The Growing Prison Industrial Complex

“A set of bureaucratic, political, and economic interests that encourage increased spending on imprisonment, regardless of the actual need. The prison-industrial complex is not a conspiracy, guiding the nation’s criminal-justice policy behind closed doors. It is composed of politicians, both liberal and conservative, who have used the fear of crime to gain votes; impoverished rural areas where prisons have become a cornerstone of economic development; private companies that regard the roughly $35 billion spent each year on corrections not as a burden on American taxpayers but as a lucrative market. An interweaving of private business and government interests. (Aviram

Yolanda Valentin a 21-year-old prisoner, born as Daniel Valentine, looks and sounds much like a woman if it wasn’t for her sex assignment. After being placed in a cell with two male inmates, Valentin was repeatedly abused. She informed correctional officers of the continued, brutal sexual violence her cellmate was putting her through. The prison system did not respond to her. After all, from their point of view Valentin should have opted for solitary confinement to protect herself from the general population of male inmates. In solitary she would have sat quietly, by herself, for 24 hours in a cell made explicitly for violent prisoners. Valentin, a transsexual inmate in transition, asks herself constantly: “A lot of times I wake up, and I look around at my surroundings, and I see all these men. I think, ‘What am I doing here?’”(Baus).

The Prison Industrial Complex (PIC) is an organization which over the past few decades has grown tremendously in the United States. This political cartoon showcases how our societies are transitioning from dependence on the Public Education system to the dependence on the Prison Industrial Complex and how the people who are funding these corporate businesses are less focused on bettering of the community but are primarily money hungry. My close analysis of this image reveals how the prison industrial complex negatively affects our communities yet is beneficial to the people and corporations who operate them.

With the exponential increases in government expenditure on immigration enforcement since 2001, private industry accurately views immigration detention as a growth industry, and corporations have therefore devoted their resources to lobbying for those policies and programs that will increase their opportunities to do business with the federal government (DWN.org). Speculations that private prison corporations are more concerned with generating profit rather than the safety and security of detainees have emerged. Human rights violations have become more apparent through raids, deportations, and detentions against immigrants have been rampant with rationalization made in the name of homeland security since 9/11. The potential profitability of ownership and operation of detention centers are not the only means for generating profits, private industries operating within federal, state, and local facilities stand to generate substantial profit from subsidiary industries as well. Under the guise of protection of the general public and homeland security, these private prison systems create an image of being the solution to the “immigration problem,” when in reality most are only concerned

In the fiscal year of 2014, U.S Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) stated that they conducted approximately 315,943 removals of individuals (ICE, 2014). This number includes undocumented immigrants, permanent residents, children, asylum seekers, and victims of human trafficking. The United States holds on average 380,000 to 442,000 persons in immigrant detention facilities per year (CIVIC, 2015). Immigrant Detention Centers hold individuals with migrant status who are in waiting of their removal proceeding decision made by the Department of Justice. Detention facilities ideally should model a civil system yet the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and ICE have transformed

At the expense of the young, to the detriment of the poor, and on the backs of the immigrants is the means by which the private prison companies have constructed a business that trades freedoms for profit but more concerning is to what ends these freedoms are being exchanged. The advancement of the private prison system has changed the face of the prison industry as we know it. Because little attention has been given in the media to the private prison industry, they have been able to expand their influence and their revenue by means the average American would consider unscrupulous. Private prisons came about to act as the solution to a problem facing federal prisons, overcrowding, which was created due to the war on drugs, but in acting as a solution to one problem they created another one that could be more problematic than the one it intended to fix. Proponents of private, for profit, prisons claim that it is a better alternative than federal prisons because they can provide the same service for less and save taxpayers money in the process. They also contend that the service they provide would help to stimulate the economy. However, privatization of America’s prison systems will contribute to an increase in the incarceration rate and unfairly target certain demographics of the population, which could lead to psychological trauma affecting the people of those demography’s that it

What is the prison industrial complex? In what way does it play in the existence of what Dr. Michelle Alexander calls the New Jim Crow?

I had first heard about Michelle Alexander’s engaging, yet sobering, book about two years ago from a very good friend of mine, who suggested that I read it immediately. I would see it on bookstore shelves and at online stores and I would always tell myself that I would “get it next time”. But, after reading the introduction of the book, for this class, I immediately purchased a copy online and once it arrived I moved it to the top of my reading list. Michelle Alexander does a commendable job of distilling the abstract ideal of a Prison Industrial Complex into something palpable; exploring more about the societal implications of mass incarceration in our country as opposed to the political. It also raises important questions, such as, why do we as American’s feel comfortable with the incarceration of large groups of our population predicated along racial lines? The answer, while multi-faceted, can be

This paper will attempt to validate the abusive nature within ICE’s Immigration Detention Centers. Specifically, the abuse that women and children suffer by high risk detainees and ICE agents within the detention centers. Additionally, this paper will also challenge the infrastructure along the southwest border, specifically on overcrowded and antiquated detention centers. Furthermore, how the financial impact to detain, process and release or deportation of undocumented immigrants has become a burden on U.S. tax payers. Lastly, how the lack of concern for human rights has become a crisis at the U.S. and Mexican border.

“One out of every 31 Americans (7 Million) are in prison, jail, or some other form of correctional supervision. A high incarceration rate in the United States has led to the prison-industrial complex, which has provided jobs and profits to legions of companies and people. The field of corrections is big business.”1 I believe that this fact is the best way in which to start my paper. The main idea of corrections, as the name suggests, is to correct the behavior that has caused an offender to stray from the straight and narrow. However, as our prison population grows and recidivism rates increase we are not only seeing our prison system fail, but we are seeing a new and emerging industry take hold in this country. Increasing prison populations and the number of re-offenders is showing a relatively obvious failure of the current system. In my time as a criminal justice major I have taken a variety of classes on criminal justice, one of the most interesting for me (aside from this class) was restorative justice. In my restorative justice class I was introduced to the idea that the criminal justice system was taking the conflict away from the victim and the community and was focusing too much on punishment and not enough on rehabilitation. I understand that some people feel that restorative justice is too lenient, that by allowing offenders to bypass jail restorative justice gives them a pass and allows them to basically get away with an offense, however restorative

Rania Khalek, a progressive activist, claims that “There is one group of American workers so disenfranchised that corporations are able to get away with paying them wages that rival those of third-world sweatshops.” These laborers, who the US society labels as prisoners, have been legally stripped of any political, economic or social rights and are ultimately relegated to being second-class citizens. They have no choice but to work for little or no wages. This marginalization renders them practically invisible and these prisoners who are locked behind bars where we cannot see or hear them are our modern-day slaves of the 21st century. Society pays so little attention to those who are behind bars that instead of trying to educate those convicted and try to rehabilitate them, many of us use them to earn more money.

Angela Y. Davis, the author of Masked Racism: Reflections on the Prison Industrial Complex, shows how private organizations benefit from the incarceration of expanding quantities of people of color. Davis argues that in spite of the fact that the jail blast has expanded the benefits of worldwide partnerships, it “devours the social wealth” of our groups by depleting them of their human and monetary assets. Davis thesis is where she states that the political economy of detainment facilities depends on racialized presumptions of criminality. The cycle continues of the racist laws which follows into racist prison system which then follows to racist policing practices. The prison industrial system materially and morally ruins its occupants and

Today we will hear again the voices of 200 years ago to cure the affliction cast upon america's justice system by the greed of the powerful. Al Jazeera compares the private prison system to modern day slavery (Love, para 3). And they’re not wrong. Currently, as of reports in 2015 and 2016, these facilities house 7% of state prisoners and 18% of federal prisoners and three-quarters of federal immigration detainees, according to the ACLU (Private Prisons, para 1). With so many of America's imprisoned under their care they have done little but exploit and abuse their charges, The guardian reports rampant rape, assault, psychological torture, safety and health violations, starvation, deprivation, and the list of depravities continues (Filipovic, para 3). How is it that these facilities are

Alexander argues that racism has kept African Americans in prison, stripping them of their freedom, their right to vote, and their access to the mainstream economy. The author contends that this system of institutionalized racism, spurred on by the “War on Drugs” has resulted in a wave of mass incarceration of black and brown Americans. Her book documents that the United States accounts for 25% of the world's prison population. She points to the fact that, after slavery was abolished, black men were arrested on trumped up charges to force them into a new kind of slavery: the prison industrial system. She uses the term “mass incarceration” to describe the overwhelming number of black and brown people in “custody” in both the formal jail/prison system as well as outside the facilities on probation and

The prison system has seen huge changes from the American Colonel days to now. At first punishment was a way to inflict pain in suffering onto prisoners. By doing this it set an example to detour crime. Punishment throughout time has changed with the building of prison systems and labor being implemented. Today punishment is carried out much different than in the past. Punishment is way to keep order and discipline throughout society. Punishments focus more now on rehabilitation then it does to inflict pain and suffering. Labor is still being used today to help detour prisoners for committing a crime again, and to teach them working skills.