The Business of Incarceration
Only in America could incarceration become a booming industry — one where the more people we lock up, the more money flows to private corporations and the municipalities that host them. Companies like CoreCivic have quietly transformed our criminal justice system from a means of rehabilitation into a machinery for profit, paid for with our own tax dollars.
It’s not an abstraction. Every inmate is a stream of revenue. Local governments, squeezed by tight budgets, often welcome these for-profit detention centers. The federal government pays millions annually to house not just people convicted of serious crimes, but also those swept up in immigration raids or minor probation violations. A growing number of small towns now depend on incarceration as a primary economic driver — prisons have replaced the factories and mills that once built communities.
What does this say about our priorities? The question facing us isn’t whether someone “deserves” to be punished. It’s why we’ve built a system that encourages keeping cells filled, even when crime rates fall. When companies profit most by reducing services, they have every incentive to cut corners and little incentive to prepare anyone for life after release.
Meanwhile, taxpayers shoulder the real costs — broken families, harder communities, futures lost. We lose sight of the true purpose of justice: accountability, restoration and public safety.
New Hampshire’s strength isn’t in how many it locks away, but in how many it lifts back up. It’s time to rethink this “incarceration economy.” We can fund communities, not cages. We can build an America where our prosperity isn’t tied to the suffering of our neighbors.
David F. Brochu
Laconia, NH