Big prisons have a way of cowing people. The "war on crimes" is the smartest move that the US ruling class made in response to the long sixties. America's incarceration rate is the highest in the world, and the rate is said to be as high as that under Stalin in the USSR.
Beyond that, masses, when unorganized, tend toward servility. As individuals, they are no match for forces at the disposal of the ruling class, and they are dependent on landlords, capitalists, creditors, etc. Only when they are organized do they have dignity. Desire for dignity is the most important motive in an attempt to organize, whether a plain and simple trade union or a social revolution.
Nowadays, servile masses are told to look to the ruling class not only for jobs and the like but also for solutions to problems that the ruling class caused them, like the Iraq War. :-> -- Yoshie <http://montages.blogspot.com/> <http://mrzine.org> <http://monthlyreview.org/>