Introduction

Have you ever thought about who designs and builds the 6-by-8-foot cells where people languish for months and years? Who manufactures the shackles incarcerated women are forced to wear while giving birth? Or who trains officers to use force on people suffering mental health crises?

The prison industry is made up of a vast matrix of corporations and public-private partnerships that undergird human caging and control for profit. More than 4,100 corporations, and their government conspirators, profit from the incarceration of 2.1 million mothers, fathers, children, and grandparents and surveillance of 4.4 million more on probation or parole. It’s time we unpack the prison industry.

The Curriculum is a free, self-guided, public education course based on our report, The Prison Industry: How it Started, How it Works, How it Harms. Through this course, we hope to relay a strong understanding of the prison industry and a framework to imagine the world without it.

Each week, course assignments include:

  • Reading assignments with thought-provoking and inspirational discussion questions (text)

  • 5 Facts about the Prison Industry starter (video)

  • Class preview on New York Public Radio’s The Brian Lehrer Show (audio)

  • Punishment + Profit classes hosted in collaboration with The Greene Space at New York Public Radio (video)

You can find all course materials below and navigate through the syllabus using the menu bar on the left. Thank you for joining us in the fight to dismantle the prison industry.

 

Community Corner

More than 1,000 incarcerated people, formerly incarcerated people, and families with incarcerated loved ones have taken this course across the country.

We invite all community members directly impacted by incarceration to join the Community Corner.

What people are saying

“The powerful content, diversity of strategies, and deep connection to impacted communities! The way Worth Rises links the dots is masterful. Sophisticated information is made easy to understand for a variety of audiences. And most of all, while illuminating the hard truths, they lift up what has been and can be done to create change. Each week, I left feeling inspired and empowered; educated and pissed off; and truly in awe.”
— Sue Simon, Art For Justice

“The Curriculum was very helpful in informing our coverage of how business incentives affect prison policies and the day to day lives of incarcerated Americans. It raised questions about topics most people never get to hear discussed in the media, like prison food and prison transportation and what’s involved in making a phone call from inside.”
— Brian Lehrer, The Brian Lehrer Show

"The Curriculum provides a necessary education on the depth and impact of profiteering in our criminal legal system. We must understand how all the tentacles in the systems of oppression we aim to dismantle connect if we want to reimagine justice in this country."
— Deanna Hoskins, Just Leadership USA

“After two decades inside, I always knew that greed was behind mass incarceration. But these profiteers and the ways they make money was shrouded in mystery. This course gave me the knowledge and tools to identify and combat them and become a stronger advocate.”
— Philip Melendez, Restore Justice

“The Curriculum was a vital resource to get our team quickly up to speed on the prison industry, in our case specifically prison telecom, and informed our work as we moved into production. It’s a great starting place for journalist looking to report on the prison industry.”
— Ishan Thakore, Full Frontal with Samantha Bee

“I am so thankful for the Course that you sent. It is a great start to a very complex topic. I never knew any of it until I came to prison. Reading the course is shocking. WOW and the money!!! I would have never believed it. So much money is made off incarceration.”
— David, Elmira Correctional Facility (New York)

“Thank you for the wonderful curriculum on the prison industry. My husband and I have a son who is incarcerated at Hazelton FCI in West Virginia and has another three years to go on his sentence. We learned so much from your class, especially on how to support him through appreciating just how brutal this experience is for him.”
— Mary Cayan

Course Materials

Discussion GuideDownload PDF

Discussion Guide

Download PDF