Prison–industrial complex

The term also refers more generally to interest groups who, in their interactions with the prison system, prioritize financial gain over rehabilitating criminals.

[10] Others note that fewer than 10% of U.S. inmates are incarcerated in for-profit facilities,[11] and use the term to diagnose a larger confluence of interests between the U.S. government, at the federal and state levels, and the private businesses that profit from the increasing surveillance, policing, and imprisonment of the American public since approximately 1980.

[16] During the mass unemployment of the Great Depression, business leaders and unions successfully pressured the federal government to prohibit private corporations from contracting cheap prison labor and undercutting competition.

[20][22] As the overall incarcerated population dramatically increased, new correctional facilities needed to be built, staffed, and maintained, and private-sector prisons began to emerge as cost-effective solutions.

Although not as harsh as Governor Nelson Rockefeller had originally called for, these laws inspired other states to enact similarly strict punishments for drug offenses, including mandatory minimum sentences in almost every instance.

[25][26] Also in 1973, conservative businesses and tough-on-crime politicians came together to establish the influential lobbying group American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).

Intended to allow inmates to contribute to society, offset the cost of their incarceration, reduce idleness, cultivate job skills, and improve the rates of successful transition back into their communities after release,[27] the PIE program created a cheap captive domestic labor market, which set the stage for the adoption and expansion of private-sector labor in public prisons.

[34] In 1994, President Bill Clinton signed the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, the largest crime bill in U.S. history,[35][9][36] which directly allotted a $9.7 billion funding increase to prisons and introduced the three-strikes law, assigning unprecedentedly long sentences (25 year to life minimum) to third-time convicts.

[41][18] A 2010 investigation by the United States Department of Justice found that Federal Prison Industries (the New Deal–era public-sector prison labor program, rebranded in 1977 as UNICOR) had routinely exposed federal inmates to toxic heavy metals, exported hazardous wastes to developing countries, and attempted to conceal evidence of unsafe working conditions from OSHA inspectors.

[50] More expansive definitions often include as elements of the system tough-on-crime politicians and district attorneys seeking office, conservative political lobbies and legislatures passing punitive laws, and investment banks and rural economic developers leveraging public debt into private profit through prison construction and employment contracts.

[23] According to this view, the prison-industrial complex depends on this guarantee of future inmates to ensure its growth and profitability, making prison construction, operation, services, and technology all safe investments.

Further, they also share important structural features, both generating immense profits from processes of "social destruction"[57] In essence, Davis argues that the relationship between the military and prison industrial complex can be understood like this: the exact things which are advantageous to corporations, elected officials, and governmental agents, those who have evident stakes in expanding these systems, leads to the devastation of poor and racialized communities as it has throughout American history.

Scholars and critics describe the existence of a "school-to-prison pipeline", a system in which public school policies contribute to funneling urban students of color into the prison-industrial complex.

"[52] This trend has both disrupted urban learning environments and decreased the average age of the incarcerated population of the United States' major cities.

[63] In the decades following World War II, the American domestic economy was characterized by growth, but also by deindustrialization, the decline of the labor movement, austerity and the privatization of government services, the transformation of welfare to workfare policies, and suburbanization, including white flight from city centers.

These large-scale transformations had particularly damaging effects on the economic activity of large American cities, generally increasing urban unemployment and exacerbating income and racial inequality.

[18]Advocates of prison labor argue that rehabilitation is promoted through discipline, a strong work ethic, and providing inmates with valuable skills to be used upon release.

[71] Activists Eve Goldberg and Linda Evans (writing while incarcerated in California) explain that For private business, prison labor is like a pot of gold.

'"[71]Several scholars argue that the practice of "hiring out prisoners", from the Reconstruction-era convict lease system to the contemporary prison-industrial complex, is a continuation of the U.S. history of slavery.

[72][73] These scholars all cite the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, abolishing the institution of slavery "except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted.

[93] In regards to women and the prison-industrial complex, Angela Davis stated that "State-sanctioned punishment is informed by patriarchal structures and ideologies that have tended to produce historical assumptions of female criminality linked to ideas about the violation of social norms defining a 'woman’s place'.

Davis continues:[95]the sexual abuse of women in prison is one of the most heinous state-sanctioned human rights violations within the United States today.

[99] A 2014 report by the American Friends Service Committee, Grassroots Leadership, and the Southern Center for Human Rights claims that recent reductions in the number of people incarcerated has pushed the prison industry into areas previously served by non-profit behavioral health and treatment-oriented agencies, referring to it as the "Treatment Industrial Complex", which "has the potential to ensnare more individuals, under increased levels of supervision and surveillance, for increasing lengths of time – in some cases, for the rest of a person's life.

"[100] Sociologist Nancy A. Heitzeg and activist Kay Whitlock claim that contemporary bipartisan reforms being proposed "are predicated on privatization schemes, dominated by the anti-government right and neoliberal interests that more completely merge for-profit medical treatment and other human needs supports with the prison-industrial complex.

Angela Davis, a known political activist and co-founder of Critical Resistance describes the purpose of abolition, "All of these things help to create security and safety.

"[105] Due to the overcrowding in prisons and detention centers by for-profit corporations, organizations such as Amnesty International, propose using alternatives such as reporting requirements, bonds, or the use of monitoring technologies.

A study published by the Vera Institute attempts to answer this question by stating that when alternatives such as monitoring technologies were used, they found that 91% of the individuals appeared at their court date.

The conference, Critical Resistance to the prison-industrial complex, was held in September 1998 at the University of California, Berkeley and was attended by over 3,500 people of diverse academic, socioeconomic and ethnic backgrounds.

[111] Currently, the cause has shifted towards supporting efforts towards resisting state repression and developing tools to re-imagine life without the prison industrial complex.

[116] The team released recommendations that work towards reducing the racial disparity in suspension and discussing the underlying root cause of disciplinary infractions through restorative justice.