The prison industrial complex is a term we use to describe the overlapping interests of government and industry that use surveillance, policing, and imprisonment as solutions to economic, social and political problems.

Yea so this doesn’t clear it up at all. Are you suggesting we start legalizing things, so that instead of going to jail people are treated for mental health problems if someone robs a house or commits murder? Why can’t people just not commit crimes?

Through its reach and impact, the prison-industrial complex helps and maintains the authority of people who get their power through problematic means.

There are many ways this power is collected and maintained through the prison-industrial complex, including creating mass media images that keep alive stereotypes of people of color, poor people, queer people, immigrants, youth, and other oppressed communities as criminal, delinquent, or deviant.

This power is also maintained by earning profits for private companies that deal with prisons and police forces; helping earn political gains for “tough on crime” politicians; increasing the influence of prison guard and police unions; and eliminating social and political dissent by oppressed communities that make demands for self-determination in the US.

None of this is fact, yet it’s being portrayed as such.

If mass media images are a problem then why do these groups not join Trump saying MSM is problematic and untrustworthy?

For profit prisons are more efficient, because the government can’t run anything without substantial cost. So privatizing prisons saves costs.

If your main concern is getting people to commit less crimes then we should support a system that promotes rehabilitation over punishment.

Perhaps take a look at Norway's system.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_Norway

Why aren't all former penal colonies full of criminals? Maybe it's because there are a lot of crimes that are situational. For truly violent offenders who refuse to be rehabilitated? Keep them away from everyone else, including other prisoners. For everyone else though? We should be figuring out what they lack and help them find it.

The reason we DON'T do that is because state prisons are glorified slave rackets. The very existence of for-profit prisons is an obscenity that will be seen as being as barbaric as slavery in the long run.

Which crimes are situational? And I still don’t agree that someone committing a crime is the victim here. To entertain that idea is just silly.

For profit prisons are more cost effective than government run prisons. We are a capitalist society, people seek profit here, including the entirety of the country.

Nah, what's silly is the idea that we need to rationalize uses of force against citizens by private third parties. It's fundamentally stupid and should be illegal because it incentivizes incarceration.

And most people don't "seek profit" here in their day to day lives. That's zero-sum idiocy.

I guess we’ll just agree to disagree on the first part.

And the second part, I’m guessing most people don’t work then?