At first glance, deviance comes off as an act which is unbecoming and which can lead to punishment, rejection, or isolation. Yet more and more, deviance occurs in our society without mention, or without anyone acknowledging or questioning the reasons behind it. When deviance is encouraged as a means of making a profit for the larger institutions which make up our society, we head down a dark and dangerous road.
In America, the idea of a criminal, which initially comes to mind, is usually a minority committing a violent crime. Our nightly news stories always include armed robberies, police chases, murder, assault, rape, and a variety of other illegal actions which can rattle your nerves. Since this type of criminal activity is reported every night on the news, it must be safe to assume that it is the most costly criminal activity going on. Assuming such would be a terrible mistake. As the F.B.I. reports, street crimes cost about $4 billion a year, while white-collar “suite crime” costs about $200 billion a year (Chomsky, 1996:34). Why does the media only alert us about street crime and seldom about white-collar crime? Perhaps it isn’t entertaining enough, as an image of a business man taking millions from shareholders cannot compete during sweeps week with a video of a bank robbery. Not including criminal activity, it is estimated that there is $1.5 trillion in undeclared income each year (Schlosser, 2003:6). Deviant behavior, often hard to track, can lead to great amounts of wealth for both the individual and their organizations.
With billion dollar companies using off-shore accounts to evade taxes, the hard workers of this country get stuck with the bill. An alarming sixty percent of corporations paid no taxes whatsoever between 1996 - 2000 (Center for American Progress, 2004). With President Bush’s tax cut, corporations got an even bigger break than before, while the middle- to lower class workers got little to nothing of a relief in their taxes. The current administration’s attitude and actions towards big business has allowed more and more deviance to go unnoticed, or it has simply become normal, leaving the state of deviance, and becoming a legal loophole. With Enron and Tyco in the news, many other large companies are left out of the spotlight and their close ties to governmental officials goes unreported.
It is no secret that companies have their hand in the pockets of lawmakers and other politicians. What is concerning is the amount of pull corporations can have in government. When the government becomes a corporate-connected network making up a presidential cabinet, it is downright frightening. President Bush, an ex-oilman himself, appointed a dozen members of his cabinet who were all connected one way or another, to mega-corporations. Who is the Energy Secretary? 
None other than Spencer Abraham, who was the number one recipient of campaign contributions from the automotive industry. While the debate concerning emission regulations for vehicles continues, Abraham is the man in charge of such decisions. Ann Veneman, the Agriculture Secretary, served on the board of Calgene Inc. which was eventually bought out by Monsanto. Monsanto is the nation’s largest biotech company, making many controversial genetically engineered foods (Center for Responsive Politics, 2001). The corporation also strongly opposes the idea of labeling foods of such technology, and so far the administration has rejected any labeling laws. When it comes to health, Bush appointed Tommy G. Thompson for Health and Human Services Secretary. Thompson owned somewhere between $15,000 and $50,000 worth of stock in the tobacco empire Philip Morris. He received over $72,000 in campaign contributions from them during the 1990’s. Philip Morris, during this election year alone, has already shelled out over one million dollars combined to both Democrats and Republicans (Center for Responsive Politics, 2001). The battle between the campaign against big tobacco companies and what actually occurs due to their lobbying strength became clear when Thompson was appointed to oversee the heath and human services department of this country.
The list of cabinet members with ties to corporations goes on and on. What this equates to is a free range of laws, breaks, and access to lawmakers for mega-corporations. This turna what would be normally seen as an act of deviance into a normal act of government. By allowing this to occur, deviance becomes a regular activity, one ignored by the mainstream corporate-owned press, which gives no information to the majority of the population about the criminal activities and free rides many millionaires and their businesses receive. It becomes a clear case of the rule-makers setting the norms and being above rule breaking.
Even when caught and convicted of a crime, often the white-collar criminal is handed a fine which amounts to the price of their children’s private school tuition. Tough sentencing leading to time served in a high security prison rarely occurs. Fines become worth the price of violating laws and guidelines, as opposed to investing much more money to repair or restructure an entire system. This occurs mostly in environmental restrictions against corporations, where, if caught, a company will shell out a few million in order to keep the business running along. Stricter laws and fines must be in place in order to truly stop the deviance of ruining the planet and all of its life.
On the other end of the spectrum, the "war on drugs" has become an epidemic involving the middle- to lower classes of America. The black market income for marijuana is estimated at an annual cost of $25 billion (Schlosser, 2003:14), which exceeds the amount of any legal crop made in this country. From drug money, over $250 billion goes through US banks each year (Chomsky, 1996:36). From this number alone, it is clear the “war on drugs” is not working, nor is it a profitable thing to terminate. In 1998, Congress, working with Institute for a Drug Free Workplace, passed The Drug Free Workplace Act. This act was made to give small businesses the funds for testing for drugs in employees. The Institute for a Drug Free Workplace was made up of members from the pharmaceutical firms which directly benefitted from the act. Drug testing kits made by pharmaceutical firms now make $740 million per year (Schlosser, 2003:51).
With incentives to seize assets in drug cases, whereby the money or property is divided among the law enforcement agencies involved, the fight against this deviant act is more a battle over cash than crime. Even those involved in the criminal acts are profiting from the government’s battle against drugs, as up to one-quarter of the assets seized can be handed over to informants. In 1995 the government gave over $100,000 to informants in drug busts (Schlosser, 2003:62). Clearly, if the black market of drug trafficking was removed from our society, there would be a large gap in our nation’s economy .
Where does criminal activity lead to for most people? As tougher mandatory sentences are handed out, a new business emerges as a means to profit from these acts. Each year, at least $35 billion is spent on prison incarceration. As more and more prisons become privatized, and more and more are being built, there becomes a grand fortune to be made. There were 724,000 arrests made in 2001 for violation of marijuana laws (Schlosser, 2003:54). This can easily equate to billions, if not trillions of dollars for large businesses invested in the prison system. Since tougher drug laws made in 1986 (Anti-Drug Abuse Act), the percentage of drug offenders in prison went from thirty percent in 1984 (prior to the laws being made), up to fifty-seven percent in 2001.
Wackenhut, the largest of the privatized prison owners, makes about $2.2 billion per year and was placed on Forbes Magazine’s Platinum List of the best big companies in the United States (Mares, 2000). The Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) together with Wackenhut control 75 percent of the U.S. private prison market (Greene, 2003:139). As the “war on drugs” competes with the “war on terror,” more prisons are being built both here and abroad, housing (in this country) mostly poor minorities. When a privately owned prison’s main interest is making money for the owners, the safety and well-being of prisoners can be overlooked or ignored. The average prisoner-on-prisoner murder rate in America in 1998 was one murder for every 22,000 prisoners. The homicide rate in Wackenhut’s New Mexico facilities was one murder for every 400 prisoners (Greene, 2003:139-140). The owners of private prisons are investing in the deviance of others and the reliable strict sentencing of judges. This can equal great amounts of wealth.
A new large group of prisoners came onto the scene in the 1990’s as a result of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996. This nearly doubled the number of illegal immigrants in the prison system: 36,000 as of 2002. These “criminal aliens” are non-citizens serving criminal sentences in federal prisons. Over one-third of these individuals were sentenced for immigration violations, and a mere 1.5 percent were sentenced for violent crimes. This figure shows why more privately run prisons are taking in “criminal aliens.” Compare this to the prisoner population composed of U.S. citizens, 15 percent of which are convicted for violent crimes (Greene, 2003:143). Privately run prisons can therefor be lacking in security and safety, as there is less chance of an accident or event when the population consists of nonviolent offenders.
Another way to profit from the criminals inside the prison walls is to use them for low-wage, non-unionized labor. As attempts grow to eliminate any labor rights laws for prisoners, many companies are taking advantage of this in-country cheap work force. The Boeing Corporation, who build airplanes, uses parts made by MicroJet, which uses worker at the Washington State Reformatory (Wright, 2003:116). By paying the workers/prisoners four times less than those paid at Boeing’s Everett plant, Boeing is now saving millions of dollars.
With the creation of the USA PATRIOT ACT, Attorney General John Ashcroft broadened the definition of deviance. At this point in time, anyone deemed by the president to be an “enemy combatant” can be arrested and detained indefinitely, and can be subjected to the jurisdiction of military tribunals. The PATRIOT ACT allows that any person or persons who may have opposing views or values can be put under surveillance, have their home searched without alerting them (sneak & peek), have their bank accounts frozen, and be held without providing an attorney. Right now in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, over 600 people are being detained, without any charges being brought against them. Any person in the wrong place at the wrong time can be taken prisoner and held with little hope of freedom. No specific charges were ever filed against the over 900 prisoners only recently released from Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq (Associated Press, 2004).
The need for technology to advance the "war on terror" created another giant source of income for big telecommunication and technology businesses. Companies are making “Patriot Act”-compliant computer systems which allow banks to prove they’re not laundering terrorist’s money. One major corporation benefitting from this trend is Sybase Inc., which developed a “Sybase PATRIOT compliance Solution'' in 2002. The connections between business and government crosses again when we look at the investors of Sybase Inc.: 5.5 million shares of Sybase are owned by The Chatterjee Group, which is partly made up of a company called Winston Partners, a investment firm. Marvin Bush, the President’s younger bother, is the cofounder and partner of Winston Partners. Sybase received over $14 million worth of contracts with various governmental departments in 2001 (Burns, 2002).
Even if the government is not gaining monetary profit, the removal of resistance against the system can be rewarding enough to those in power. When dissent can be seen as a crime, our nation loses its ability to be democratic. Using loaded language like “terror”, “freedom”, and “justice”, the government spreads nationalism and offenses to normal citizens can be overlooked. As the war on terror continues, it becomes harder and harder to voice any opposition to the tactics of the government. More restrictions grow on the citizens of the country, and what seems to be happening is that deviance from any norm will be squashed in no time.
Nationally, what is happening now is that the definition of deviant behavior is becoming too vague to clearly define. It becomes something which can be applied to almost all actions against the very patriotic, christian, conservative, capitalist actions which mirror the current administration’s beliefs. This leads us down a very dangerous road as the rule-makers allow privileged rule-breakers to set the tone of the norm while punishing those who don’t have enough resources to have a say.
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Sources
Greene, Judith And Wright, Paul. 2003. Prison Nation - The Warehousing of America’s Poor. Routledge:New York, NY
Schlosser, Eric. 2003. Reefer Madness - Sex, Drugs, and Cheap Labor in the American Black Market.Houghton Mifflin Company: New York, NY
Chomsky, Noam. 1998. The Common Good. Odonian Press: Monroe,ME
Center for American Progress (2004, April 15).Tax Day: Corporations and Wealthy Paying Less. Retrieved June 2, 2004 from the Center for American Progress on the World Wide Web:
http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=45747
Open Secrets (2001) The Bush Administration - Corporate Connections. Retreived June 2, 2004 from Open Secrets on the World Wide Web: http://www.opensecrets.org/bush/cabinet.asp
Mares, P (2000, Nov. 23) Private detention centres reap mammoth profits. Retreived June 2, 2004 from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation on the World Wide Web: http://www.abc.net.au/pm/s215963.htm
Hauser, C (2004, May 28) U.S. Releases More Prisoners From Abu Ghraib. The New York Times. Retrieved June 1, 2004 from the New York Times Online database. World Wide Web: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/28/international/middleeast/28CND-PRIS.html
Burns, M (2002, Dec. 1) Bush family dipping into security pie. Retreived June 1, 2004 from the Disinfo on the World Wide Web: http://www.disinfo.com/archive/pages/article/id2942/pg1/
Posted by craig at June 14, 2004 04:09 PM