What is the Prison Industrial Complex? By Rachel Herzing, Critical Resistance

http://www.publiceye.org/defendingjustice/overview/herzing_pic.html


"Through its reach and impact, the prison industrial complex helps secure the authority of people who get their power through racial, economic and other structural privileges (e.g. White people, American citizens, people with property, people with money) by defending current power distributions. It benefits government and industry, as well as those individuals who already hold power in our society. The processes by which this unequal power is garnered and maintained include: creating dominant media images that perpetuate stereotypes of people of color, poor people, queer people, immigrants, youth, etc., as criminal, delinquent or deviant; earning huge profits for companies that provide goods and services to the prison industrial complex; facilitating political gains; increasing the influence of prison guard and police unions; eliminating social and political dissent by people of color, poor people, immigrants, and others who make demands of self-determination and reorganization of power in the United States."