Gilmore’s discussion of the “prison fix” as an answer to California’s economic and political challenges is one of the most interesting things I noticed in this chapter. California faced a huge capital surplus in the 1980s and 1990s as a result of the state’s reliance on the military sector, which had dropped dramatically. This excess proved a huge problem for the Californian government, since it needed to find new ways of investing its financial resources. Gilmore stated how the state’s choice to invest in prisons was an answer to this problem since prisons provided a new source of economic growth and jobs for regions that had been heavily impacted by deindustrialization.
Gilmore goes over the political factors that contribute to California’s prison development. As crime rates and societal tensions got worse in the 1980s and 1990s, the state encountered a legitimacy crisis. The building of extra jails was seen as an opportunity for the state to demonstrate its commitment to law and order while also addressing the socioeconomic difficulties viewed as the major source of crime.
Another intriguing portion of this chapter is Gilmore’s investigation of the anti-prison industrial complex movement. She writes that disagreement with prison growth came from an array of individuals, including convicts, their families, and campaigners worried about the impact of prisons on towns. As stated by Gilmore, this opposition was effective in transforming the discourse around crime and punishment, and in bringing attention to the social and economic factors that contributed to crime.