Prison–industrial complex

The prison–industrial complex is a term for the relationship between the government and businesses and how prisons are involved. Some sources say the government makes sure that many people are locked up in prison to provide cheap workers for businesses. It is similar to the term military–industrial complex.

It is an expression used to describe the overlapping interests of government and industry that use surveillance, policing and imprisonment as solutions to economic, social and political problems.

The United States has the largest prison population in the world. Many of those prisons are private prisons run by companies rather than the government.