The prison industrial complex term contests crime as the root cause of imprisonment
Evidence
These relationships constitute what we now call a prison industrial complex. The term “prison industrial complex” was introduced by activists and scholars to contest prevailing beliefs that increased levels of crime were the root cause of mounting prison populations. Instead, they argued, prison construction and the attendant drive to fill these new structures with human bodies have been driven by ideologies of racism and the pursuit of profit. Social historian Mike Davis first used the term in relation to California’s penal system, which, he observed, already had begun in the 1990s to rival agribusiness and land development as a major economic and political force. — Davis, Angela Y, Are Prisons Obsolete, 225
Categorization
- DEFINE: Defines the pivotal ‘prison industrial complex’ term and its origin with Mike Davis.
- XREF: connects to: Abolitionist analysis exposes the prison-industrial-AI complex as one system — , The Braided Reading EPUB: 5-Year…, 2601; People are imprisoned largely because their communities are criminalized, not for crimes — Davis, Angela Y, Are Prisons Obsolete, 296; Criminalized communities, not individual acts, determine who ends up imprisoned (+3 more)
Related
- Per-inmate fees give private prisons a structural incentive to keep people locked up (similarity 0.88)
- Punishment is so corporatized that mainstream companies now stake themselves in its perpetuation (similarity 0.84)
- People are imprisoned largely because their communities are criminalized, not for crimes (similarity 0.83)
- Punishment follows politics, corporate profit, and media, not crime itself (similarity 0.82)
- Abolitionist analysis exposes the prison-industrial-AI complex as one system (similarity 0.82)
- Prison expansion correlates with falling crime, exposing profit and racism as drivers (similarity 0.80)
- Prisons function as criminal training centers and a just society would not need them (similarity 0.79)
- Prison growth began when crime rates were already falling (similarity 0.79)
- Prison is an ordinary life dimension in poor communities of color (similarity 0.78)
- Military and prison industrial complexes are symbiotic, sharing technologies (similarity 0.78)
Broader Connections
- Criminalized communities, not individual acts, determine who ends up imprisoned
#corroborates(0.90) - People are imprisoned largely because their communities are criminalized, not for crimes
#exemplifies(0.85) — Davis, Angela Y, Are Prisons Obsolete, 296