The surprising link between political strategy and health policies
The prison industrial complex is a term that is used to describe the nexus between the interests of private businesses, government institutions, and the prison system. The United States, which holds the largest prison population in the world, has turned prison into a profitable market. This is reflected in public policy and in its position as a structural element in the nation's economy. Indeed, oppositional voices to prison reform have referenced the country's dependence on the labor of incarcerated people as a reason to maintain a deplorable status quo.
So, how does prison labor manage to generate so much profit for private businesses? Click through this gallery to find out.
As of March 2024, the United States alone holds over 1.9 million people total in the mishmash of its multi-layered, complex criminal legal system. It is a world leader in terms of incarceration rates.
The US imprisonment rate is equivalent to 25% of the world’s total prison population, establishing itself as the highest rate in the world.
The cost to uphold the thousands of federal, state, local, and tribal systems that comprise the US criminal justice system is at least US$182 billion per year. That’s $60 billion more than what's spent on education, according to the federal budget.
The US prison system has not been short of critique. Extensive studies have drawn key conclusions on the responsibilities of policymakers to enact fundamental changes due to both the financial and social burdens of incarceration.
Critical analyses of incarceration often refer to the prison industrial complex (PIC), a term coined by former political prisoner, scholar, and international activist Angela Davis.
The term was first used as a counter explanation to political rhetoric that sought to frame rising prison populations as issues of increased crime.
The term sought to contest this conclusion, instead highlighting underpinning structural racism and the pursuit of profit as ideological drivers of mass incarceration.
Referring to the interdependent relationship between the government, private corporations, and the prison system, the term PIC points to how these three systems operate ‘behind the scenes,’ using imprisonment to generate profit for private businesses.
In the United States, incarceration is a multi-billion-dollar industry. In Angela Davis’ ‘Are Prisons Obsolete?,’ she points to how just looking at the shocking numbers abstracts the lives of those who live the horrors of imprisonment.
In 2002, African Americans overwhelmingly represented the majority of prisoners at every level. Including other groups of people of color, concerns of structural racism reflected in the prison system are further evident.
Private prisons are a cornerstone of the American prison system. The more beds are occupied, the more public funding goes toward the private business of imprisonment.
The fuller prisons are, meaning the more prisoners are retained in these institutions, the more profit prison investors are able to aggregate.
According to the PIC theory, prison is part of a “profitable punishment industry.” If we understand the private prison as a business model that sells a service and, accordingly, has ‘customers,’ the customers can be understood as the general public, as it is their tax dollars that fund dealing with those who break the law.
In this case, the customer is always happy, as it is believed that issues of public safety are being dealt with by creating harsh prison sentences in a complex criminal justice system.
Although there has been a public moral shift over the last decade, particularly following the emergence of the Black Lives Matter movement, public policy still focuses on over-policing communities where people of color live.
As generating profit is the center of the PIC model, private prisons greatly influence public policy to ensure that prisoners continue to be churned into their cells.
During the time of the American Revolution, the concept of prison was progressively grounded in the act of rehabilitation, a shift from the ideology of slavery that influenced previous conceptions of prison with corporal or capital punishment. But the act of rehabilitation never actually materialized.
The concept of prison as a business has both an overall component in terms of how the public funds the imprisonment of individuals, but there is another business-driven element that includes other private businesses.
Of the incarcerated population, two out of three prisoners are also workers. Yet prison labor doesn’t look the same as the kind of work that the non-incarcerated perform.
Prisoners do not have access to the most fundamental protections against labor exploitation and abuse. Not only are these prisoners forced to work, but they do so without standard workplace protections in place.
Prisoners cannot refuse to work. PIC advocates argue that this condition equates prison labor to some forms of enslaved labor. Despite the 13th Amendment, which explicitly provides protection against slavery, there is an exclusion of this amendment for those imprisoned with criminal convictions.
A survey conducted by the Bureau of Justice Statistics found that over 76% of imprisoned laborers are forced to work or will face punishment, such as solitary confinement, loss of family visits, and even potentially face consequences when it comes to sentence reduction opportunities.
In addition, imprisoned workers are not afforded the right to unionize. Minimum wage laws and overtime protection do not apply to them either.
In terms of pay, incarcerated workers make little to no wages at all. Some workers take mere pennies home. The average wage is between 13-53 cents per hour (the federal minimal hourly wage is $7.25).
Incarcerated workers do not even keep the whole of their wages. The government takes up to 80% for a series of costs, such as room and board, restitution, and other fees.
In the prison system, costs for basic necessities, such as hygiene products, are grossly overpriced. A survey among incarcerated workers noted that over 70% of the imprisoned population cannot afford basic necessities on the basis of their wages.
According to the American Civil Liberties Union, family members of the incarcerated spend US$2.9 billion annually on ensuring their incarcerated loved ones have access to basic things in prison. Over 50% of these families are driven into debt due to these costs.
While the incarcerated and their families struggle to survive under deplorable conditions, imprisoned workers produce over US$2 billion annually in goods. They also provide $9 billion annually for prison maintenance services, offsetting costs for the prison system.
Incarcerated workers also provide critical services, such as firefighting in at least 14 states that face wildfires (pictured). They also conduct public works projects, as well as emergency operations for emergencies and disasters. In many ways, prison labor is a significant contributor to the American economy.
Yet, less than 1% of prisons’ budgets go to pay incarcerated workers. Critics of the PIC have been met by opposition from some government officials, specifically due to economic risks in the reduction of the incarcerated workforce population.
Sources: (Prison Policy) (World Population Review) (American Civil Liberties Union) (Economic Policy Institute) (Tufts University)
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The prison industrial complex is a term that is used to describe the nexus between the interests of private businesses, government institutions, and the prison system. The United States, which holds the largest prison population in the world, has turned prison into a profitable market. This is reflected in public policy and in its position as a structural element in the nation's economy. Indeed, oppositional voices to prison reform have referenced the country's dependence on the labor of incarcerated people as a reason to maintain a deplorable status quo.
So, how does prison labor manage to generate so much profit for private businesses? Click through this gallery to find out.