Solitary Watch--From A Nation In Lockdown.
Obviously, there's much more to the article but here's a snippet.
People have said to me that the criminal justice system doesn’t work. I’ve come to believe exactly the opposite – that it works perfectly, just as slavery did, as a matter of economic and political policy. How is it that a 15 year old in Newark who the country labels worthless to the economy, who has no hope of getting a job or affording college – can suddenly generate $20,000-30,000 a year once trapped in the criminal justice system? The expansion of prisons, parole, probation, and the court and police systems has resulted in an enormous bureaucracy which has been a boon to everyone from architects, to food vendors – all with one thing in common – a pay check earned by keeping human beings in cages. The criminalization of poverty is a lucrative business and we have replaced the social safety net with a dragnet.
There is no contradiction that prisons are both hugely expensive and very profitable. Just like with military spending, the cost is public cost and the profits are private profits. Privatization in the prison industrial complex includes companies which run prisons for profit while at the same time gleaning profits from forced labor. In the state of New Jersey, food and medical services are provided by corporations which have a profit motive.
One recent explosion of private industry is the partnering of Corrections Corporation of America with the federal government to detain close to 1 million undocumented people. Using public monies to enrich private citizens is the history of capitalism at its most exploitive. There are powerful economic and political interests in the business of the punishment regime which uses isolation as a form of torture.
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