This Is Hell! How The Prison Industry Dehumanizes And Profits / Bianca Tylek
Nov 10, 2025
Bianca Tylek, Founder and Executive Director of Worth Rises, dives deep into the prison industry's exploitation and commercialization. She highlights how public awareness is growing around abolition and critiques the privatization of incarceration, asserting it profits from human suffering. Bianca discusses the ethical dilemmas inherent in profit-making through incarceration, the failings of private prisons, and the public health risks posed by prison sites. She also emphasizes the important movement to eliminate slavery-by-conviction and the dangers of surveillance technologies stemming from prisons.
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Profit Motive Drives Carceral Expansion
- The prison industry profits by exploiting captive populations and markets created by criminalization.
- Private firms publicly celebrate expansion into immigration detention as a major business opportunity.
Prisons Break Free-Market Logic
- Private incarceration reveals market failure: people in prison cannot choose vendors or prices.
- Libertarians often see prisons as a zone needing strict regulation, not free-market solutions.
Prisons Hurt Long-Term Local Economies
- Prison construction can give a short-term boost but harms long-term local growth.
- Studies show prisons underperform other job options and create low-quality employment.
