The current debate about corrections' privatization neglects the extensive overlap of business, political, and private interests that shapes public corrections policy. Based on current developments in the United States it is possible to identify a corrections-commercial complex. As Deep Throat reportedly said to Washington Post writer Bob Woodward in an underground parking garage after he and Carl Bernstein uncovered the Committee for the Re-election of the President's secret fund in 1972: “Follow the money.”

The economics of imprisonment has been examined in a plethora of theoretical and empirical studies. As intriguing, stimulating, and policy-changing as these have been, they generally have not been connected to social contexts broader than prison overcrowding, legal issues, and conservative ideology. This article attempts to respond to this lack of attention by offering a descriptive analysis of one neglected topic of penality. It examines some of the business-related aspects of the American penal system and concludes that because that system operates largely by purchasing goods and services, the connections among crime, punishment, and business must be considered.

This article evaluates the success of a program using electronic monitoring (EM) as the “front end” of a probation term for drunk drivers during three different program phases lasting over 7 years. The data indicate that EM was implemented with few equipment problems or client complaints and was very cost-effective, with nearly all the clients completing their EM period successfully. There was no evidence of any “add-on” effect, nor was there much evidence of selection bias by gender, age, race, or socioeconomic status. Probation success declined, however, during the post-EM probation period.

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