Dr. Byron Price is a black scholar with a mission. His book, "Merchandizing Prisoners" opens the door for a discussion on how the African American community is being financially pillaged by the prison industry. You may not know this, but private corporations earn money from inmate incarceration and have a direct financial incentive to house more inmates. This is a problem, since unfocused profit maximization does not make room for the dual-significance of social progress. Dr. Price is one of the leading scholars in America and he has taken it upon himself to help solve this problem.
1) What is your name and what do you do for a living?
Byron E. Price, Associate Professor, Political Science Department and Interim Director, Barbara Jordan Institute for Policy Research
2) Tell us about your book? What does it teach us?
According to National Union of Public and General Employees, "This book examines the steady growth of private, for-profit prison firms and the correctional-commercial complex that has developed tangentially with the private prison industry. It also details the strange bedfellows that have been brought together to expand this industry.
I underscore how these for-profit private prison companies have gone public and are trading on the stock exchanges and the inimical impact of prisons being publicly traded. The book debunks many of the claims as to why states seek prison privatization and demonstrates that incarceration is the new form of slavery....This work sets the record straight about the decision to privatize state prisons, revealing the political bias that often drives these policy choices."
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