The Prison Industrial Complex.

The United States is the world leader in incarceration of people and the construction of prison compounds. The idea to jumpstart the Prison Industrial Complex was born out the 80’s and continues to boom today, nationally.

Why though has there been and continues to be so much $ dumped into a punitive system rather than a rehabilitative one? Why does America lead the world in people per capita in prisons- beyond Israel, China, France, Japan and India? Are we honestly more morally corrupt as a culture compared to the rest of the world? And why is the state of California leading the nation in prison construction while education spending is at an all time low?

There are lots of reasons why the PIC exists here in the US:

• Money has been and continues to be consistently pulled out of and away from Mental Health services which led to the closing of state mental hospitals. Evidence shows that an enormous number of prisoners suffer from mental illness. This just goes to show that there has been a shift in how we, as a country, deal with mental health issues. Mental Health is clearly seen as a criminal issue rather than a health concern.
• There is a criminalization of a whole host of social problems: mental illness, poverty, low education, unemployment, gender inequality, racial profiling and racism, etc.
• It is a ‘for profit’ capitalist venture. The US is a capitalistic country. The focus is on $, job growth, political gain, etc.
• There were waves of legislation in the 1980’s brought about ‘tougher on crime’ laws for gang behavior, drugs, weapons, etc. Two examples are the Rockefeller Laws and mandatory minimums. These were considered “sentence enhancements”.
• The prison system is a completely punitive system by design. There are little-to-no programs in place that encourage rehabilitation. The goal is not to decrease recidivism rates among offenders but rather, ‘catch and release’. This “catch and release” system may partly explain why California has one of the highest recidivism rates in the country, and has led many people to refer to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation as the “Hotel California—you can check out, but you seldom leave.”
• The PIC is considered a waste management system in that it gets rid of our ‘social junk’.

Poverty increases the likelihood of incarceration because money equals opportunity/options referring to the ability to post bail, hire private attorneys, and acquire additional resources if needed. Therefore, Race is a major piece of the puzzle since minority populations are usually less affluent than whites.

There are 170,000 felons behind bars in California and keeping them housed is expensive. Over time, huge amounts of money are being diverted from education and health to fund the broken prison system. Without attention to rehabilitation, people are funneled in and out of human warehouses that can create entire generations of future criminals.