Punishment for Sale

Private Prisons, Big Business, and the Incarceration Binge

By (author) Donna Selman, Paul Leighton

Publication date:

16 January 2010

Length of book:

216 pages

Publisher

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Dimensions:

241x163mm
6x10"

ISBN-13: 9781442201729

Punishment for Sale is the definitive modern history of private prisons, told through social, economic and political frames. The authors explore the origin of the ideas of modern privatization, the establishment of private prisons, and the efforts to keep expanding in the face of problems and bad publicity. The book provides a balanced telling of the story of private prisons and the resistance they engendered within the context of criminology, and it is intended for supplemental use in undergraduate and graduate courses in criminology, social problems, and race & ethnicity.

Chapter 1 Introduction
Chapter 2 The Crime "Problem" and the Free Market "Solution"
Chapter 3 The Big Government "Problem" and the Kentucky Fried Prison "Solution"
Chapter 4 The Prison-Industrial Complex: Profits, Vested Interests and Politics
Chapter 5 Confronting Problems: Blame Prisoners and Contracts Then Get A Bailout
Chapter 6 A Critical Look at the Efficiency and Overhead Costs of Private Prisons
Chapter 7 Conclusion
Chapter 8 Appendix
Chapter 9 References

Selman and Leighton have presented a cogent summary of the connection between the free market mentality that dominates American society and the use of imprisonment as a solution to the problem of crime. As the authors show so clearly, while crime may not pay, punishment certainly does, as it is a very profitable enterprise. The methodology is unique, as they review Congressional testimony, Securities and Exchange Commission filings, and the contracts of Corrections Corporation of America and the GEO Group have made with state and local governments. This book will leave its mark and future researchers on the American penal system will have to use it as a major source.