The Prison-Industrial Complex  Correctional officials see danger
in prison overcrowding. Others see opportunity. The nearly two
million Americans behind bars—the majority of them nonviolent
offenders—mean jobs for depressed regions and windfalls for
profiteers  Shopping for handcuffs  In the hills east of
Sacramento, California, Folsom State Prison stands beside a man-
made lake, surrounded by granite walls built by inmate laborers.
The gun towers have peaked roofs and Gothic stonework that give
the prison the appearance of a medieval fortress, ominous and
forbidding. For more than a century Folsom and San Quentin were
the end of the line in California's penal system; they were the
state's only maximum-security penitentiaries. During the early
1980s, as California's inmate population began to climb, Folsom
became dangerously overcrowded. Fights between inmates ended in
stabbings six or seven times a week. The poor sight lines within
the old cellblocks put correctional officers at enormous risk.
From 1984 to 19