Hell Factories in the Field. (Cover story)

Abstract

California has the third-largest penal system in the world, following China and the United States as a whole. An emergent "prison-industrial complex" increasingly rivals agribusiness as the dominant force in the life of rural California and competes with land developers as the chief seducer of legislators in Sacramento, California. It has become a monster that threatens to overpower and devour its creators, and its uncontrollable growth ought to rattle a national consciousness now complacent at the thought of a permanent prison class.