> Joanna wrote:
>
>>The current prison industrial complex regime
>
> We seem to be stuck with this term but there are real
> problems with it. It suggests that industry makes a lot
> money from prison labor but that's not the case.
Certain industries do, right? Those who build prisons, for instance.
The Wikipedia page is pretty good on this:
"Prison-industrial complex" (PIC) is a term used to attribute the rapid expansion of the US inmate population to the political influence of private prison companies and businesses that supply goods and services to government prison agencies. The term is analogous to the military-industrial complex that President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned of in his famous 1961 farewell address. Such groups include corporations that contract prison labor, construction companies, surveillance technology vendors, lawyers, and lobby groups that represent them. Activists have described the prison industrial complex as perpetuating a belief that imprisonment is a quick fix to underlying social problems such as homelessness, unemployment, drug addiction, mental illness, and illiteracy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prison%E2%80%93industrial_complex
I don't think it's significantly the 'labor' part ...
/jordan