the inter-connected Prison Industrial Complex and Border Industrial Complex. The newest wave of prison profiteering is reliant on anti-immigrant sentiment and legislation such as SB1070 in Arizona, and proposed bills HB497 and HB116 in Utah. MTC is a key player in the industry that profits on average $200 a day from each detainee that fills the 150,000 prison beds nationwide that are designated for immigrants. This lucrative industry depends on government contracts and deportations, which are at an all-time high totaling close to 400,000 in 2010.

Protesters brought the following two demands to the MTC:

Firstly, close all their prisons, starting with the Willacy processing center in Raymondville, Texas (the largest immigration facility in the country). Second, take the $121 million from their U.S. Government contract and and pay retributions to the the communities that are being impoverished in Mexico by NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement). Stories of deportation and detention were read loudly in the office to make the prison profiteers confront the voices that they silence. Protesters were escorted out of the office but were met by supportive motorists and neighboring business who were more receptive to their message. One passerby stopped and profusely thanked protesters for being there. Protesters carried banners and chanted slogans in opposition to the Prison Industrial Complex and the Border Industrial Complex. Signs read as follows: “No Borders, No Prisons”, “No one is illegal, No one is criminal” ,“Abolish Prisons” ,“Management and Training Corporation Funds Racist Legislation” and “Management and Training Corporation (MTC) Profits From Destroying Families.”

For more information on future actions, please contact: slabc@riseup.net