Editing Prison–industrial complex (section)

== Structure ==
The prison-industrial complex is an example of a [[complex system]], comprising many institutions interacting in mutually reinforcing patterns. Minimal definitions of the system focus on the relationships between the federal and state [[criminal justice]] system; the for-profit companies that build, operate, and service public and private prisons; and the special interest groups that grow in size and influence as incarceration increases. These groups include [[U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement|ICE]], [[police union]]s, correctional officers unions,<ref name="Thompson" /> and private probation companies,<ref name="Friedmann" /> as well as private businesses that sell surveillance and corrections technology, operate prison food services and medical facilities, and private- and public-sector businesses that contract or subcontract prison labor.<ref name=":35">{{Cite web|title=What is the Prison Industrial Complex?|url=http://correctionsproject.com/prisonmaps/whatis.htm|access-date=2021-12-09|website=correctionsproject.com|archive-date=December 9, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211209174723/http://correctionsproject.com/prisonmaps/whatis.htm|url-status=live}}</ref>

More expansive definitions often include as elements of the system [[Law and order (politics)|tough-on-crime]] politicians and [[district attorney]]s seeking office, conservative political [[Lobbying|lobbies]] and legislatures passing punitive laws, and investment banks and rural economic developers leveraging [[Government debt|public debt]] into private profit through prison construction and employment contracts.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Gilmore|first=Ruth Wilson|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/868963692|title=Golden gulag : prisons, surplus, crisis, and opposition in globalizing California|date=2007|isbn=978-0-520-93803-8|location=Berkeley|oclc=868963692|access-date=December 9, 2021|archive-date=May 19, 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220519191704/https://www.worldcat.org/title/golden-gulag-prisons-surplus-crisis-and-opposition-in-globalizing-california/oclc/868963692|url-status=live}}</ref> The widest definitions of the prison-industrial complex include even larger and more abstract institutions and processes, such as the [[news media]] [[Sensationalism|sensationalizing]] crime and influencing public perception, [[gentrification]] disrupting urban environments and displacing [[Precarity|precarious]] residents, and public schools increasingly subjecting students to police oversight and legal punishment since the 1980s.<ref name=":35" /><ref name=":12" /><ref name=":36" /> In the U.S., the specific relationships between the criminal justice system and the private businesses that interact with it vary significantly from state to state.

Critics and scholars argue that [[Incarceration in the United States|mass incarceration]] is an [[Emergence|emergent]] property of the prison-industrial complex.<ref name=":1" /><ref name=":12" /><ref name=":34" /> Because mass incarceration has exacerbated the [[Income inequality in the United States|economic]] and [[Racial inequality in the United States|racial inequality]] in the United States,<ref name=":22" /><ref name=":37" /> contemporary social critics like Ruth Wilson Gilmore refer to the prison-industrial complex as an infrastructure of [[racial capitalism]].<ref>{{Cite book|last=Gilmore|first=Wilson Ruth|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1159759115|title=Change everything racial capitalism and the case for abolition|date=2021|publisher=Haymarket Books|others=Inc Recorded Books|isbn=978-1-64259-414-0|location=Chicago|oclc=1159759115|access-date=December 9, 2021|archive-date=May 19, 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220519191653/https://www.worldcat.org/title/change-everything-racial-capitalism-and-the-case-for-abolition/oclc/1159759115|url-status=live}}</ref>

=== The War on Drugs ===

[[Marc Mauer]], executive director of the criminal justice reform group [[The Sentencing Project]], has argued that the growth and expansion of the prison-industrial complex since the 1970s has its roots in the [[War on drugs|War on Drugs]], which, rather than suppressing the [[illegal drug trade]], has produced a perpetual cycle of drug dealing and imprisonment. This he attributes to a structural feature of the drug trade, a market with perpetually high demand and lucrative potential profits.<ref name=":19" /> Mauer describes the "replacement effect", in which no matter how many drug suppliers are incarcerated, other sellers simply take their place; since there is a constant supply of new drug sellers, there is thus a constant supply of potential prison inmates.<ref name=":19" /> According to this view, the prison-industrial complex depends on this guarantee of future inmates to ensure its growth and profitability, making prison construction, operation, services, and technology all safe investments.

[[Angela Davis|Professor Angela Davis]], one of the most recognized American prison abolition activists,<ref>{{Cite web |title=Angela Davis Speaks at Critical Resistance Meeting about the Prison Industrial Complex |url=https://www.radcliffe.harvard.edu/news-and-ideas/angela-davis-speaks-at-critical-resistance-meeting-about-the-prison-industrial-complex |access-date=2023-03-04 |website=Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University |language=en}}</ref> has argued that while some appear to believe that the prison industrial complex is taking the space once filled by the military industrial complex, the aftermath of the [[War on terror|War on Terror]] shows how the links between the military, corporations, and government are growing even stronger.<ref name=":26">{{Cite book |last=Yvonne. |first=Davis, Angela |url=http://worldcat.org/oclc/249245063 |title=Are prisons obsolete? |date=2003 |publisher=Seven Stories Press |isbn=1-58322-581-1 |oclc=249245063}}</ref> The relationship between these complexes, Davis suggests, shows they are symbiotic, because they mutually support and promote each other, even sharing some technologies. Further, they also share important structural features, both generating immense profits from processes of "social destruction"<ref name=":26" /> In essence, Davis argues that the relationship between the military and prison industrial complex can be understood like this: the exact things which are advantageous to corporations, elected officials, and governmental agents, those who have evident stakes in expanding these systems, leads to the devastation of poor and racialized communities as it has throughout American history.<ref name=":26" />

=== Employment and recidivism ===
The U.S. criminal justice system has a high rate of recidivism. A 2021 Bureau of Justice Statistics investigation reported that about 66% of prisoners released across 24 states in 2008 were rearrested within 3 years, and 82% were rearrested within 10 years.<ref>{{Cite news|date=September 2021|title=Recidivism of Prisoners Released in 24 States in 2008: A 10-Year Follow-Up Period (2008-2018)|work=U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics|url=https://bjs.ojp.gov/sites/g/files/xyckuh236/files/media/document/rpr24s0810yfup0818_sum.pdf|access-date=December 21, 2021|archive-date=September 9, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210909025819/https://bjs.ojp.gov/sites/g/files/xyckuh236/files/media/document/rpr24s0810yfup0818_sum.pdf|url-status=live}}</ref>

Statistics show that incarceration and unemployment are correlated,<ref name=":4" /> although unevenly.<ref name=":17">{{Cite web |last=Nwoko |first=Sobem |title=Employment and Recidivism |url=https://www.ebpsociety.org/blog/education/297-employment-recidivism |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211221192008/https://www.ebpsociety.org/blog/education/297-employment-recidivism |archive-date=December 21, 2021 |access-date=2021-12-21 |website=www.ebpsociety.org |language=en-us}}</ref> Nevertheless, such a high rate of recidivism can be attributed in part to the difficulty formerly incarcerated people encounter in finding stable employment. The Evidence-Based Professionals Society suggests two reasons for this difficulty: "First, most of the offenders may simply lack the necessary job skills for specific positions, keeping them from those usually higher paid and more stable jobs. Second, many employers are reluctant to hire these people due to the stigma imposed by their previous criminal records."

=== School-to-prison pipeline ===
Scholars and critics describe the existence of a "[[school-to-prison pipeline]]", a system in which public school policies contribute to funneling urban students of color into the prison-industrial complex. Students at urban schools and other schools with high percentages of minority students are more likely to experience out-of-school suspensions and academic failure,<ref name=":23">{{Cite journal|last=Morgan|first=Hani|date=April 2021|title=Restorative Justice and the School-to-Prison Pipeline: A Review of Existing Literature|journal=Education Sciences|language=en|volume=11|issue=4|pages=159|doi=10.3390/educsci11040159|doi-access=free}}</ref> which have been correlated to a higher likelihood of incarceration after leaving school.<ref name=":23"/> Moreover, since the 1970s, urban public school districts have dramatically increased police presence in their schools, and students have been increasingly subject to "arrests for minor noncriminal violations of school rules."<ref name=":12" /> This trend has both disrupted urban learning environments and decreased the average age of the incarcerated population of the United States' major cities.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Jones|first=K. W.|date=2013-04-01|title=MIROSLAVA CHAVEZ-GARCIA. States of Delinquency: Race and Science in the Making of California's Juvenile Justice System.|url=https://doi.org/10.1093/ahr/118.2.524|journal=The American Historical Review|volume=118|issue=2|pages=524–525|doi=10.1093/ahr/118.2.524|issn=0002-8762|access-date=December 22, 2021|archive-date=May 19, 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220519191615/https://academic.oup.com/ahr/article-abstract/118/2/524/43310?redirectedFrom=fulltext|url-status=live|url-access=subscription}}</ref>

=== Race ===
The War on Drugs has [[Race and the war on drugs|disproportionately impacted African Americans]]. Although African Americans use drugs at similar rates to Americans from other demographic groups, they are prosecuted at much higher rates.<ref>{{Cite web|title=The Drug War, Mass Incarceration and Race (English/Spanish)|url=https://drugpolicy.org/resource/drug-war-mass-incarceration-and-race-englishspanish|access-date=2021-12-22|website=Drug Policy Alliance|language=en|archive-date=December 22, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211222153549/https://drugpolicy.org/resource/drug-war-mass-incarceration-and-race-englishspanish|url-status=live}}</ref>