Prison Industrial Complex
Critical response question #1-week 5 by Ricky Osei-kusi Canada can be seen as polar opposites from the United States of America on many different levels such as health care, firearm laws and population. Although these two countries share similarities when it comes to prisons and how they are run. I believe Canada implies a prison industrial complex because of the ideologies, legislation and criminal justice goals that allow for the prison industrial complexes to thrive and expand. A prison industrial complex is where private businesses benefit from correctional institutions. In his article “Prison industrial complex”, Eric Scholsser defined it as, “bureaucratic, political and economic interests that encourage increased spending on imprisonment, regardless of actual need” (Scholsser, 1998, pg 3). Companies and organizations (construction, surveillance technology vendors etc) that have partnerships with the prisons encourage more inmates which directly creates more business for all involved. Crime is decreasing in Canada, although incarceration continues to increase; the prison industrial complex plays a major factor in this. The ideology behind the prison industrial complex can be contributed to money masked by the crime control industry. This complex brings in big money for the fraction of the costs, however mass imprisonments must continue to keep profits. The ideology of this goes hand in hand with laws made in Canada, as the people who are profiting of prisons have influence on legislation to make sure this dangerous cycle continues. Canada’s prison population is at its highest level ever even though crime is decreasing (silcox, February 5, 2014). This can be attributed to Canada’s PIC, people in power makes laws to imprison the misfits of society so they can be used as raw material for companies that rely on prisons for profit. In Canada the number of visible minorities in prison has increased 75% in the last decade, while aboriginals make up a quarter