Yesterday, Ruthie Gilmore said, “If we want to understand the prison industrial complex, we have to talk about capitalism.”
Today, I echo her and add that if we want to understand how capitalism will expand the prison industrial complex we have to look at how the neoliberal state is looking for more black and brown bodies to sequester as surplus populations.
Immigrants are the new markets for prisons, Arizona is the new stomping yards.
Yo Val,
Have you checked out the book “Punishing the Poor: The Neoliberal Government of Social Insecurity” by Louic Wacquant? It’s pretty good describing the way the prison industrial complex came about as a counter-action to the radical politics of the 1960s. Pretty good (read about a quarter of it so far).
I’d say check it out whenever you get some time from your busy schedule.