Prison industrial complex

The prison industrial complex describes the ways the government and the private sector benefit by using surveillance, policing, and imprisonment as “solutions” to economic, social and political problems; the intertwining of structures that enable profit to be generated from incarceration and, by proxy, continued oppression. - Critical Resistance & the work of Angela Davis, adapted by Michelle Xie

It is “the symbiotic relationship between private corporations, correctional and detention facilities, and the government. This symbiotic relationship thrives so long as the government provides a racialized prison population for commercial interests to profit from.” -Neveen Hammad

Examples of the Prison Industrial Complex

Incarceration rates	In 2016, Canada’s crime rates hit a 45-year low. Yet, incarceration rates hit an all time high.
Incarceration of the legally innocent	The majority of people incarcerated in Canada, 60%, are denied bail and incarcerated in advance of their trial. This means they are legally innocent. Over 90% of American criminal cases end in plea deals. Vulnerable people are often coerced into signing plea deals because of the threat of high prison sentences if they were to lose at trial.
Over-incarceration of marginalized groups	Indigenous Peoples are incarcerated 10x more often than non-Indigenous citizens; an example of systemic racism People of all races use and sell illegal drugs at remarkably similar rates, yet people of colour are incarcerated at higher rates than their white people. The war on drugs has been the largest contributor to systemic mass incarceration of people of colour in the USA.
Highly exploited labour	Federally sentenced inmates are paid a maximum of $6.90 per day in Canada for their labour. The average is $3.00 per day for their labour. Most is deducted for their basic living essentials such as cleaning products, food and accomodation, access to phones and also to the crown. In the US, UNICOR is a government owned corporation that operates prison labor programs. In 2015, the company owned 83 factories employing 12,278 inmates paid $0.23-$1.15/h. Following an oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, British petroleum hired prisoners to clean parts of the spill. After receiving tax write-offs under the WOTC (Work Opportunity Tax Credit Legislation), the company earned about $2,400 per inmate they hired. Prisoners compare prison labor to slave labor because inmates who do refuse to work are penalized. “Though I’ve always refused to engage in this modern slavery myself, I’ve witnessed plenty of examples of it. The most extreme were in Texas and Florida, where prisoners are forced to work in the fields for free, entirely unremunerated. They are cajoled into chain gangs and taken out to the fields where they are made to grow all the food that inmates eat: squash, greens, peas, okra. They are given primitive hand-held tools like wooden sticks and hoes and forced to till the soil, plant and harvest cotton. They are watched over all day by guards on horseback carrying shotguns. Elite posses of prisoners are used to keep other prisoners in line, through open coercion and violence. Prisoners who do not agree to such abject slavery are put in solitary confinement. I know from personal experience.” - Kevin Rashid Johnson
Prisons for profit	Occupancy clauses: in some prisons in the US, the state is obliged to compensate the private owner of the prison if occupancy falls below a certain level (in some cases, clause is 100% occupancy). The goal of these clauses is to ensure that private prison owners have a stable workforce for the factories inside the prison. 2 large corporations running US private prisons operate together over 130 prisons and generate $4 billion in annual revenue.

A special thanks to Gabrielle Bourbeau for their tremendous support compiling content for this page.


If you have any suggested revisions or additional resources to share related to the above content, please email them to kenzie@lehub.ca.

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