Prison-Industrial Complex

The Prison-Industrial Complex (PIC) is often overshadowed by its even deadlier big brother, the Military-Industrial Complex (MIC). While the MIC is the incestuous relationship between the armed forces, corporations and the political establishment, the PIC is an insidious web of prison guard unions, construction & real estate companies and vendors of surveillance technology. While each component of the PIC is often referred to as an "interest group", they are interested in everything but the rehabilitation of criminals and decrease in the crime rate. Their "interest" is instead in profit generation from huge contracts (yes, as usual, funded by you, the tax-payer) to build and maintain prisons and blatant exploitation of low-cost or free prison labor.

When politicians talk about being "tough on crime", their real goal is to marginalize the less fortunate (or "non-productive") members of society while at the same time pushing for a highly punitive justice system and appeasing the corporations (who help get them elected in the first place through campaign contributions) by providing them with huge contracts and free or cheap labor. This is also very closely related to the "War on Drugs" (Drug War Industrial Complex ?) which is basically a very brutal attempt to get rid of the "superfluous" population by throwing them in prison for minor drug offenses. The enormous rate of increase in prison populaton is mainly drug related.

GEO Group

Recently, a riot broke out in Indiana in a medium-security correctional facility. The New Castle Correctional Facility is owned by the state, but it is operated by a private prison company called GEO Group of Florida. GEO received this huge contract in 2005.

Shockingly, prisoners are segregated based on which state they're from and provided different level of facilities as well. (see Nicole Colson's excellent piece on the New Castle Riot).

The GEO Group not surprisingly has made contributions to both Republicans and Democrats. If you go to the PoliticalMoneyLine website and search for contributions by Donor Name (search for GEO Group), you'll find contributions from GEO for the 2006 Election cycle totalling more than 200,000 dollars to the Republican and Democrat Governors Association. Also, not surprisingly, GEO's stock price rose after Schwarzenegger's declaration of "prison emergency" in October 2006.

Treatment or Incraceration ?

The RAND Corporation compared the programmatic productivity and the costs of enforcing the “war on drugs” in terms of arresting and incarcerating dealers and their agents, versus treatment. RAND’s research found that a dollar spent on drug treatment saves society seven and a half dollars in reduced crime and regained productivity
See the following publication for more detailed information:

Treatment or Incarceration
National and State Findings on the Efficacy and Cost Savings of Drug Treatment Versus Imprisonment
Justice Policy Institute, Doug McVay, Vincent Schiraldi, and Jason Ziedenberg