Word.ws English Dictionary

prison–industrial complex

prison–industrial complex noun: the socioeconomic combination of prisons and the private businesses that supply them with goods and services.

Noun

prison–industrial complex (plural prison–industrial complexes)

  1. The socioeconomic combination of prisons and the private businesses that supply them with goods and services.
    • In Philadelphia, on the other hand, during a day of action against the prison–industrial complex, I saw a lot of cop cars being beaten up,1960, New Left Review Limited (publisher), New Left Review, page 83
    • […]if we pursue the privatisation of prisons, a large industry will develop. Over the past two or three years many hon. Members have been lobbied by the private prison groups. They are already organised and are paying political consultants and lobbying companies. Some of them have paid Conservative...1992 July 6, Barry Sheerman, “Prisons”, in parliamentary debates (Commons), volume 211, column 125
    Synonyms:
    PIC

Synonyms of prison–industrial complex

Forms of prison–industrial complex

pluralprison–industrial complexes

Origin of prison–industrial complex

By analogy to military–industrial complex. First use appears c. 1960. See cite below.

Questions about prison–industrial complex

What does prison–industrial complex mean?
Prison–industrial complex means the socioeconomic combination of prisons and the private businesses that supply them with goods and services.
What part of speech is prison–industrial complex?
Prison–industrial complex is a noun.
What is the plural of prison–industrial complex?
The plural of prison–industrial complex is prison–industrial complexes.

Words near prison–industrial complex in the dictionary

  1. prisonments
  2. prisonous
  3. prisons
  4. prisonsful
  5. prisonwear
  6. prison–industrial complex
  7. prison–industrial complexes
  8. prisoptometer
  9. prisoptometers
  10. priss
  11. priss around

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: prison–industrial complex (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “prison–industrial complex.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/prison%E2%80%93industrial_complex. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.