When the tough-on-crime politics of the 1980s overcrowded state prisons, private companies saw potential profit in building and operating correctional facilities. Today, more than 100,000 of the 1.5 million incarcerated Americans are held in private prisons in 29 states and federal correctional facilities, with annual revenues of $5 billion.

Lauren-Brooke Eisen’s work blends investigative reporting with quantitative and historical research to examine private prisons through the eyes of inmates, their families, correctional staff, policymakers, activists, Immigration and Customs Enforcement employees, undocumented immigrants, and the executives of America’s largest private prison corporations. Neither an endorsement nor a demonization, Eisen’s Inside Private Prisons details the complicated and perverse incentives rooted in the industry, from mandatory bed occupancy to vested interests in mass incarceration. This book is a blueprint for policymakers to reform practices and for concerned citizens to understand our changing prison systems.