Private Prison Simulation Game Goes Viral on Apple App Store
With over two million people locked up across a sprawling network of private
and public prisons, the US has by far the highest incarceration rate in the
world, significantly worse than brutal dictatorships in Africa, Latin
America or Central Asia.
by Alan Macleod
July 10th, 2020
By Alan Macleod
Anew game called "Prison Empire Tycoon" is going viral. Released in late
May, it has risen to become the current number one strategy game in Apple's
App Store and has been among the top 20 most popular games overall since its
launch, with at least 3 million downloads to date. In line with many other
popular business simulation games like the "Railroad Tycoon" and
"Rollercoaster Tycoon" series, where users create huge transport networks or
design and run their own theme parks, the point of "Prison Empire Tycoon" is
to make money running a private American prison.
During the tutorial at the start, a baton-wielding guard instructs you,
telling you that "the state pays us good money" to manage the "lowlifes"
they send your way. "It's a perfect business," he says, as he shows you how
to send inmates to solitary confinement, something that is near-universally
described as torture.
The game is undeniably well put together, with a clear, functioning world
and appealing, chunky graphics. And judging from the extremely positive
reception the game has received, users see nothing wrong with its content
either. Indeed, the biggest complaints in the negative reviews left online
are that it has a number of bugs, has a tendency to crash, and features a
lot of annoying ads and in-app purchases.
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video game that lets you carry out targeted killings by drone in places like
Iraq.
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With almost 2.3 million people locked up across a sprawling network of
thousands of facilities, the United States has by far the highest
incarceration rate in the world, significantly worse than brutal
dictatorships in Africa, Latin America or Central Asia. The U.S. imprisons
its citizens at over ten times the rate of European countries like Denmark
or Sweden, and over seventeen times that of Japan. Three-quarters of people
held in jails have not been convicted of anything.
For-profit private prisons are a growing phenomenon. Since 2000, the number
of people incarcerated in them has increased by 39.3 percent, compared to an
overall rise of 7.8 percent. Some states have seen their private prison
industry explode. Arizona's private prison population for example has grown
nearly sixfold over the last 20 years. Indiana and Ohio's have quadrupled,
while Florida's has tripled.
Private prison corporations have a clear and perverse incentive to keep
their charges in their custody for as long as possible and to make sure they
return. In 2010, a federal grand jury convicted Pennsylvania judges of
taking $2.6 million in bribes from for-profit juvenile detention facilities
in exchange sending thousands of children to jail, often over the
protestations of their probation officers.
Writer and prison critic Chris Hedges, who has taught at a number of
penitentiaries, called prisoners the ideal American worker; they do not
receive any benefits or pensions, are not paid overtime, cannot organize or
go on strike, have no vacations or sick days, never show up late to work,
cannot complain, and if they try to protest they can be beaten or tortured
in solitary confinement. As such, he concludes, prisons "are models for what
the corporate state expects us all to become." According to a 2017 study by
the Prison Policy Initiative, incarcerated workers in non-industry prison
jobs are paid between $0.86 and $3.45 per day, a significant decline from
previous years.
These wages are used as a battering ram against wages across society. Right
now, California is facing a critical shortage of firefighters to tackle the
summer forest fires, precisely because the state has relied on prison labor,
rather than unionized firefighters. California's prison population is
currently on lockdown after particularly severe COVID-19 outbreaks across
the state's correctional facilities.
California Short on Firefighters as Prison "Slaves" Under COVID-19 Lockdown
California's competing crises of climate change, COVID-19, and prison labor
have converged to create the perfect neoliberal storm.
MintPress News | Alan Macleod | Jul 6
While many people are working to change or abolish the institution
altogether, the massive prison population and terrible conditions found
inside have become so accepted that Chelsea Manning's jailer is running a
successful campaign for Congress in Alabama, as a Democrat. The runoff
election is on Tuesday.
Video games are also used to sanitize other inherently violent institutions.
Among the most popular genres of games are hyper-realistic first-person
shooters like the "Call of Duty" franchise, where players play as American
troops gunning down huge numbers of faceless Arabs. The U.S. Army has its
own eSports team which it uses to groom suggestible teenagers into joining
the military. Indeed, the Air Force has a recruitment tool game on its own
website which allows you to drone bomb Iraqis and Afghans. Players who
perform well are prompted whether they would like to do this in real life.
The fact that the reception to "Prison Empire Tycoon" has been
overwhelmingly positive, with few people remarking on its problematic
content, goes to show how normalized the prison industrial complex has
become and how few people recognize the dystopian depths that society has
sunk to.
Feature photo | An screenshot shows a series of images from Digital
