Prison Profiteering

Profiteering, according to Merriam-Webster dictionary, is “the act or activity of making unreasonable profit on the sale of essential goods…”. This occurs in prisons, not only on the sales of essential goods, but in the utilization of inmates for cheap labor on high profit products like US military helmets.

• 11 million people are incarcerated across the world, with 1 out of 5 prisoners in the world incarcerated in the US.
• While only 5% of the world’s female population lives in the U.S., the country accounts for nearly 30% of the world’s incarcerated women.
  Source: Prison Policy Initiative
• About 2 million people use bail bonds every year in the U.S.
• The U.S. bail bond industry is estimated to generate $2.4 billion in revenue in 2025, with the total estimated value of bail bonds posted annually of $15 billion.
  Source: American Progress
• Private for-profit prisons incarcerated 90,873 American residents in 2022, representing 8% of the total state and federal prison population. Since 2000, the number of people housed in private prisons has increased 5%.
  Source: Prison Policy Initiative
• Approximately 4000 companies profit from mass incarceration.
• The annual cost to families of prison phone calls and commissary purchases is almost $3 million.
• The average daily minimum wage of incarcerated workers is 86 cents/hour, down from 93 cents in 2001.
  Source: The Sentencing Project

“The use of private prisons erodes the public’s faith in the integrity of American sentencing policy, leaving them to wonder if the impetus for lengthy mandatory minimums, or forcibly detaining immigrant children, is an evidence-based solution or just submission to the will of private prison companies donating to campaigns and profiting from imprisonment.”
Source: InsiderNJ