Perpetual Prisoner Machine: How America Profits from Crime

This work is a critical look at the United States criminal justice system, raising an obvious question: If crime rates aren't going up, why is the prison population?

In this work, author Joel Dyer takes a critical look at the United States criminal justice system as we enter the new millennium. Dyer argues that it is a combination of violent media content, the push for privatization, and the increasing dependence of politicians upon public opinion polls and campaign finance that accounts for the unprecedented explosion in America's prison population, not the crime rates as we have been led to believe.

America has more than tripled its prison population since 1980 even though crime rates have been either flat or declining. This raises an obvious question: If crime rates aren't going up, why is the prison population? The answer is profit, and in our quest to please shareholders, millions of Americans have been turned into a new, human commodity.

Author: Joel Dyer

Publisher: Basic Books (2000)