When prisons become a business that need to make a profit, it becomes debatable what the purpose of a prison is. The American prison industrial complex is a large scale prison network in the hands of companies and business. The American Government pays these companies for housing and containing criminals, and with the current numbers of imprisoned people in the US, the business is worth billions of US dollars. But when businesses get paid to contain prisoners, does rehabilitation suffer?
- What effect does the Prison Industrial Complex have on the total number of imprisoned people?
- Are the company-owned prisons still trying to put prisoners back into society, or do they rather maximise their profits?
- The US is running low on cells and want to house their prisoners in different countries, like the Netherlands. Could a prison industrial complex work in The Netherlands?