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 (such as prisons, jails, detention facilities, and psychiatric hospitals) and the various businesses that benefit 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, corporations that contract cheap prison labor, correctional officers unions, private probation companies, criminal lawyers, and the lobby groups that represent them. 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 in profit 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.