The Prison Industrial Complex and the Global Economy

18 June 1999 - by Eve Goldberg and Linda Evans

Over 1.8 million people are currently behind bars in the United States. This represents the highest per capita incarceration rate in the history of the world. In 1995 alone, 150 new U.S. prisons were built and filled.

This monumental commitment to lock up a sizeable percentage of the population is an integral part of the globalization of capital. Several strands converged at the end of the Cold War, changing relations between labor and capital on an international scale: domestic economic decline, racism, the U.S. role as policeman of the world, and growth of the international drug economy in creating a booming prison/industrial complex.

And the prison industrial complex is rapidly becoming an essential component of the U.S. economy.

http://www.prisonactivist.org/crisis/evans-goldberg.html

Link to "Prison Labour Ban" story in PMA's Dec - Jan 1999 newsletter

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