There is a huge increase in the number of prisons built in the US. Are they valued for the jobs they create?

Question

Could the "prison industry" be viewed as a social program of sorts for the economically disadvantaged areas where the government places them. Afterall, they do employ people and require intensive services like food, laundry supplies etc.

Answer 1

Prisons are an institution of social control. Most societies have some means of coercive social control from cutting off body parts, public whipping, beheading, jail and ostracism.
The prison industries do create jobs and that is somewhat important but that could be accomplished just as well by other public works program like the Civil Conservation Corps of the 1920s and 30s. Prisons are for social control.
We would not need as many prisons if we decriminalized all drugs and victimless crimes. But those two are targeted types of social control. It should be noted that laws against victimless crimes are almost always ineffective in preventing the crime but selective enforcement and selective sent incing are selective means of social control.

Answer 2

While all you're saying is true, the new prisons are simply to house convicts. It's not as widely publicized as it was a few years ago, but prison over-crowding was becoming a real problem. It was causing the courts to sentence criminals who should have done prison time to probation, thus turning them back onto the streets. There were early release programs instituted to relieve the problem a bit and allow for prisoners who had committed more serious crimes than those being set free. There were horror stories in which people released went out and committed crimes like rape and murder. Anyway, those are some of the reasons for building more prisons.

Answer 3

With hip hop music getting bigger we constantly need more prisons. they do provide needed jobs though however most of the food prep and laundry are done internaly