Prison Profiteers brings together a formidable array of lawyers, prisoners, journalists and advocates to provide a unique look at who, exactly, is benefiting from mass imprisonment. Prison Profiteers takes readers on an investigative journey behind the bars of our nation's prisons to the front lines of its mass incarceration crisis and into the realm of its financially motivated private investors. The United States, with just five percent of the world's population, is responsible for incarcerating an astounding twenty five percent of the world's inmates. Thanks to thirty years of mass incarceration, the number of people in state and federal penitentiaries has dramatically increased from an estimated 300,000 to 2.3 million. The numbers are shocking, yet while much research has focused on the social issues that surround incarceration in the U.S., until now, little attention has been given to the individuals and commercial enterprises that profit from prisons and their related services. Prison Profiteers approaches the subject from a unique angle-not who is being harmed by current policies of mass imprisonment but rather who benefits from such policies. From investment banks that issue bonds for prison construction, to the companies that staff and manage prisons, and the organizations that provide medical care, we learn how they benefit and how much they profit. Paul Wright is the founder and editor of Prison Legal News, an independent monthly magazine that reports on the criminal justice system. He co-edited Prison Nature with Tara Herivel and The Celling of America with Daniel Burton-Rose. He is a 2005 Petra Foundation Fellow and the 2007 recipient of the James Madison Award from the Washington Coalition for Open Government.