NCJ Number
161374
Journal
Crime and Delinquency Volume: 42 Issue: 1 Dated: (January 1996) Pages: 3-20
Date Published
1996
Length
18 pages
Annotation
Because economic aspects of imprisonment have been examined in a plethora of theoretical and empirical studies that usually do not go beyond social contexts broader than prison overcrowding, legal issues, and conservative ideology, this article offers a descriptive analysis of business-related aspects of American and international penal systems.
Abstract
There are several good reasons why the penal system should be seen as a punishment industry: (1) the sheer volume of people incarcerated at Federal, State, county, and city levels is significant; (2) prison overcrowding exerts enormous pressures on the penal system; and (3) free market enterprise and a liberal and privatization ideology are linked. An indication of the extent of commercial interest in the punishment complex comes from the number and type of companies involved in selling goods and services to jails and prisons. According to the American Correctional Association, 312 companies were directly or indirectly involved in the corrections industry in 1991, and 64 were considered core corrections corporations. Data on company sales, market orientation, and number of employees indicate that financial and commercial factors deserve a place in the criminological study of penality and criminal justice. In the international punishment market, products and services include new communication technologies, cross-border jail and prison construction and management, food and medical services, international police cooperation, cross-border activities of the security industry and the private police, and the increased use of internationally linked data networks. The authors conclude that American and international penal systems operate largely by purchasing goods and services and that connections among crime, punishment, and business must be considered. 105 references, 8 notes, and 2 tables