I. One of the main reasons for the rapid growth of prison systems in the United States is the rise of the Prison Industrial Complex, which resulted from “corporate involvement in construction, provision of goods and services, and use of prison labor” (Davis 12). In other words, as corporations found a way to profit from prisons, there was a natural rise in the amount of prisons. A second reason is due to crisis, or a combination of social and economic conditions resulting in “a moral panic over crime” (Gilmore 177) that is thought to emerge from these conditions. A third reason is due to racism, evident in cases of police brutality such as the Rodney King case, where the police demonstrated their “violent intentionality” (Butler 19) as they beat King while being recorded.
II. The rise of the Prison Industrial Complex can largely be seen to result from perceptions that growth in the prison system would solve certain social threats, or create economic opportunities for others. These perceptions are not ethical, and often stem from racist attitudes that have long existed throughout the history of the United States, or from capitalistic opportunists who see prison systems as a means of providing profit due to cheap prison labor.
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The prison system often incarcerates “the working or workless poor” (Gilmore 172). In other words, it disproportionately discriminates against those who face tough socioeconomic conditions. However, many low socioeconomic communities tend to have larger populations of ethnic minorities, due to systemic economic policies and social attitudes that have historically oppressed persons of color. This trend has existed throughout the history of the United States, from the removal of Native Americans to the institution of slavery that formed the economic backbone of the early United States. Even after slavery ended, following the American Civil War and the 13th Amendment, many African-Americans were subjected to economic conditions such as sharecropping that did not allow them to become economically solvent or independent on their own. This led to a tradition of many minority communities not being able to improve class or social status.
Due to their relative lack of political or social influence, based on a lack of economic influence, minority groups therefore became easily targeted by those seeking to exploit them even further. The Prison Industrial Complex can therefore be seen as an exploitative model that seeks to disproportionately send minorities to prison, whereupon they can be used as a form of “prison labor” (Davis 12) in a way that resembles slavery. In other words, this system is built to effectively bypass the 13th amendment, as it serves as a form of cheap labor, which in turn results in greater profitability for corporations involved in the Prison Industrial Complex.
The Prison Industrial Complex is therefore built upon a complex system of social, cultural and economic tendencies and is not simply the work of a few bad businesses. Rather, this system is deeply rooted throughout society, and it combines a multitude of factors in its structure. The way it works is as follows: prejudices and racist attitudes create low socioeconomic conditions for ethnic minorities. This can be done by racist attitudes against potential workers, denying minorities good jobs; inadequate funding for schools in ethnically diverse neighborhoods, which causes many to not develop the skills necessary for finding good jobs in later life; restrictive housing policies; and numerous other social and cultural means that oppress persons of color. As a result, neighborhoods will fall into low socioeconomic conditions, which similarly results in a rise in crime rates: these neighborhoods might have higher drug rates, or persons in these communities might form gangs as a means to identify with one another. From here, these persons tend to be prosecuted at the most severe levels, so that prison systems are disproportionately represented by minorities who have lived their entire lives under such conditions. Once incarcerated, they are used for cheap labor.
Because of how rooted this system is within our culture, it is difficult to isolate only one policy change. However, one method to reduce the problem would be the decriminalization of certain drug charges, which is already being seen on the state level with the decriminalization of marijuana. The war on drugs previously sought to impose the heaviest penalties and longest prison sentences on even minor drug charges, and while this is still the case in many regions, certain drugs such as marijuana, which have been shown to be not as harmful as previously considered in the twentieth century, can help stem the disproportionate sentencing that many ethnic minorities face from relatively minor drug crimes.
III. The Frontline Documentary, Juvenile Justice, explains crime as a failure or breakdown in the system that results in a criminal act. In other words, crimes should not be evaluated simply on the action, but rather on a series of events that resulted in the crime being committed. In some instances, this can be out of desperation, or a history of abuse, or another failure at the social or economic level that created the situation in the first place. The arguments it provides about young people who commit crimes is that it should not disproportionately prosecute children of color as adults, which occurs in the film, and that we have a social responsibility to examine the conditions that resulted in crimes being committed.
One change I would recommend following what I learned in the film is that children who commit crimes should not have the color of their skin be factored into the sentencing, and that children who commit crimes should all be treated equally.
- Butler, Judith, and Robert Gooding-Williams. “Reading Rodney King/reading urban uprising.” (1993). Routledge.
- Davis, Angela. Are Prisons Obsolete? Seven Stories Press, 2003.
- Gilmore, Ruth. “Globalisation and U.S. Prison Growth: From military Keynesianism to post-Keynesianism militarism. Race and Class, 40 (1999).
