THE OPINIONATOR ON.... PRISON POPULATIONS AS A GROWING MARKET FOR GROOVY NEW CONSUMER GOODS

Convenient, isn't it? America's prison population has swelled so scandalously huge-- 1.3 million people in state and Federal institutions in 1999!--that this population now constitutes an important business market. Prisons have always meant profits for specialized enterprises, like companies that make institutional furniture and construction companies that build new facilities. But now Zenith, Koss, and other more consumer-oriented companies are getting into the act, with see-through and other specially-designed TVs, headphones, shavers, etc.

Transparent housings for small appliances and electronic equipment means that no drugs or knives can be smuggled or stored inside, see? Other modifications also incorporated into special prison-models items are: no antennas (since those can stab), and no remotes (because those can be repurposed into bomb detonators). According to headphone-maker Koss, as reported recently in the New York Times, the cord used in one of their prison-headphone models has to be "a bit weaker than usual so it can't be used as a garrote, for permanently silencing a guard or cellmate." And special lines of "prison-sensitive" goods are not the only growth areas for business. Zenith has been making an absolutely groovy-looking transparent prison TV for four years now, and it didn't take long for somebody at the company to realize that it might be able to cash in on a line of transparent TVs for the unincarcerated, a la iMac.

Koss is one of the few companies with significant prison sales ($1 million annually) that is willing to talk about this aspect of their business. According to the Times, the rest are quieter not because they find this business morally questionable ("How comfortable should convicted criminals be while trying to quote-unquote rehabilitate themselves?") but because they don't want to attract competitors. This is a lucrative market that the established guys want to themselves. Now, we don't know if this business is morally questionable or not, and we certainly don't think that if it were, anyone would stop because of that. We're looking kinda eagerly forward to a wave of prison chic-- functionally designed objects that are transparent, soft, and harmless. We're also expecting America's cheerful complicity in racist/classist agendas within the legal system to continue full-steam-ahead-- keeping the prison population rising (in combination with people's stupidity, anger, and just-plain-evilness) at the rate of 10% per year!