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# Mapping the Prison Industrial Complex: A Case Study Using the Agent Based Approach (ABA)

## Details

**Authors** Schinker R

**Year** 2022

**Publisher** Journal of Systems Thinking 2(1):1-16

**Kind of work** article

**Discipline** Systems Science

**Kind of engagement** scholarly

[Read it at the publisher](https://doi.org/10.54120/jost.2025-0072RS) 
10.54120/jost.2025-0072RS

## In authors' words

### Abstract

In this paper, the Agent Based Approach (ABA) is used to map and analyze the Prison Industrial Complex (PIC) in America. Using this approach, it is determined that the PIC is exceptionally well designed and good at its purpose of imprisoning an excessive number of people, exploiting their labor, and falling far short of anything resembling rehabilitation or the prevention of future crime. There are five salient agents in this system: those who are incarcerated, the DOJ, politicians, private prisons, and companies that profit off of prison labor. These agents each follow their own set of simple rules, which leads to the emergent behavior seen in the system. Based on these factors, the recommendations are made for those incarcerated to realize their collective power, for politicians to mandate the dignity of prisoners be respected through paying them a living wage for their work, and for the DOJ to create a new metric of success while also ending its relationship with private prisons. These recommendations are all consistent with a recommendations rubric, which has been explicated below.

### What they set out to do (purpose)

A case study mapping the American Prison Industrial Complex with the Agent-Based Approach, through five salient agents: the incarcerated, the DOJ, politicians, private prisons, and companies profiting from prison labor.

### What they found (results)

The system is exceptionally well designed for its actual purpose — imprisoning an excessive number of people and exploiting their labor, far short of rehabilitation; each agent's simple rules produce that emergent behavior, and the recommendations target those rules.

## Commentary

### In short

Uses the Agent Based Approach to map the U.S. prison industrial complex, its five main agents, and the simple rules that produce its behavior.

**Patterns it shows** S, R

**How to cite this** Schinker R (2022). Mapping the Prison Industrial Complex: A Case Study Using the Agent Based Approach (ABA). Journal of Systems Thinking 2(1):1-16.