Angela Davis: Prison Profits
on Saturday, January 6, 2024Meaning of Angela Davis Money Quote: saying Detaining poor prisoners in large numbers can be profitable. Angela Davis said:
“The prison has become a black hole into which the detritus of contemporary capitalism is deposited. Mass imprisonment generates profits as it devours social wealth” — Angela Davis
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In this quote, Angela Davis is criticizing the modern use of prisons in capitalist societies. She refers to prisons as a “black hole” that swallows up the “detritus”, or unwanted byproducts, of capitalism.
Specifically, she suggests they are used to warehouse and remove from society those made expendable by economic forces, like the unemployed. Davis then states that mass incarceration on a large scale “generates profits” for the prison industry while simultaneously “devouring social wealth” by draining resources from communities through over-policing and removing productive members of society.
Overall, the quote presents Davis’ view that for-profit prisons have become a means to profit off human confinement while concealing social problems produced by economic inequality under the guise of criminal justice.