Cashing In On Crime I - The Prison Industrial Complex > Back To Resources Main

by Randall Shelden; April 22, 2004

Cashing in on Crime: The Prison Industrial Complex, Part I

"While arrests and convictions are steadily on the rise, profits are to be made - profits from crime. Get in on the ground floor of this booming industry now!" (An advertising brochure from an investment firm called World Research Group).

(It's like a hotel with a guaranteed occupancy. (A private prison booster).

(A business comes in and a year or two it can(t support itself... (a prison) is something you know is going to be there for a long time.( (Town supervisor of Chesterfield, New York).

“There are no seasonal fluctuations, it is a non-polluting industry, and in many circumstances it is virtually invisible.” (A California Department of Corrections official explaining some of the benefits of putting a prison in a rural area).

The term military industrial complex has been used ever since President Dwight Eisenhower made reference to it in his farewell address in 1960. This complex is an "iron triangle" of the Pentagon, private defense contractors, and various members of Congressional committees (e.g., armed services committees, defense appropriations committees). The decision-making within any given policy arena is done within a closed circle of government bureaucrats, agency heads, interest groups, and private interests that gain from the distribution of public resources. It is “state capitalism” rather than the “free market” that operates here.

Similarly, we can speak of a prison industrial complex, since it represents an interconnection among the criminal justice system, the political system and the economic system. Building prisons and jails and furnishing them with everything they need to keep going (construction costs, security devices, furniture, toilet paper, etc.) involves the cooperation among private and business interests.

Business is booming within the prison industrial complex, largely because of recent trends in the incarceration rates in the United States. Presently, the incarceration rate is almost 500 per 100,000 population (more than 700 if you include jails), higher than any other country in the world. An examination of these rates dating from 1925 show that it was a mere 79 in 1925, increased to 113 in 1935 and remained around the same number until 1975 when it was 111. However, between 1975 and 1995 the rate almost quadrupled to 411, then increasing again to 475 in 2002. The increases since 1975 can be attributed mostly to the "war on drugs" (drug arrests account for almost half of the new prison admissions during the past 15-20 years).

Comparatively speaking, we are way ahead of other industrial democracies, whose incarceration rates tend to cluster in a range from around 55 to 120 per 100,000 population, with some well below that figure, like Japan's rate of 36, with an average incarceration rate for all countries of the world of around 80. Thus, America's incarceration rate is almost nine times greater than the average country, and well ahead of every European country. (It should be noted that the current crime rate in the United States is roughly what it was in the early 1970s, so incarceration rates have little to do with the level of crime, except that arrests for drugs have gone way up.)

Prisons as a “Market” for Capitalism

Within a capitalist society there tends to be an insatiable desire to continue "converting money into commodities and commodities into money." Everything, it seems, is turned into a "commodity" - from the simplest products (e.g., paper and pencil) to human beings (e.g., women's bodies, slaves). Indeed, as Robert Heilbroner notes (in his book The Nature and Logic of Capitalism), within a capitalist society "daily life is scanned for possibilities that can be brought within the circuit of accumulation," since any aspect of society that can produce a profit will be exploited, including crime. In many ways, life itself has been “commodified.”

The amount of money that flows into the coffers of the prison industrial complex from tax dollars alone is quite substantial. The budget for both state and federal correctional institutions came to $34.1 billion in fiscal year 2000, which represents an increase of almost 80 percent over 1992. The costs per prisoner per day have been steadily increasing during the past decade, going from about $49 in 1991 to about $58 in 1999. That’s about $21,170 per prisoner per year.

Literally thousands of companies, large and small, are seeking profits in this booming industry. Employment in this industry offers careers for thousands of young men and women, many with college degrees in "criminal justice" programs at more than 3000 colleges and universities. The criminal justice system alone provides a steady supply of career possibilities, as police officers, prison guards, probation officers and many more. Most of these jobs offer not only good starting pay, but excellent benefits and a promise of future wage increases and job security. Many have formed unions, some of which have become stronger than any other union heretofore.

Aside from firms who build and operate correctional systems, there are several types of businesses that benefit directly from the imprisonment of offenders. These are firms that provide several different kinds of services, such as food, vocational training, medical services, drug detecting, personnel management, architecture and facilities design and transportation. There are also companies that sell a variety of products, such as protective vests for guards, fencing, furniture, linen, locks and many more. The supplying of goods and services to the entire criminal justice system (including prisoners, guards and the police) brings in more than $100 billion per year.

As I have previously reported (see “Invest in Prisons: It’s Good for Buisness”), one illustration of the “cashing in” on incarceration is the large and growing number of advertising done in journals related to this industry. Several major journals and periodicals, plus web sites, serve the correctional industry. Examples include Corrections Today and The American Jail, plus the American Correctional Association's annual Directory.

There are at least two web sites that list company ads aimed at the prison market. One is "corrections yellow pages" (http://www.correctionsyellow.com) and another one is simply “corrections.com” (http://www.corrections.com). Together these contain more than 1000 different ads. Corrections.com organizes its web page by categories of vendors. For example, under the heading “cleaning/sanitation” there are twenty companies, including Americhem Enterprises (they supply products like industrial degreasers, floor finishers, disinfectants, bowl cleaners, etc.), Champion Industries (specializing in “dishwashing machines for prison applications”), and Somat Corporation (“waste reduction systems for the correctional foodservice industry”). This web site also claims to be “Home to the Industry’s Leading Organizations” and provides a list of 34 different organizations, including both the most popular national groups (e.g., American Correctional Association) and lesser-known regional groups (e.g., Kentucky Department of Juvenile Justice).

The American Correctional Association (ACA) is one of the largest national organizations in the country. Their annual meetings draw hundreds of vendors, usually taking up an entire floor of a hotel or convention center. On the ACA web site it mentions the $50 billion or so spent each year on prisons and jails and says to companies, “Don’t miss out on this prime revenue-generating opportunity.”

The trade journal Corrections Today has a special issue every July in anticipation of the upcoming annual conference in August. There are more than 200 pages in this special issue. I have a copy of the July, 1999 issue, which includes descriptions from more than 200 different companies, selling everything imaginable. The list includes locks and other security devices, food service, hygiene kits, bedding, blankets, ceiling systems, communications equipment, clothing, weapons, and a wide assortment of architects, engineers and consultants used to build and maintain prisons and jails.

One section of this issue of the journal is devoted to advertising for the famous ACA Exhibit Hall, which they cleverly call the “County Fair Specialty Break.” This ad was telling members about the previous winter meetings (these are held every January at various locations around the country) and reads as follows:

The excitement of an old-fashioned County Fair was in the air in the Exhibit Hall Tuesday morning for the 1999 Winter Conference Exhibit Hall Specialty Break. Attendees took a chance for prizes at Correctional Healthcare Solutions, Inc.’s Wheel of Fortune and at Sverdrup Facilities, Inc.’s Coke bottle ring toss. Kenall hosted a dart game for prizes and HKS provided a clown juggler who formed balloon animals. Aramark Correctional Services’ tarot card reader foretold attendees’ fortunes as did the palm reader Norment Detention & Security Group supplied.

The page shows photos of all sorts of people (including children) having a grand old time, just like an old fashioned “County Fair.” While of course humorous, we must not forget that the bulk of the prisoners who make all this fun possible are poor blacks who, unwittingly, are providing their masters with entertainment, just as they did in the not too distant past, with shows like “Amos ‘n Andy” and the like. There’s some improvement, however, in that white-owned corporations provide the entertainment, while the mostly black prison population supplies the profit margins in their role as a sort of “clientele.”

The Prison Construction Boom

Prison construction has become a booming business. In 1999 alone, 24 new prisons were opened, at a total cost of just over $1 billion. The average cost of building a new prison came to $105 million (about $57,000 per bed). Also, in 1999 a total of 146 prisons were adding or renovating beds at a cost of $470 million (about $30,000 per bed). As of January, 2000 a total of 29 new institutions were under construction and another 137 institutions were being renovated or adding new beds. Most of the new beds will be in either maximum or medium security institutions, where the costs are the highest. The total estimated costs of these new building projects come to more than $2.2 billion.

During the 1990s a total of 371 new prisons opened. (About 92,000 new beds were added each year.) As of January 1, 2000, there were 29 new prisons under construction, at a total cost of $2.2 billion. And the beds are very expensive, ranging from $70,000 in a maximum-security prison to $29,000 in a minimum-security prison.

A Google search on the Internet turns up dozens of companies advertising for prison construction. One example, among many, is Kitchell (http://www.kitchell.com) which, according to their web site, “has successfully delivered over 110,000 correctional beds, including over 130 criminal justice projects in 17 states.” These projects include 42 state prisons, 29 adult jails, and 30 juvenile facilities. They also build police stations, courts facilities and prison camps.

There are other corporate interests involved in the growth of prisons, along with the vested interests of those employed within the criminal justice system itself. Part II of this series will explore this issue in more detail and add an often neglected component of the prison industrial complex. One continual source of “clients” for the prison industrial complex is the parole system which, for various reasons, tends to engage in what some critics have called the “recycling of prisoners,” leading some critics to call the parole system part of a “perpetual prisoner machine.”

Randall G. Shelden is Professor of Criminal Justice at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas. He is the author and co-author of several books on crime and criminal justice, including Controlling the Dangerous Classes: a Critical Introduction to the History of Criminal Justice, Criminal Justice in America: a Critical View, Girls, Delinquency and Juvenile Justice and Youth Gangs in American Society. His web site is: http://www.sheldensays.com.

Student Tech Training

Online doctorate degree - Gain respect without wasting time! Aquire a doctorate degree by studying from home via the internet! We have many great programs to help you achieve your goals.

College Education Online - Learn how you can achieve your degree online without wasting countless hours in a classroom.

Education News - All the latest news and articles from the world of education.

Online Criminal Justice Degrees - Be a hero in your community, study to earn a Criminal Justice Degree!

Culinary Arts Colleges - Turn your kitchen into a masterpiece. Learn how to become a chef and get a degree in Culinary Arts!