Prison-industrial complex

This article is part of the Tobacco portal on Sourcewatch funded from 2006 - 2009 by the American Legacy Foundation.

The term Prison-industrial Complex refers to the privatization of correctional facilities. Prisons are both hugely expensive and at the same time very profitable, and as with military spending, the cost is public cost and the profits are private profits.

Writing for The Atlantic in December 1998, Eric Schlosser said that "The prison-industrial complex is not only a set of interest groups and institutions. It is also a state of mind. The lure of big money is corrupting the nation's criminal-justice system, replacing notions of public service with a drive for higher profits. The eagerness of elected officials to pass tough-on-crime legislation -- combined with their unwillingness to disclose the true costs of these laws -- has encouraged all sorts of financial improprieties."

Government Agencies

• Biometric Consortium
• Border Research and Technology Center (BRTC)
• Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (BATF)
• Corrections Program Office (CPO)
• Counterdrug Technology Assessment Center (CTAC)
• Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA)
• Federal Bureau of Prisons (FBP)
• Federal Prison Industries (operated by DOJ); also known as UNICOR
• Immigration and Naturalization Service
• National Institute of Corrections (NIC)
• National Institute of Justice (NIJ)
• National Law Enforcement and Corrections Technology Center (NLECTC)
• National Technical Information Service (NTIS)
• Office of Correctional Education (OVAE)
• Office of Drug Control Policy (ODCP)
• Office of Law Enforcement Standards (OLES)
• Office of Law Enforcement Technology Commercialization (OLETC)
• Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP)
• Office of Science and Technology(OS&T)
• Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center, San Diego (Navy SSC San Diego)
• Southwest Border High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA)
• UNICOR
• U.S. Customs Service
• U.S. Department of Defense (DOD)/Biometric Management Office (BMO)
• U.S. Department of Homeland Security/Border and Transportation Security Directorate (BTS)
• U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ)
• U.S. Parole Commission

Non-Governmental Entities

• Alternative Monitoring Services
• American Correctional Association
• American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC)
• "bed brokers"
• BI Inc. (Biometric Systems)
• The [Biometric Foundation]
• Bobby Ross Group
• Capital Correction Resources
• Cornell Corrections
• correctionalnews.com
• corrections.com
• Corrections Corporation of America
• Corrections Yellow Pages
• Dominion Management
• Dove Development Corporation
• Earl Warren Legal Institute
• Federal Extradition Agency (private)
• General Security Service
• Global Solutions Ltd. (GSL)
• government-owned/contractor operated
• Iridian Technologies, Inc. (formerly IriScan, Inc.)
• Juvenile and Jail Facility Management Services, Inc.
• Justice Policy Institute (JPI)
• Justice Technology Information Network (JTIN)
• Law Enforcement and Corrections Technology Advisory Council (LECTAC)
• Mace Security Inc.
• Management and Training Corporation
• Manhattan Institute
• Marriott Management Services
• misuse of labor
• N-Group Securities
• National Criminal Justice Commission
• National Institute of Corrections (NIC)
• Open Society Institute/Center on Crime, Communities and Culture
• Parole Watch
• Premier Custodial Group
• Premier Detention Services
• Printrak (Motorola)
• Prison Industries
• The Prison Litigation Reform Act (1996)
• Prison Realty Trust (merged with Corrections Corporation of America)
• Prison telephone service (AT&T The Authority; BellSouth MAX, MCI Maximum Security, North American Intelecom)
• R & S Prisoner Transport
• "rent-a-cell" (see "bed brokers")
• Scientific Applications and Research Associates (SARA)
• The Sentencing Project
• SENTRI/Secured Electronic Network for Travelers' Rapid Inspection
• Serco Group, Inc.
• Stun Tech Inc.
• TransCor America
• Urban Development Corporation
• U.S. Corrections Corporation puchased by Corrections Corporation of America
• Wackenhut Corporation/Wackenhut Corrections

Prisons and tobacco

Tobacco companies sell cigarettes to prisons and prison stores (referred to as the "Institution market" or the "prisoner base"), and sometimes have contracts for these sales. Apparently prisoners have successfully rebelled to control the types of brands they are offered. In 1978 in Florida, prisons actually manufactured and packaged cigarettes, which were handed out free to inmates. A similar situation was exposed in 1990 when in The lllinois Correctional Department was investigated for possible violation of federal tax laws by selling prisoner-made cigarettes without collecting excise tax. Prisoners at the Menard State Prison in downstate Chester were making brands called "Southern Lights" and "Pyramid," which sold for 35 cents a pack. A prison representative said the program was to designed to teach inmates good work habits they could use after their release. Another explanation was that the effort was designed to flood the prison with cheap cigarettes to undermine the value of black market cigarettes inside the prison system.

In 1992, Lorillard Tobacco Company considered advertising cigarettes in a new magazine called "Prison Life." In 1995, Philip Morris had a plan to incent prison stores to carry its "Alpine" brand by offering a "high-value incentive" gift, like weight lifting equipment, after 6 months of sales. For marketing purposes, tobacco companies estimate the incidence of smoking in prisons is double that in the general population, with an estimate around 50%.

Related SourceWatch Resources

• Critical Resistance: Beyond the Prison Industrial Complex
• biometrics
• company police agencies
• defense contractors
• eugenics
• federal contractors
• GEO Group Australia
• global detention system
• global economy
• globalization
• IQPC
• Knowledge Consulting
• military-industrial complex
• Penal Reform International
• Police Violence
• surveillance-industrial complex
• population control
• prison labor
• serco
• sustainable development
• Timeline to global governance
• Natalie Sokoloff
• Alternatives to Violence Project

External links

• Wikipedia: carceral state
• Wikipedia: retributive justice
• Wikipedia: prison-industrial complex
• Audio of a Christian Parenti talk on understanding and tackling the Prison Industrial Complex.

Related Books

• Ernest Drucker, A Plague of Prisons: The Epidemiology of Mass Incarceration in America (The New Press, 2010).
• Robert Perkinson, Texas Tough: The Rise of America's Prison Empire (Metropolitan Books, 2010).
• Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness (The New Press, 2009).
• Glenn C. Loury (ed.), Race, Incarceration and American Values (MIT Press, 2008).
• Phil Scraton and Jude McCulloch (eds) The Violence of Incarceration (Routledge, 2008).
• Jamie Bissonette, When the Prisoners Ran Walpole: A True Story in the Movement for Prison Abolition, (South End Press, 2008)
• Kristian Williams, American Methods: Torture and the Logic of Domination, (South End Press, 2006).
• Dylan Rodríguez, Forced Passages: Imprisoned Radical Intellectuals and the U.S. Prison Regime (University of Minnesota Press, 2006).
• Special Issue "Deaths in Custody and Detention", Social Justice, 33, 4, 2006.
• Christian Parenti, The Soft Cage: Surveillance in America from Slavery to the War on Terror, (Basic Books, 2003)
• Joy James (Editor), Imprisoned Intellectuals: America's Political Prisoners Write on Life, Liberation, and Rebellion (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2003).
• Dave Lindorff, Killing Time: An Investigation into the Death Row Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal (Common Courage Press, 2003).
• Tara Herivel and Paul Wright, Prison Nation: The Warehousing of America's Poor, (Routledge, 2002)
• Christian Parenti, Lockdown America: Police and Prisons in the Age of Crisis, (Verso, 2000)
• Eric Cummins, The Rise and Fall of California's Radical Prison Movement, (Stanford University Press, 1994)
• Elliott Currie, Crime and Punishment in America (Metropolitan Books, 1998).
• Samuel Walker, Sense and Nonsense about Crime (Wadsworth Publishing, 1998).
• Daniel Burton-Rose, Dan Pen, & Paul Wright, (Eds.) The Ceiling of America: An Inside Look at the U.S Prison Industry (Common Courage Press, 1998).
• Steven Donziger, The Real War on Crime (HarperCollins, 1996).
• Ward Churchill & Jim Vander Wall (Eds.) Cages of Steel: The Politics of Imprisonment in America (Maisonneuve Press, 1992).
• Alexander C. Lichtenstein and Michael A. Kroll, The Fortress Economy: The Economic Role of the U. S. Prison System (American Friends Service Committee, 1990).
• Erik Olin Wright, The Politics of Punishment: A Critical Analysis of Prisons in America (1973).

• Other Great Books and Article

Australian Books

• Bernie Matthews, Intractable: Hell Has a Name, Life Inside Australia's First Super-Max Prison (Macmillan, 2006). review

Articles

• A collection of interesting articles on prison privatization and prison labor.
• November/December 2003: "Jails for Jesus," motherjones: "President George W. Bush wants faith-based programs to take over social services. But what happens when evangelical Christians try their hand at running prisons?"
• Catherine Austin Fitts, "Dillon, Read & Co. Inc. and the Aristocracy of Prison Profits," Narco News Bulletin, February 27, 2006.
• Mark Martin, "Legislature quickly OKs prison plan. Governor expected to sign measure that passed with no public hearing, little debate," San Francisco Chronicle, April 27, 2007.

References

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