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Prison Profiteers: Who Makes Money from Mass Incarceration
“No country in history has ever handed over so many inmates to private corporations. This book looks at the consequences” (Eric Schlosser, bestselling author of Fast Food Nation ).
In Prison Profiteers , coeditors Tara Herivel and Paul Wright “follow the money to an astonishing constellation of prison administrators and politicians working in collusion with private parties to maximize profits” ( Publishers Weekly ). From investment banks, guard unions, and the makers of Taser stun guns to health care providers, telephone companies, and the US military (which relies heavily on prison labor), this network of perversely motivated interests has turned the imprisonment of 1 out of every 135 Americans into a lucrative business.
Called “an essential read for anyone who wants to understand what’s gone wrong with criminal justice in the United States” by ACLU National Prison Project director Elizabeth Alexander, this incisive and deftly researched volume shows how billions of tax dollars designated for the public good end up lining the pockets of those private enterprises dedicated to keeping prisons packed.
“An important analysis of a troubling social trend” that is sure to inform and outrage any concerned citizen, Prison Profiteers reframes the conversation by exposing those who stand to profit from the imprisonment of millions of Americans ( Booklist ).
“Indispensable . . . An easy and accessible read―and a necessary one.” ― The San Diego Union-Tribune
“This is lucid, eye-opening reading for anyone interested in American justice.” ― Publishers Weekly
“Impressive . . . A thoughtful, comprehensive and accessible analysis of the money trail behind the prison-industrial-complex.” ― The Black Commentator
In Prison Profiteers , coeditors Tara Herivel and Paul Wright “follow the money to an astonishing constellation of prison administrators and politicians working in collusion with private parties to maximize profits” ( Publishers Weekly ). From investment banks, guard unions, and the makers of Taser stun guns to health care providers, telephone companies, and the US military (which relies heavily on prison labor), this network of perversely motivated interests has turned the imprisonment of 1 out of every 135 Americans into a lucrative business.
Called “an essential read for anyone who wants to understand what’s gone wrong with criminal justice in the United States” by ACLU National Prison Project director Elizabeth Alexander, this incisive and deftly researched volume shows how billions of tax dollars designated for the public good end up lining the pockets of those private enterprises dedicated to keeping prisons packed.
“An important analysis of a troubling social trend” that is sure to inform and outrage any concerned citizen, Prison Profiteers reframes the conversation by exposing those who stand to profit from the imprisonment of millions of Americans ( Booklist ).
“Indispensable . . . An easy and accessible read―and a necessary one.” ― The San Diego Union-Tribune
“This is lucid, eye-opening reading for anyone interested in American justice.” ― Publishers Weekly
“Impressive . . . A thoughtful, comprehensive and accessible analysis of the money trail behind the prison-industrial-complex.” ― The Black Commentator
352 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2008
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
March 30, 2011
Hard read for those brave enough to want to know the truth about what really goes on in our prisons and how they are yet another way for the wealthy to make money.
May 11, 2024
A SERIES OF ESSAYS LOOKING CRITICALLY AT THE “PRIVATE” PRISON INDUSTRY
Tara Herivel, co-editor of this 2007 book, wrote in the Introduction, “Although there is an expanding body of writing and analysis regarding the harms caused by mass incarceration in America, there is little discussion about the increasing number of entities that profit from and subsequently engender the growth of prisons. Beginning with the owners of private prison companies, and extending through a whole range of esoteric industries---from the makers of taser stun guns, to riot security training companies, to prison health-care providers, to the politicians, lawyers, and bankers who structure deals to build new prisons---a motley group of perversely motivated interests coalesce to sustain and profit from mass imprisonment. This anthology addresses the question of who profits from the incarceration experiment, and to whose detriment… While there are many industries that make money from prisons, the private prison industry is unique in that it is the only such industry founded solely in order to profit from prisons… This volume takes a first step into the murky, unexplored territory of the prison profiteers.” (Pg. ix-x)
Judith Greene notes in her essay, “In a survey of private prisons in the United States conducted for Congress, researchers… concluded that innovation in private sector corrections is limited due to two primary factors. First, to manage the risks associated with prison management, most contacting agencies require that prisons be run according to policies and standards that closely resemble those developed for the state’s prison systems. Second, since private prisons have been sold on the promise of lower costs, and many states require that a set percentage of cost savings be demonstrated, private prison managers face intense pressure to pare down expenditures in order to save money and produce profits at the same time. In combination, these factors leave little or no margin for the free experimentation that might breed innovative correctional practices.” (Pg. 7)
She continues, “State prison population growth slowed to a near halt as state fiscal crises hit in 2001… Yet business is booming for private prison companies thanks to anticipation of a rapid increase in the federal market for immigrant detention. Immigration authorities have focused an increasing share of Immigration and Customs Enforcement resources on the mandatory detention and removal of so-called criminal aliens…” (Pg. 24-25)
Kirsten Levingston notes, “Why, disgruntled taxpayers might ask, are policy makers not finding less expensive and more effective ways to keep the public safe? Why… won’t policy makers devise alternatives to jails and prisons that solve the underlying problems contributing to involvement in the system instead of making them worse? Rather than answer these important questions, increasingly jurisdictions now seek to quell taxpayer concern about system costs by shifting those costs away from taxpayers and onto the ‘bad guys’ who use the system.” (Pg. 54-55)
Mosher, Hooks, and Wood point out, “Prisons … fail to create jobs in rural areas because they have limited economic multiplier effects. Prison workers who move from elsewhere rarely end up residing in the actual prison town. These workers are more likely to live in neighboring communities … that offer more amenities but have no prison… Another possible reason for the lack of positive economic benefits of prisons is the existence of prison industries… prisons may actually pit local residents in competition with prisoners for employment.” (Pg. 94-95)
Paul Wright suggests, “How do we decommodify prisons as culture? The first step is to realize that pop culture … makes policy choices seem neutral and natural when in reality they are neither. Critical awareness and analysis of pop culture among… youth, is important… It is especially important that poor youth, the ones who populate American prisons for the most part, realize that imprisonment is not ‘natural.’ Rather, it is a policy choice that has been made instead of living-wage jobs, affordable housing, health care, and a social welfare system. In short, it is something that can be changed.” (Pg. 105-106)
Tara Herival observes, “Within the past fifteen years, a sea change has occurred in juvenile justice philosophy: children once widely viewed as malleable, largely victims of familial instability, and capable of being rehabilitated instead became widely viewed as ‘superpredators’ beginning in the 1980s and 1990s. Thanks to the hysterics whipped up by fear-mongers … a hundred years of rehabilitative juvenile justice philosophy was turned on its head. Overeager legislators jumped on the ‘superpredator’ bandwagon, and an epidemic of new legislation spread across the states.” (Pg. 164-165) Later, she adds, “Given the complicated interplay of factors such as mental illness and developmental or learning disabilities that disproportionately impact the juvenile population, the need for highly skilled, well-trained, and adequately paid staff is critical. The repeated failure of private facilities to provide adequate care for such children raises the question of whether private juvenile facilities are intrinsically inappropriate to carry out what are, or should be, functions of the public domain.” (Pg. 167-168)
Paul von Zielbauer states, “Qualified doctors and nurses are difficult to find, as jails are hardly the most prestigious or best-paying places to work. The potential costs of failure, though, are high----because most inmates will eventually be let out, along with any disease or mental illness that went untreated… local governments … typically lacked resources or expertise, acting in sometimes conflicting roles as punisher and medical protector. Often, the results are tragic.” (Pg. 210)
Steven Jackson says of attempts to reduce prisoners’ contacts with relatives and friends, “this goes directly against the findings of several decades of recidivism and community impact studies… Such studies have found that a powerful predictor for reoffense is the failure to maintain family and community contact while under incarceration… a reliable way of increasing the likelihood that prisoners WILL reoffend is to break all ties with the outside world and then place them back on the street years later, with little reentry support, in a community to which they have become a stranger.” (Pg. 241)
This book will be of great interest to those seeking alternatives to the present system of prisons
Tara Herivel, co-editor of this 2007 book, wrote in the Introduction, “Although there is an expanding body of writing and analysis regarding the harms caused by mass incarceration in America, there is little discussion about the increasing number of entities that profit from and subsequently engender the growth of prisons. Beginning with the owners of private prison companies, and extending through a whole range of esoteric industries---from the makers of taser stun guns, to riot security training companies, to prison health-care providers, to the politicians, lawyers, and bankers who structure deals to build new prisons---a motley group of perversely motivated interests coalesce to sustain and profit from mass imprisonment. This anthology addresses the question of who profits from the incarceration experiment, and to whose detriment… While there are many industries that make money from prisons, the private prison industry is unique in that it is the only such industry founded solely in order to profit from prisons… This volume takes a first step into the murky, unexplored territory of the prison profiteers.” (Pg. ix-x)
Judith Greene notes in her essay, “In a survey of private prisons in the United States conducted for Congress, researchers… concluded that innovation in private sector corrections is limited due to two primary factors. First, to manage the risks associated with prison management, most contacting agencies require that prisons be run according to policies and standards that closely resemble those developed for the state’s prison systems. Second, since private prisons have been sold on the promise of lower costs, and many states require that a set percentage of cost savings be demonstrated, private prison managers face intense pressure to pare down expenditures in order to save money and produce profits at the same time. In combination, these factors leave little or no margin for the free experimentation that might breed innovative correctional practices.” (Pg. 7)
She continues, “State prison population growth slowed to a near halt as state fiscal crises hit in 2001… Yet business is booming for private prison companies thanks to anticipation of a rapid increase in the federal market for immigrant detention. Immigration authorities have focused an increasing share of Immigration and Customs Enforcement resources on the mandatory detention and removal of so-called criminal aliens…” (Pg. 24-25)
Kirsten Levingston notes, “Why, disgruntled taxpayers might ask, are policy makers not finding less expensive and more effective ways to keep the public safe? Why… won’t policy makers devise alternatives to jails and prisons that solve the underlying problems contributing to involvement in the system instead of making them worse? Rather than answer these important questions, increasingly jurisdictions now seek to quell taxpayer concern about system costs by shifting those costs away from taxpayers and onto the ‘bad guys’ who use the system.” (Pg. 54-55)
Mosher, Hooks, and Wood point out, “Prisons … fail to create jobs in rural areas because they have limited economic multiplier effects. Prison workers who move from elsewhere rarely end up residing in the actual prison town. These workers are more likely to live in neighboring communities … that offer more amenities but have no prison… Another possible reason for the lack of positive economic benefits of prisons is the existence of prison industries… prisons may actually pit local residents in competition with prisoners for employment.” (Pg. 94-95)
Paul Wright suggests, “How do we decommodify prisons as culture? The first step is to realize that pop culture … makes policy choices seem neutral and natural when in reality they are neither. Critical awareness and analysis of pop culture among… youth, is important… It is especially important that poor youth, the ones who populate American prisons for the most part, realize that imprisonment is not ‘natural.’ Rather, it is a policy choice that has been made instead of living-wage jobs, affordable housing, health care, and a social welfare system. In short, it is something that can be changed.” (Pg. 105-106)
Tara Herival observes, “Within the past fifteen years, a sea change has occurred in juvenile justice philosophy: children once widely viewed as malleable, largely victims of familial instability, and capable of being rehabilitated instead became widely viewed as ‘superpredators’ beginning in the 1980s and 1990s. Thanks to the hysterics whipped up by fear-mongers … a hundred years of rehabilitative juvenile justice philosophy was turned on its head. Overeager legislators jumped on the ‘superpredator’ bandwagon, and an epidemic of new legislation spread across the states.” (Pg. 164-165) Later, she adds, “Given the complicated interplay of factors such as mental illness and developmental or learning disabilities that disproportionately impact the juvenile population, the need for highly skilled, well-trained, and adequately paid staff is critical. The repeated failure of private facilities to provide adequate care for such children raises the question of whether private juvenile facilities are intrinsically inappropriate to carry out what are, or should be, functions of the public domain.” (Pg. 167-168)
Paul von Zielbauer states, “Qualified doctors and nurses are difficult to find, as jails are hardly the most prestigious or best-paying places to work. The potential costs of failure, though, are high----because most inmates will eventually be let out, along with any disease or mental illness that went untreated… local governments … typically lacked resources or expertise, acting in sometimes conflicting roles as punisher and medical protector. Often, the results are tragic.” (Pg. 210)
Steven Jackson says of attempts to reduce prisoners’ contacts with relatives and friends, “this goes directly against the findings of several decades of recidivism and community impact studies… Such studies have found that a powerful predictor for reoffense is the failure to maintain family and community contact while under incarceration… a reliable way of increasing the likelihood that prisoners WILL reoffend is to break all ties with the outside world and then place them back on the street years later, with little reentry support, in a community to which they have become a stranger.” (Pg. 241)
This book will be of great interest to those seeking alternatives to the present system of prisons
December 9, 2009
I've only just started this book, but it's already making me mad. I knew it would. I finished this book. It is quite eye-opening. Everyone should read it.
June 8, 2010
very interesting....i learned a lot of things I did not know about prisons and specifically the privatization of prisons
Read
June 17, 2020I read Prison Profiteers: Who Makes Money From Mass Incarceration. This book explores the prison industrial complex, specifically looking at how the rehabilitative side of the prison industry has increasingly fallen to the wayside in lieu of the money to be made off of prisoners and the prison system. While the book covers a wide variety of issues associated with prisons, one of the issues it explores quite a bit is the increasing privatization of prisons. Private prisons, unlike government prisons, exist to make a profit. With that, corners are often cut. Guards are often paid very little and are consequently not as experienced for the challenges they face. Further, mental health and medical services are often substandard and the regulations/checks/balances are often unenforced or ignored. This endangers not only the lives of the guards, but can significantly damage prisoners.
The book also looks at how prisoners are used as labor, often being paid forty cents an hour or less. A lot of corporations rely on such cheap labor, and the ability of some corporations to pay extremely low wages has ramifications in terms of the ability of other companies to compete.
The book also look at million dollar blocks, a term used to describe the phenomenon of certain neighborhoods being identified as producing large segments of the prison population. These blocks cost taxpayers one million dollars or more per year in housing, feeding etc prisoners. With the mapping of such blocks, social researchers have begun asking why this money is not being spent on the front end to make the neighborhood better and reduce the poverty, lack of education, etc that is so closely tied to crime.
This book looks at a wide variety of other issues associated with prisons and I would definitely recommend it to other CTEP members. I work with a decent number of people who have at one point been incarcerated and it was upsetting to read about the ways in which they are taken advantage of, given substandard medical/mental health care, and then thrown back into the world with grim job and housing prospects.
--
Jade Rosario wrote:
Prison Profiteers: Who Makes Money from Mass Incarceration is a collection of articles from 16 authors who look at the economics of the industrial prison system and the repercussions of the privatization of the prison system. Some of the articles look at the economics of the overall prison system while others are case studies on specific prisons, rehabilitation/education programs, or aspects of the system- weapon contracts, food and heath issues. The overall report of the book is that privatization of prison have been made possible by the acts of publicly elected politicians who have helped prisons to become a big business in America, a system where there are incentives to more incarcerations and longer sentence, where prisoners are seen as a great source of cheap labor, as well as a market base that can be controlled and manipulated so that other corporations can make a profit.
I found this book pertinent to the my work at PPL because some of the participants that I work with have been incarcerated at some point in their life. Given that there are so many challenges and stigmatism that ex-offenders face while looking for jobs (and just living their lives) I think its important to have a knowledge of how there are institutionalized systems that work against those who make mistakes in their lives and that the punishment is often much greater than the crime. This is not to say that all offenders got the short end of the stick- but I think that reading this book added to the sincere compassion I have for those who are on track to make a better life for themselves.
The book also looks at how prisoners are used as labor, often being paid forty cents an hour or less. A lot of corporations rely on such cheap labor, and the ability of some corporations to pay extremely low wages has ramifications in terms of the ability of other companies to compete.
The book also look at million dollar blocks, a term used to describe the phenomenon of certain neighborhoods being identified as producing large segments of the prison population. These blocks cost taxpayers one million dollars or more per year in housing, feeding etc prisoners. With the mapping of such blocks, social researchers have begun asking why this money is not being spent on the front end to make the neighborhood better and reduce the poverty, lack of education, etc that is so closely tied to crime.
This book looks at a wide variety of other issues associated with prisons and I would definitely recommend it to other CTEP members. I work with a decent number of people who have at one point been incarcerated and it was upsetting to read about the ways in which they are taken advantage of, given substandard medical/mental health care, and then thrown back into the world with grim job and housing prospects.
--
Jade Rosario wrote:
Prison Profiteers: Who Makes Money from Mass Incarceration is a collection of articles from 16 authors who look at the economics of the industrial prison system and the repercussions of the privatization of the prison system. Some of the articles look at the economics of the overall prison system while others are case studies on specific prisons, rehabilitation/education programs, or aspects of the system- weapon contracts, food and heath issues. The overall report of the book is that privatization of prison have been made possible by the acts of publicly elected politicians who have helped prisons to become a big business in America, a system where there are incentives to more incarcerations and longer sentence, where prisoners are seen as a great source of cheap labor, as well as a market base that can be controlled and manipulated so that other corporations can make a profit.
I found this book pertinent to the my work at PPL because some of the participants that I work with have been incarcerated at some point in their life. Given that there are so many challenges and stigmatism that ex-offenders face while looking for jobs (and just living their lives) I think its important to have a knowledge of how there are institutionalized systems that work against those who make mistakes in their lives and that the punishment is often much greater than the crime. This is not to say that all offenders got the short end of the stick- but I think that reading this book added to the sincere compassion I have for those who are on track to make a better life for themselves.
March 19, 2021
Must read on the prison industrial complex. Follow the money.
November 13, 2023
Tells you a lot about the American prison system and how it is a big business and not made for reforming prisoners. Really opened my eyes to what is going on in the prison business
February 9, 2017
This novel had opened my mind about private prisons and all of the corrupt actions they are carrying out. If it weren't for this book, many people wouldn't have knowledge on how unconstitutional these prison are. I am angered at how they treat their prisoners, even though they have committed serious crimes. Being attacked and not aided to when needed is morally wrong and I'm glad these prisons are being shut down. The book does a good job organizing their arguments and informing the reader howe serious it is.
July 25, 2008
this is a great book full of essays by different authors about the private prison system and the american prison system as a whole.
you can kind of scan through and see what interests you but the whole book is great.
particularly interesting chapters include info on the private health care systems (or lack thereof) in prisons, treatment of juvenile inmates (not so great), if prisons actually do help the local economy (hint: THEY DON'T), and christian groups within the prison system (hint: SCARY).
you can kind of scan through and see what interests you but the whole book is great.
particularly interesting chapters include info on the private health care systems (or lack thereof) in prisons, treatment of juvenile inmates (not so great), if prisons actually do help the local economy (hint: THEY DON'T), and christian groups within the prison system (hint: SCARY).
April 2, 2015
Heavily discusses some of the monetary issue within the prison industry. Boring but informative.
April 3, 2017
learned a lot about how private prisons are not a positive thing.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews