As explained by abolitionist organization Critical Resistance, “the Prison Industrial Complex (PIC) 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.” By naming the PIC, we identify the expansive network of people and parties with vested interests in mass incarceration and uncover how this network functions to fill prisons and support mass incarceration.
The PIC and Mass Incarceration
Current estimates indicate that there are approximately 2.3 million people incarcerated in the United States, with an additional 4.5 million people on probation or parole. The US has the world’s highest incarceration rate and, despite representing under 5% of the global population, the US holds almost 20% of the global prison population (Prison Policy Initiative). The staggering incarceration rates in the US can be traced back to a variety of factors and forces throughout the course of recent US history. In The New Jim Crow, Michelle Alexander argues that “convictions for drug offenses are the single most important cause of the explosion in incarceration rates in the United States…more than 31 million people have been arrested for drug offenses since the drug war began. Nothing has contributed more to the systemic mass incarceration of people of color in the United States than the War on Drugs” (Alexander, 2010, 59).
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