The prisons-industrial complex (PIC) is a term, coined after the "military-industrial complex" of the 1950s. Used by scholars and activists to describe the relationship between a government and the various businesses that benefit from institutions of incarceration (such as police, media, lawyers, courts, judges, jails, detention facilities, and psychiatric hospitals).

The term is most often used in the context of the contemporary United States, where the rapid expansion of the US inmate population has resulted in political influence and economic profits for private prison companies and other businesses that supply goods and services to government prison agencies.

According to this concept, incarceration benefits not only the justice system, but also construction companies, surveillance and corrections technology vendors, companies that operate prison food services and medical facilities, corporations that contract cheap prison labor, correctional officers unions, private probation companies, lawyers, and the lobby groups that represent them, plus the profiteering media that mis-reports and exploits them.

The term also refers more generally to interest groups who, in their interactions with the prison system, PRIORITIZE FINANCIAL GAIN.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prison%E2%80%93industrial_complex

Shouldn't we, then, see the building of many more prisons and the use of prison sentences as a starting point rather than last resort (which if you have ever sat in a sentencing Court all day you will realise is the case)?*

* I'm not here including historic sex cases - these are much too "politicised" and part of the current moral panic trend.

Would of been an interesting post, however I don't trust any Wiki page as source of info.

Green Man wrote:
Would of been an interesting post, however I don't trust any Wiki page as source of info.


True scholars don't trust ANY source (such as mainstream media) but always cross-check varied sources.

Wikipedia's reliability was frequently criticized in the 2000s but has improved over time; it has been generally praised in the late 2010s and early 2020s.