The Prison Industry
How It Works and Who Profits
by Bianca Tylek and Worth Rises
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Pub Date Apr 08 2025 | Archive Date Apr 07 2025
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Description
A meticulous exposé of who profits from incarceration, culminating in a compelling case for abolition
Based on years of research by the criminal justice organization Worth Rises—best known for campaigns that have revolutionized prison telecom and made prison and jail communication free in cities and states around the country—The Prison Industry maps the range of ways in which private corporations, often with their government partners, make money off incarceration. It further details the gross extraction of wealth from incarcerated people and their families, who have been brutalized by overpolicing, mass incarceration, and mass surveillance.
Chapters on labor, telecom, healthcare, community corrections, and more explore the origin story of privatization for each sector and how much money is in it for the corporations involved. Stretching far beyond private prisons to look at all the sectors that benefit from incarceration, the authors illuminate the methods used to extract resources from public coffers and communities, which corporations are most active and how they partner with governments, and the harms these profit-based approaches to justice cause people, families, and communities.
Ultimately, The Prison Industry makes a compelling case for dismantling the prison industry and prison abolition more broadly. It serves as a tool for the tearing down of our wholly oppressive carceral system—the ashes of which we can use to create a better world built on care, not cages.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Bianca Tylek is the founder and executive director of Worth Rises, a New York–based criminal justice advocacy organization known for its innovative research and compelling storytelling; federal, state, and local policy work; corporate activism; and a range of other initiatives. The co-author (with Worth Rises) of The Prison Industry (The New Press), she lives in New York City.
Worth Rises, a New York–based criminal justice advocacy organization, is known for its innovative research; federal, state, and local policy work; corporate activism; and a range of other initiatives. It is the co-author (with Bianca Tylek) of The Prison Industry (The New Press).
Advance Praise
“The Prison Industry is an essential resource for anyone who cares about the human impacts of criminalization. Packed with concise information, charts, resources, and personal narratives, it is not afraid to name names as it calls out the cruelty of corporations and state actors in every aspect of the prison industry. This book is simultaneously an encyclopedia of corporate greed, an exposé of the cruelty of incarceration, and a clarion call for change.”
—Jocelyn Simonson, professor of law, Brooklyn Law School, and author of Radical Acts of Justice
“Many know that corporate interests corrupt the contemporary American prison system, but Bianca Tylek and Worth Rises take an extra step to detail exactly how these interests manifest. With powerful narratives and meticulous analysis, The Prison Industry is an essential read for anyone committed to challenging how American prisons operate and dismantling the industry of oppression that sustains them.”
—Reginald Dwayne Betts, founder of Freedom Reads and author of Felon: Poems
“Bianca Tylek, in both her work and her book, has done more to lift the veil on the evil connection between money and the carceral system than anyone. If you want to understand how money drives policy and harms families caught in the maw of the system, read The Prison Industry.”
—Vincent Schiraldi, corrections official, scholar, and advocate
“Bianca Tylek and Worth Rises have spent years exposing the immoral profiteering by companies feasting at the trough of incarceration. Now, in one brilliant, accessible volume, The Prison Industry, they call out the evildoers—naming names, revealing their schemes and bottom lines, while sharing ideas on how to fight back. This is an indispensable volume for anyone ready to tackle the carceral dragon in our midst.”
—James Kilgore, author of Understanding Mass Incarceration and Understanding E-Carceration
“With the election of would-be authoritarian politicians, the stock prices of companies across the carceral state consistently soar. Bianca Tylek peels back the curtain on the U.S. prison industry. She shows how it extracts so much from the incarcerated and their families, leaving devastation in its wake. Her cross-sectoral analysis of the companies that benefit is simultaneously a blueprint for dismantling it.”
—Zachary Norris, co-founder of Restore Oakland
“This is an essential resource for those working to dismantle the prison industrial complex and anyone who wants to understand the profiteering at the heart of mass incarceration.”
—Alex S. Vitale, author of The End of Policing
“This is an essential book. Worth Rises is a small organization, but it has done profound work to help us all understand the scope of the profiteering and corruption that determines nearly every decision in the prison industry. And it is leading the fights against the commercialization of marginalized people’s bodies and families. Everyone should read this.”
—Alec Karakatsanis, civil rights lawyer, social justice advocate, and author of Usual Cruelty and Copaganda
Available Editions
| EDITION | Paperback |
| ISBN | 9781620978399 |
| PRICE | $20.99 (USD) |
| PAGES | 272 |
