Prison-Industrial Complex

The term prison-industrial complex refers to the privatization of correctional facilities. Like the military-industrial complex, the prison-industrial complex is an interconnection of private enterprise and government interests. It represents a set of bureaucratic, political, and economic actors, institutions, and policies that encourage spending on incarceration and form a confluence of special interests that has allowed prison construction in the United States to increase rapidly over the past several decades. Within the framework of the prison-industrial complex, correctional facilities act as both agents of social control and as profit-making ventures for those industries and individuals involved in their maintenance. As correctional facilities proliferate in U.S. society, private capital has become enmeshed in the prison industry, and as a result of their profit potential, prisons are becoming increasingly important to the U.S. economy, particularly in the areas of administration and management, labor, and rural economic development. But as Eric [Page 1165]Schlosser observes, the prison-industrial complex is far more than a set of interested groups and institutions; it represents an idea—a state of mind—one largely stemming from the desire to enact deterrent legislation, without an infrastructure in place to support the consequences.

The legislative foundation of the prison-industrial complex is commonly traced to January 1973. Under the newly passed Rockefeller drug laws, the penalty for possessing 4 ounces of an illegal drug, or for selling 2 ounces, was a mandatory prison term of 15 years to life. The legislation also included a provision that established a mandatory prison sentence for many second felony convictions, regardless of the crime or its circumstances. Rockefeller took pride in having enacted the toughest anti-drug program in the nation, and other states gradually followed New York's lead, beginning a profound shift in criminal sentencing policies.

Nine years later, when Mario Cuomo was first elected governor of New York, he was confronted with a state government in a precarious fiscal condition and an inmate population that had more than doubled since the passage of the Rockefeller drug laws. The Rockefeller laws were gaining reinforcement on a national level through Ronald Reagan's war on drugs, and so although Cuomo stood in opposition to mandatory minimum sentencing, few options were available for relieving the pressure on New York's prison system, which had grown dangerously overcrowded. A week after Cuomo took office, more than 600 inmates rioted at Sing Sing, an aging prison in Ossining, taking 17 corrections officers hostage. In response, Cuomo decided to build more prisons to house the growing prison population. The ideology of the war on drugs, however, was proving too popular for the financial realities of state government to support, and in 1981, New York's voters defeated a $500 million bond issue for new prison construction. Cuomo searched for an alternate source of financing and decided to use the state's Urban Development Corporation to build prisons. The corporation was a public agency that had been created in 1968 to build housing for the poor and was a significant vehicle for financing prison construction at that point in history for one simple reason: It had the authority to issue state bonds without gaining approval from the voters. At the time, this unconventional means of financing prison construction drew a great deal of criticism as a costly financial scheme that defied the will of the electorate. Historically, Cuomo's actions not only turned the Urban Development Corporation into a rural development corporation that invested billions of dollars in upstate New York but also laid the foundation for future interweaving of investment capital, the prison industry, and development. Legally, New York's new prisons were owned by the Urban Development Corporation and leased to the State Department of Corrections—a significant step in redefining the relationship of the Department of Corrections with the prison industry and opening the door to privatization.

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