Race,crime,and forprofit imprisonment

Abstract

This article explores the racial dynamics of contemporary prison privatization in the USA from the perspective of social disorganization theory. It relies particularly on the concepts of ‘social’ and ‘human’ capital to suggest that, due to late 20th-century imprisonment policies, a renewed understanding of prisoners as commodities has emerged. While the nature of prisoners’ commodity-value has changed somewhat in modern times - prisoners are no longer profitable solely for their labor, but also now for their bodily ability to generate per diem payments for their private keepers - the historical pattern of racially distinct commerce in imprisoned human beings, most of whom are poor, non-violent, minority offenders, has returned. This article first explains the re-emergence of privatized control over prisoners in contemporary times, then moves on to examine the ‘social capital’ implications of prison privatization as it relates to public policy.