Between 2002 and 2009, the number of US prisoners housed in private prisons increased 37%. The for-profit detention industry makes billions of dollars each year. It’s safe to say that with an incentive like that, our penal system is swiftly moving toward becoming a 100% privately owned business.
But what happens to a society with a for-profit detention industry that only makes money if there are bodies in cells?
All of this had me thinking about a story that takes place in the United States at some distant point in the future in which the entire country's population exists in a permanent state of imprisonment. In other words, prison is the default state.
People are born into prisons and can never leave. They’re of course promised that there’s a way to leave, but ultimately it isn’t true. Perhaps there’s a jury system where your peers decide if you get to “leave”. Guilty till proven innocent is the new norm.
Maybe the US would no longer be called the "United States" and has broken up into smaller entities, easier to manage and isolate from one another.
Of course, some geographical area is cordoned off for the wealthy, who of course live freely, their lives now possible due to the automatic labor force provided by the prison state. Perhaps the people born in prison think this region is populated by people who earned their way out. They will speak in terms of earning your passport to be able to travel there (immigration theme).
However, no one ever gets out because the conditions set are impossible to meet.
