Captive Market

Anna Gunderson is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Louisiana State University.

• Acknowledgments Chapter 1: Just Like Selling Cars, Real Estate, or Hamburgers1.1 Private Prisons Enter the Market1.2 Continuing Controversies1.3 The Growth of the Carceral State and Carceral Governance1.4 Looking Ahead Chapter 2: Profit in American Corrections2.1 Private Interests and Carceral Institutions2.2 Modern Private Prisons2.3 Existing Research and Limited Data2.4 A Source of New Data on Private Prisons Chapter 3: The Rights Revolution and Prison Privatization3.1 The Judiciary's "Hands-Off" Attitude and Slaves of the State3.2 The Rise of Mass Incarceration3.3 Inmate Lawsuit Growth and Private Prisons3.4 What About Successful Lawsuits?3.5 Accountability and Privatization Chapter 4: Inmate Lawsuits and Private Prisons4.1 Data: Private Prisons and Inmate Litigation4.2 Lawsuits and Other Explanations for Privatization4.3 Instrumental Variables Estimation4.4 Accountability and Privatization in Context Chapter 5: Do Private Prison Firms Respond to Successful Prison Litigation?5.1 The Obama DOJ and Private Prisons5.2 Investors and Company Stock Performance5.3 Private Prison Firm Stocks and Politics5.4 Event Study Methodology5.5 Successful Lawsuits Prompt Company Caution Chapter 6: Captive Market6.1 You Send a Check and Send a Prisoner6.2 It's Like Comparing Atrocity to Atrocity6.3 As Long as They're Functioning, That's Fine6.4 They Are Always Going to Have a Place6.5 Metastasis of the Larger Cancer of Mass Incarceration Appendices

Though it originated as a doctoral thesis, this book reads like a monograph and provides a truly comprehensive understanding of the development and consequences of private prisons. The writing is articulate, and Gunderson (Louisiana State Univ.) supports her suppositions and conclusions with data, which are presented both in-line in a format accessible to interested readers and in a thorough appendix and bibliography for scholars and researchers. The book is concise...The reader comes away with an understanding of the incentives and costs that have led to prison privatization.