Prison, Coerced Demand, and the Importance of Incarcerated Bodies in Late Capitalism

Abstract

Research has done a fine job in noting the utility of mass incarceration for social control and the creation of quiescence, especially in the face of economic precariousness and growing wealth inequalities. Some of this scholarship also posits a profit-centered motive, activated through the growth of for-profit prison corporations or forced prison labor. I build on this work in this article but extend the emphasis on profit by suggesting that incarceration also acts as a locus for the coercion of demand and consumption. In postindustrial economies characterized by chronic crises of demand, mass incarceration compels minimally market-attached residents to participate in the market in the capacity in which they are most required—as consumers. I construct estimates of the increase in national aggregate demand associated with incarceration and find it to be equivalent to the addition of a small country of consumers to the national economy.