Prison Industrial Complex: A Web of Oppression
How the prison system is connected to all facets of our social lives
Housing a population of 1.8 million people by the end of 2020, America boasts an abhorrently large number of individuals within their prison system. As of May 2020, America’s incarceration rate of 655 people in prison per 100,000 of the population surpasses that of any other country by far. If we consider the country with the second largest incarceration rate has an an incarceration rate of 344 people in prison per 100,000 of the population, it shows that America not only houses the most people in prison but also criminalizes people at much higher rates than other countries. The large population of people imprisoned within American prisons as well as the high incarceration rates hints towards the insidious relationship between America and the prison system.
The Ties That Bind: Prison Industrial Complex
In Angela Davis’ Are Prisons Obsolete, Davis reintroduces the term prison industrial complex. The prison industrial complex refers to web of relationships amongst corporations, government, correctional communities, and media as they are all threaded and connected together by their relationship to the prison system. The usage of complex refers back to the idea that the prison system itself is heavily entwined and connected to these various systems that on the surface may not appear to be connected but are interwoven to create the insidious prison system of today. Scholars and activists for the abolishment of the prison system utilized the term to dispute the claims that increased levels of criminal activity contributed to the rapid growth of prison populations in America. Rather, these same scholars and activists believe that racism and capitalism’s constant exploitation of cheap labor for profit are the driving factors in the surging prison populations in America. One of the main ideas that derives from the prison industrial complex is the interlinking of crime and punishment. Namely, the media disseminates the idea that crime and punishment are linked together.The dissemination of the unbreakable joining of crime and punishment is perpetuated through literature, television shows and documentaries. As a result, the public consciousness cannot help but to link these two ideas together. The prison industrial complex benefits from the connection of crime and punishment because it allows for the refocusing on punishment through economic and political structures that affect communities of people rather than focusing on individual cases to reduce crime. Corporations’ relationship to the prison system can be understood through looking at the global market and how these same corporations rely and obtain a substantial profit from the abundance of prisons that were created at a time in which the crime rate was decreasing. Moreover, corporations benefit from the cheap labor of individuals trapped within the prison system because incarcerated people are stripped of their humanity and rights whilst in prison, so corporations are not obligated to provide health benefits, unemployment insurance, or worker’s compensation. Davis argues that through its various relationships to different intuitions of power, the prison industrial complex is able to cement its position as a seemingly important necessity within a global society.
Racism & The Prison System, Inseparable?
Consider another statistic: The Black population in the US comprises 13% of the U.S. population but makes up 40% of the incarcerated population in the U.S. This statistic is meant to highlight how Black communities are disproportionately affected by the prison industrial complex. According to Davis and other activists, the disproportionate targeting of Black and Brown communities is an intentional and deliberate design of the prison industrial complex. Moreover, the targeting of specific Black and Brown communities is not unique to the U.S. but a global occurrence. Davis concludes that
Antiracist and other social justice movements are incomplete with attention to the politics of imprisonment.
The usage of the word incomplete speaks to the notion that anti-racist labor cannot be fully achieved until we take a closer look at how race defines the treatment of incarcerated people. Moreover, the suggestion that social justice movements are incomplete without paying attention to the politics of imprisonment hints towards the linking between racism and the prison industrial complex, and we cannot begin to dismantle the prison industrial complex without considering race much like how we cannot dismantle racism without considering the prison industrial complex. It should be noted that Davis makes this bold claim to challenge our preconceived notions of who deserves liberation from racism. Because the media warps our perception of people within the prison industrial complex as irredeemable and deserving of punishment , incarcerated people are effectively dehumanized and left out of the discussion within social justice movements. Particularly, the disregard for the prison industrial complex as it relates to racism allows for the targeting of Black and Brown communities to continue unchecked. Another thing to notice is that Davis does not allude to any one particular social justice movement in her claim for advocacy of people within the prison industrial complex. Davis’ refusal to name any particular social justice movements highlights the idea that prison-abolitionist work must be incorporated within all social justice movements without question. Additionally, Davis does not limit her claim to any one region or area which demonstrates how pervasive the prison industrial complex is globally. Because of the prison industrial complex’s global presence and how it deliberately targets Black bodies as criminal, our labor and discussions within anti-racist and social justice movements must begin to center discussions around the prison industrial complex so that we may do the work to dismantle the entire system.
Prison Industrial Complex: A Disappearing Act
Globally, the prison industrial complex has been weaponized to make certain social issues such as homelessness, unemployment, drug addiction, mental illness and illiteracy disappear from public consciousness by imprisoning the people that are struggling with these same social issues. In the article, “Masked Racism: Reflections on the Prison Industrial Complex”, Davis notes how race intersects and affects how people struggling with these issues are perceived publicly. By way of example, if we consider the War on Drugs that began in the early 1970’s during the Nixon administration, Nixon was determined to demonize the usage of marijuana that was primarily used in Black communities whilst simultaneously ignoring the heroin epidemic in the US that was popular in white communities. In the case of drugs, the prison industrial complex was used to severely punish users of marijuana which primarily affected Black communities. By incarcerating Black bodies at an alarming rate, it outwardly appears that the issue of drug abuse is being resolved, but in truth, the prison industrial complex and the government were specifically targeting Black communities in order to imprison them. The joint effort of the government and the prison industrial complex to target Black bodies during the War on Drugs highlights the pervasiveness of the prison industrial complex and how its relationship to institutions of power allows for the prison to become weaponized against Black and Brown communities.
The prison industrial complex’s relationship to a multitude of institutions of power allows for the targeting of Black and Brown communities to occur on a global scale. Until we address the linkage between racism and the prison industrial complex as well as acknowledge that incarcerated people are just as deserving of liberation from racism as anyone else, we cannot begin to dismantle either racism or the prison industrial complex in its entirety. One of the questions to consider is what the future of the prison industrial complex should be. I, among many others, believe that the prison system should be abolished and that discussions surrounding people who have committed crimes should be centered around restoration and rehabilitation rather than on punishment.
