Prison–industrial complex

The prison–industrial complex (PIC) is a term, coined after the "military–industrial complex" of the 1950s, used by scholars and activists to describe the many relationships between institutions of imprisonment (e.g., prisons, jails, detention facilities, and psychiatric hospitals) and the various establishments that profit from them. The term is most often used in the context of the contemporary United States, where the expansion of the U.S. inmate population has resulted in economic profit and political influence for private prisons and other companies that supply goods and services to government prison agencies. According to this concept, incarceration not only upholds the justice system, but also subsidizes construction companies, companies that operate prison food services and medical facilities, surveillance and corrections technology vendors, telecommunications, corporations that contract cheap prison labor, correctional officers unions, private probation companies, criminal lawyers, and the lobby groups that represent them. That is, the PIC is not just a singular relationship born between inmate and incarceration, but rather as system whose arms influence and reach most all, in one way or another, spheres of social, economic, and political nodes of life. The term also refers more generally to interest groups who, in their interactions with the prison system, prioritize financial gain over rehabilitating criminals. Proponents of this concept, including civil rights organizations such as the Rutherford Institute and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), believe that the economic incentives of prison construction, prison privatization, prison labor, and prison service contracts have transformed incarceration into an industry capable of growth, and have contributed to mass incarceration. These advocacy groups note that incarceration affects people of color at disproportionately high rates. Many commentators use the term "prison–industrial complex" to refer strictly to private prisons in the United States, an industry that generates approximately $4 billion of revenue a year. Others note that fewer than 10% of U.S. inmates are incarcerated in for-profit facilities, 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.

History Early American jails were largely privately managed, holding both criminals awaiting trial and debtors awaiting repayment, and charging holding fees to local governments and creditors. After the first publicly-run prison was established in 1790 in Pennsylvania, private business involvement in corrections largely diminished to providing contracted services, such as food preparation, medical care, and transportation. The major 19th-century exception to the relative separation between public punishment and private industry was the convict lease system in the American South, in which private parties paid public prisons for forced prisoner labor. 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. In 1930, the federal government established Federal Prison Industries, a prison labor program to produce goods and services for the public sector. Many scholars and activists argue that the contemporary prison–industrial complex has its origins in the war on drugs, a legislative campaign orchestrated by the U.S. federal government since the early 1970s aimed at criminalizing and punishing drug trafficking and use. Following tougher anti-drug legislation and harsher sentencing standards under the presidential administrations of Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, incarceration increasingly became the standard punishment for non-violent offenses. 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. Also during this period private-sector wage labor was reintroduced into the national prison system. The number of Americans awaiting trial or serving a sentence for a drug conviction in prison or jail increased from about 40,000 in 1980 to about 450,000 in 2004. In May 2021 the Federal Bureau of Prisons listed 46.3 percent of federal inmates as incarcerated because of drug convictions.

1970s In 1973, following the lead of President Nixon, New York State passed the Rockefeller Drug Laws, establishing mandatory minimum prison sentences for small-scale drug possession. 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. Also in 1973, conservative businesses and tough-on-crime politicians came together to establish the influential lobbying group American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). In 1977, the U.S. Supreme Court case Jones v. North Carolina Prisoners’ Labor Union restricted prisoners’ First Amendment rights to free speech and assembly, and prohibited them from organizing labor unions. In 1979, inspired by legislation proposed by ALEC, the U.S. Congress overturned the New Deal–era legislation against for-profit prison labor by establishing the Prison Industry Enhancement Certification Program (PIE). 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, 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. The PIE program also allowed prisons themselves to be privatized and operated as for-profit entities. Meanwhile, incarceration rates began to soar. After a period of relative stability since 1925 (around 0.1 percent of the population), the overall U.S. imprisonment rate grew rapidly and continuously from 1972, increasing annually by 6 to 8 percent through 2000.

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