The Corrections-Commercial Complex

Abstract

The current debate about corrections' privatization neglects the extensive overlap of business, political, and private interests that shapes public corrections policy. Based on current developments in the United States it is possible to identify a corrections-commercial complex. As Deep Throat reportedly said to Washington Post writer Bob Woodward in an underground parking garage after he and Carl Bernstein uncovered the Committee for the Re-election of the President's secret fund in 1972: “Follow the money.”