Privatization, technology, and the carceral state

From investment in surveillance technologies to relying on prison labor, the carceral state--like so many other traditional state functions--is being privatized. The state is turning to the private sector in the hopes that it can reduce costs and corruption and produce scalable technologies for risk assessment, monitoring, and incarceration while generating entrepreneurial activity and even economic growth. But STS scholarship teaches us that technologies are deeply shaped by and embedded in context, and when transported carry with them particular values, assumptions, and imaginaries.

• Kelly Gates
• Anthony Ryan Hatch
• Jorge Nuñez
• Heather Thompson
• Behind Walls, Beyond Discipline: Science, Technology, and the Carceral State
• Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program
• Science Technology and Public Policy
• STPP