The Prison Industrial Complex

Thompson, Heather Ann

doi:10.4179/nlf.213.0000006

Cited by 56 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…Model parameters are listed in Table 1 , and S1 – S5 Tables, and S7 Table . The U.S. has a population of approximately N = 331 million, of which 1.4 million are incarcerated (risk group) and guarded by 423 000 correctional officers [ 32 , 33 , 54 ].…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Preventing COVID-19 spread in closed facilities by regular testing of employees—An efficient intervention in long-term care facilities and prisons?

et al. 2021

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Background Different levels of control measures were introduced to contain the global COVID-19 pandemic, many of which have been controversial, particularly the comprehensive use of diagnostic tests. Regular testing of high-risk individuals (pre-existing conditions, older than 60 years of age) has been suggested by public health authorities. The WHO suggested the use of routine screening of residents, employees, and visitors of long-term care facilities (LTCF) to protect the resident risk group. Similar suggestions have been made by the WHO for other closed facilities including incarceration facilities (e.g., prisons or jails), wherein parts of the U.S., accelerated release of approved inmates is taken as a measure to mitigate COVID-19. Methods and findings Here, the simulation model underlying the pandemic preparedness tool CovidSim 1.1 (http://covidsim.eu/) is extended to investigate the effect of regularly testing of employees to protect immobile resident risk groups in closed facilities. The reduction in the number of infections and deaths within the risk group is investigated. Our simulations are adjusted to reflect the situation of LTCFs in Germany, and incarceration facilities in the U.S. COVID-19 spreads in closed facilities due to contact with infected employees even under strict confinement of visitors in a pandemic scenario without targeted protective measures. Testing is only effective in conjunction with targeted contact reduction between the closed facility and the outside world—and will be most inefficient under strategies aiming for herd immunity. The frequency of testing, the quality of tests, and the waiting time for obtaining test results have noticeable effects. The exact reduction in the number of cases depends on disease prevalence in the population and the levels of contact reductions. Testing every 5 days with a good quality test and a processing time of 24 hours can lead up to a 40% reduction in the number of infections. However, the effects of testing vary substantially among types of closed facilities and can even be counterproductive in U.S. IFs. Conclusions The introduction of COVID-19 in closed facilities is unavoidable without a thorough screening of persons that can introduce the disease into the facility. Regular testing of employees in closed facilities can contribute to reducing the number of infections there, but is only meaningful as an accompanying measure, whose economic benefit needs to be assessed carefully.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Preventing COVID-19 spread in closed facilities by regular testing of employees—An efficient intervention in long-term care facilities and prisons?

et al. 2021

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“…Relatedly, Trade unionists have expressed their concern that there are 'two million people on the dole looking for work and the idea of bypassing them and undermining the national minimum wage is frankly ludicrous and unacceptable' (King, 2012). Thompson (2012) expands this analysis to reveal that US prisoners are now performing jobs formerly located outside of the carceral setting, highlighting connections to the high unemployment and poverty for prison workers' families in some parts of the US. It is these experiences that not only reassert our call for a punitive labour geographies agenda, but that the interlinkages between carceral labour and wider labour market dynamics underpin our call for a more pronounced political economy lens to be applied to carceral geography.…”

Section: Neoliberalism and Carceral Labourmentioning

confidence: 90%

Labour, carcerality and punishment: ‘Less-than-human’ labour landscapes

Cassidy

Griffin

Wray

2019

Progress in Human Geography

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This paper brings together carceral and labour geographies to highlight new research avenues and empirical gaps. Despite valuable engagements with unfree and precarious work by labour geographers and substantial developments within carceral geography around carceral circuitry and intimate economies of detention, punitive aspects of work remain largely under-theorised within labour geography, while the political economy of carceral labour is relatively side-lined within carceral geography. The paper calls for two interrelated research agendas – the first a punitive labour geographies agenda, and the second a more sustained political economy lens applied to carceral geography in the context of labour and work.

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“…[10] A historical and structural perspective helps understand prison labor as exploitation of Black and other incarcerated people of color as this institution operates on a "transformation of imprisoned bodies -and they are in their majority bodies of color -into sources of profit" (Browne 2007;Buck 2004;Goodwin 2019 ;Halladay 2018;Thompson 2012 ;A. Y. Davis 2003, 88).…”

Section: Critical Perspectives On Prison Labormentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In a globalized prison industrial complex, prison is a source of "cheap labor" for private enterprises which thus avoid transport costs associated with the global south (Browne 2007;Thompson 2012, 40 ;Sudbury 2014). In US federal and state detention centers, hourly wages vary between 0.12 and 1.15 USD, whereas government prisons technically comply to minimum wage norms but retain most of detainees' salaries (Thompson 2012). Cheap labor is mainly achieved by poor Black people, who are overrepresented in private and governmental prisons: scholars and activists thus argue that prison labor is a 13 th Amendment-approved form of slavery in continuity with anti-Black racism (Browne 2007;Goodwin 2019).…”

Section: Critical Perspectives On Prison Labormentioning

confidence: 99%

Reform to Abolish: A Pragmatic Analysis of Prison Labor & Strip Searches in Quebec Correctional Law

Rouleau¹

2021

Preprint

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In the past year, abolitionist themes have been at the forefront of mobilizations such as #BlackLivesMatter, #MeToo, and #FreeThemAll. This paper relies on socio-legal feminist methodology and proposes a pragmatic abolitionist analysis of correctional law, the Loi sur le système correctionnel du Québec (LSCQ). I emphasize two issues reflective of ongoing structural harms within women’s jails – prison labor and strip searches – and argue that both practices instill everyday bodily harms due to their framing in the LSCQ. Although prison labor is presented as favoring social reinsertion, per the LSCQ incarcerated women receive inadequate wages relative to the cost of living in prison thus limiting their access to menstrual products and potentially leading to dangerous alternatives. As for strip searches, they are presented as means to ensure the safety of the institution yet are experienced as unsafe and as state-inflicted sexual assault. Per the LSCQ, strip searches can be conducted in a range of circumstances leaving much to correctional officers’ discretion, thus allowing for discriminatory rule enforcement and exposing incarcerated women of color to further violence. I conclude by presenting short-term abolitionist reforms which could reduce these everyday bodily harms. I also call for increased solidarity with incarcerated people within social mobilizing and organizing.

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The Prison Industrial Complex

Cited by 56 publications

References 9 publications

Preventing COVID-19 spread in closed facilities by regular testing of employees—An efficient intervention in long-term care facilities and prisons?

Preventing COVID-19 spread in closed facilities by regular testing of employees—An efficient intervention in long-term care facilities and prisons?

Labour, carcerality and punishment: ‘Less-than-human’ labour landscapes

Reform to Abolish: A Pragmatic Analysis of Prison Labor & Strip Searches in Quebec Correctional Law

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The Prison Industrial Complex

Cited by 56 publications

References 9 publications

Preventing COVID-19 spread in closed facilities by regular testing of employees—An efficient intervention in long-term care facilities and prisons?

Preventing COVID-19 spread in closed facilities by regular testing of employees—An efficient intervention in long-term care facilities and prisons?

Labour, carcerality and punishment: ‘Less-than-human’ labour landscapes

Reform to Abolish: A Pragmatic Analysis of Prison Labor &amp; Strip Searches in Quebec Correctional Law

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Product

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Reform to Abolish: A Pragmatic Analysis of Prison Labor & Strip Searches in Quebec Correctional Law