Introduction / by Tara Herivel -- The political economy of prisons -- Banking on the prison boom / Judith Greene -- Million-dollar blocks: the neighborhood costs of America's prison boom / Jennifer Gonnerman -- Doing borrowed time: the high cost of backdoor prison finance / Kevin Pranis -- Making the "bad guy" pay: growing use of cost shifting as an economic sanction / Kirsten D. Levingston -- Prisons, politics, and the census / Gary Hunter and Peter Wagner -- Don't build it here: the hype versus the reality of prisons and local employment / Clayton Mosher, Gregory Hooks, and Peter B. Wood -- The cultural commodification of prisons / Paul Wright -- The private prison industry -- Prison labor fuels American war machine / Ian Urbina -- On the inside with the American Correctional Association / Silja J.A. Talvi -- Jails for Jesus / Samantha M. Shapiro -- Florida's private prison industry corporation under siege / David M. Reutter -- Making out like bandits -- Behind closed doors: privatized prisons for youth / Tara Herivel -- Sick on the inside: correctional HMOs and the coming prison plague / Wil S. Hylton -- Private health care in jails can be a death sentence / Paul von Zielbauer -- The riot academy: guards stage mock prison riots to test the latest high-tech gear / Jennifer Gonnerman -- Mapping the prison telephone industry / Stevn J. Jackson -- Shocked and stunned: the growing use of tasers / Anne-Marie Cusac -- For-profit transportation companies: taking prisoners and the public for a ride / Alex Friedmann.