1) "We have a corrections sector that employs more Americans than the combined work forces of General Motors, Ford, and Wal-Mart, the three largest corporate employers in the country" -- I knew it was huge, but not that huge -- I mean, wow.
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I also wonder what effect this has on the historical and current interpretation of unemployment statistics. I assume persons in prison don't count, because they aren't looking for work, and of course the people employed by prisons do count, and make up an ever-increasing percentage of the workforce. So what would the unemployment rate be without this huge trend upward in incarceration over the last four decades and has anybody written about this? It would obviously be higher, but significantly so? And, if so, what does that mean, if anything at all?
Incidentally, there is no doubt that the "frontlash" theory is correct, although I imagine there are other factors at work as well. Prisons and the criminal justice system are (1) a tool for warehousing people extraneous to capitalist production in order to better control them and keep them disorganized and (2) a tool to maintain white supremacy and keep the white middle class aligned with the ruling class. "Criminals" did not become a class of its own until it no longer became feasible to control "blacks" as a class.