How Does the Privatization of Prison Affect the Carceral State?

Abstract

This research paper examines the relationship between corporations who rely upon the use of low-cost prison labor, the way prison labor is generated and used by these corporations, and the rise in the privatization of prisons as a means of unmasking the true benefactors of the current system of American mass incarceration: capitalist interests. By firstly taking an overview of the historical background and contemporary context of the current systems in place within the U.S. carceral state, specifically those systems which enable the corporate mining of prison labor, this paper provides the necessary lens from which the questions raised within its pages. Research findings are then presented, including illustrative figures, commentary regarding the conclusions reached by other researchers, and a few diagrams depicting the sheer scale of incarceration of Americans within private prison facilities.

Above all other goals, this paper means to investigate the effects that the privatization of prisons has had on the lives of the U.S. prison population, as they are the ones who must live with these consequences every day. What is achieved by this paper is a thorough, unblinking examination of the way prison labor is at once forced upon the prison population and mined by corporations to inflate their bottom line, ultimately making a powerful comment on the nature of the relationship between corporations and the U.S. prison population; that is, a relationship which amounts to nothing more than modern day slavery.