The Perpetual Prison Machine Summary

It is very astonishing how the U.S. now incarcerates nearly two million people in its prisons and jails on any given day and over five million of its citizens are currently under some form of justice department supervision. These facts make me ask myself, “If the crime rates are decreasing, then why is the prison population increasing?” However, The Perpetual Prisoner Machine provides the answer to this question and, shockingly, it has little to do with crime or justice. The answer is “profit.”The Perpetual Prisoner Machine is not simply the prison system and the institutionalized practices which it gives rise to and necessitates, but is also the profit-driven news media, voting and polling practices, and our individual fear of violent crime …show more content…
To explain the public 's belief in the media the seven persuaders, which are vicarious conditioning, balance/order, status source, mere thought, incentives, loss of detail and one-sided. All these factors help explain why the media’s violent content get’s individuals to alter their behavior and attitudes when it comes to crime and criminals. Due to the media displaying violent content, it will automatically increase the violence quotient because viewers will become less sensitive and more frighten which creates the fear of crime. However, the public’s fear is put at ease when they are conveyed to believe that the intent of prison is to promote public safety. As stated in The Massachusetts Department of Correction’s, their mission is to “Promote public safety by incarcerating offenders while providing opportunities for participation in effective programming designed to reduce recidivism.” Therefore, the public is a very important factor in The Perpetual Prison Machine, because their fear and alarming behavior is from where this whole system profits …show more content…
Joel Dyer argues that the three factors which came together to create a perpetual prisoner machine, are the Media, Public and Politicians. Beginning with the violent content that media displays, which alarms and creates the public 's fear. From then politicians create campaigns that address the fears of the public, however politicians and the media are really profiting from the public 's fear. Dyer concludes by saying that powerful organizations control what and how much people want to buy. Overall, I was fascinated to know how the public’s fear is a profit to the media, politicians, and prison corporations. So, I ask myself “If the public was to not fear any crime related issues, what would be the future of