We’re writing as members of Syracuse Divest to raise awareness about our effort to secure our university’s public commitment to for-profit prison divestment.
The horrors of mass incarceration in our country are finally becoming well-known. With a rate over five times the global average, the United States incarcerates more people than any other country in the world. More than 2 million people are currently incarcerated in the U.S., many simply because they lack the means to hire counsel or raise bail. Many plead guilty only because they are threatened with unjust sentences. And those at the greatest disadvantage are people who are black or brown.
Less well-known is that the explosion in the incarceration rate over the last 40 years is due largely to the passage of legislation that increased both the likelihood of jail time and the length of sentences for nonviolent drug offenses. With more than $45 million spent on lobbying for its passage, the for-profit prison industry has played no small role in seeing this legislation enacted.
Moreover, with the majority of immigrant detainees incarcerated in for-profit prisons, the influence of these companies on legislation and policies designed to keep their prisons full continues to this day.
The racism endemic in our criminal justice system and the recent U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrests leave many in the SU community, as well as their families, at risk. The for-profit prison industry, through its lobbying, bear no small share of the responsibility for these risks.
By investing in and profiting from for-profit prisons, Syracuse University and those of us who make up its community are complicit in the unjust harms involved in mass incarceration.
Last February 21, Syracuse Divest received an assurance from SU’s treasurer that, on that date, the university had no direct investments in any on our list of companies that either provide facility operations or goods or services to for-profit prisons. This is an excellent start that indicates that it’s financially feasible for the university to divest. It also puts another, more important step within easy reach.
Syracuse must join other universities, such as Columbia University, Georgetown University and the entire University of California system, and publicly commit to divesting its more than $1 billion endowment from all for-profit prison companies and any that directly provide goods or services to such prisons.
Divestment can be an important tool for change. Let us use the power we have to protect our community and fight injustice.
Janice Dowell,
Professor and Director of Graduate Studies, Philosophy; Head, Syracuse Divest
Janine Bogris,
Undergraduate, Student Association Assembly Representative
Osamah Khalil,
Associtate Professor, History; Interim Director, Middle Easter Studies Program; Faculty Senator
Jackie Orr,
Laura J. and L. Douglas Meredith Professor of Teaching Excellence, Sociology; University Senator
Dante Dauksz,
Graduate student, philosophy; member, Syracuse Divest
David Sobel,
Irwin are Marjorie Guttag Professor of Ethics and Political Philosophy, Philosophy.
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