Private prisons require a steady supply of prisoners as raw material.

Evidence

Moreover, the prison privatization trends—both the increasing presence of corporations in the prison economy and the establishment of private prisons—are reminiscent of the historical efforts to create a profitable punishment industry based on the new supply of “free” black male laborers in the aftermath of the Civil War. Steven Donziger, drawing from the work of Norwegian criminologist Nils Christie, argues: [Cjompanies that service the criminal justice system need sufficient quantities of raw materials to guarantee long-term growth … In the criminal justice field, the raw m aterial is prisoners, and industry will do what is necessary to guarantee a steady supply. For the supply of prisoners to grow, criminal justice policies must ensure a sufficient number of incarcerated Americans regardless of whether crime is rising or the incarceration is necessary. — Davis, Angela Y, Are Prisons Obsolete, 252

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Black Marxism/Black Reconstruction framing of racialized labor after emancipation — a profitable punishment industry built on black labor. — connects to: Private prisons profit by keeping inmates incarcerated as long as possible — Davis, Angela Y, Are Prisons Obsolete, 256; Per-inmate fees give private prisons a structural incentive to keep people locked up; Corporate profit motives entrench a prison system that would otherwise be obsolete. — Davis, Angela Y, Are Prisons Obsolete, 235

Related

• Private prisons profit by keeping inmates incarcerated as long as possible (similarity 0.89)
• Per-inmate fees give private prisons a structural incentive to keep people locked up (similarity 0.88)
• Prisons proliferated while crime rates were falling due to corporate profit (similarity 0.86)
• Corporate profit motives entrench a prison system that would otherwise be obsolete. (similarity 0.85)
• The prison boom was a way to concentrate and manage a capitalist human surplus (similarity 0.85)
• Punishment is so corporatized that mainstream companies now stake themselves in its perpetuation (similarity 0.83)
• Public prisons now function as profit sources nearly as much as private ones do (similarity 0.83)
• Prison expansion correlates with falling crime, exposing profit and racism as drivers (similarity 0.82)
• The prison disciplined convicts into an industrial labor force (similarity 0.82)
• Imprisonment converts bodies of color into profit sources that drain public welfare funding (similarity 0.81)
• California’s prison boom absorbed surpluses of capital, land, and labor (similarity 0.81)
• Prison growth began when crime rates were already falling (similarity 0.80)
• Prison is an ordinary life dimension in poor communities of color (similarity 0.80)
• Punishment follows politics, corporate profit, and media, not crime itself (similarity 0.79)
• Prison reform rhetoric reinforces the prison’s permanence. (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• Per-inmate fees give private prisons a structural incentive to keep people locked up #corroborates (0.80)
• Private prisons profit by keeping inmates incarcerated as long as possible #expands (0.70) — Davis, Angela Y, Are Prisons Obsolete, 256
• Corporate profit motives entrench a prison system that would otherwise be obsolete. #expands (0.60) — Davis, Angela Y, Are Prisons Obsolete, 235