Noam Chomsky: Prisons in America

"So, what we do with the superfluous people, the ones who don't contribute to wealth production for the rich -- and therefore aren't human really -- what you do with them is first of all try to coop them up in slums, which are sort of like concentration camps, and if that doesn't work you put them in jail. Which is the equivalent -- sort of a counterpart in a wealthy society to death squads in a poor society. So, they're [prisons] naturally zooming. And they are a shot in the arm."