#ClapBackCulture: Alabama to spend COVID relief funds to build new prisons. Calls it “Criminal Justice Reform”
Mike Davis and Julia Jessie “Clap Back” on the State of Alabama’s plan to use COVID relief funds to build three new prisons. Is this COVID relief fraud?
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JULIA JESSIE
Let's go. Alright, y'all so some childish news coming out of Alabama they cleared a plan to use COVID-19 relief funds to build not one, not two, but three new prisons in the state of Alabama, and also, the governor there is claiming that some of the prisons there will be reformed the legislation opened a special session on Monday to consider a $1.3 billion construction plan to build the three prisons and renovate the others. And other funding, the state would use 400 million of its allocation from the $1.9 trillion American rescue plan. That's the plan that Joe Biden put out. So this drew a lot of backlash from Democrats who say that the corona relief funds should be used for COVID. I mean, they want to put into more prisons, what's going on?
MIKE DAVIS
I don't even know how to even explain this. They are literally using COVID relief funds to build three prisons to renovate a bunch of other prisons. And then Governor Kay Ivey comes out publicly and calls this reform, like, criminal justice reform, how is building extra prisons to house more people, and to literally contribute to mass incarceration? That's not reform. That's the opposite of reform, especially like right now we're looking at COVID. And the effects of this pandemic are still lingering. I mean, you got a lot of people who are out here still committing crimes due to poverty. So instead of using the COVID relief funds to help these people who are living in poverty, instead, you're going to build more prisons to house them. And this is ridiculous. I will never, ever stop being shocked by things that happen in the south, with the southern governors, my goodness, like I mean, how do you justify this?
JULIA JESSIE
We're not even talking about a drop in the bucket, we're talking about $400 million. And, and you're right there, this label that they're putting on it, that this is a part of criminal justice reform, this ain't no criminal justice, justice reform, you do not build a prison here in America without it getting filled. And so what we are doing is now we're creating more criminals, right, we're creating more space for these prisons to generate more revenue. And another thing for people who don't really understand our prison system, it is not meant for rehabilitation, nobody's going to put in another investment into the prisons, they don't invest in the prison. Their investment is in the people, they want to get people because that is the way that they're going to generate revenue. They need bodies to fill those beds. And so if we were really talking about reforming, you know, the criminal justice system, we'd be talking about creating more opportunities for returning citizens, we'd be talking about creating more opportunities for low-income households so that they can become homeowners, we'd be putting substantial investments into medical facilities because it's still COVID. Right? I mean, there's still a Delta variant going on. People still unvaccinated I believe the state of Alabama still doesn't have a vaccine mandate. So people are still sick people are still dying. And you talk about you want to use $400 million of COVID relief money to go into build not one, not two, but three prisons. Man, y'all plan. That's right. But you know what, Mike, there's also another thing called Unicor that I that you probably haven't heard of, because unless you have somebody who's incarcerated, I mean, you just don't really know about this. Unicor makes it possible to have real human slaves. And so you have these prisoners, these inmates who do everything for the facilities, they're doing landscaping, they're doing the construction, they're doing the piping, they're doing the cooking, they're doing the cleaning, they're doing the shucking they're doing the jiving and Okay, so you think they're gonna take this 400 million and you think they're gonna put it into rehab or getting new officers or putting in more counselors or more medical personnel? Don’t hold your breath. So this is a horrible, horrible plan. But you know what, great PR great.
MIKE DAVIS
You hit the nail on the head and just my final thought here is you know, this reminds me of the guy that we talked about on this show who did the PPE scams that's about to go to prison, and all the other folks that I'm sure we know who was out here running these little individual scams here and there. They're all going to go to jail for that. Yet the state of Alabama gets to scam with these funds because Make no mistake, this is a scam that COVID relief funds for this. This is a scam and yeah, it's totally legal in that, in a nutshell, is America.
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