Since the 1980s, the prison system has become increasingly ensconced in the economic, political and ideological life of the United States and the transnational trafficking in U.S. commodities, culture, and ideas. Thus, the prison industrial complex is much more than the sum of all the ails and prisons in this country. It is a set of symbiotic relationships among correctional communities, transnational corporations, media conglomerates, guards' unions, and legislative an court agendas. If it is true that contemporary meaning of punishment is fashioned through these relationships, then the most effective abolitionist strategies will contest these relationships an propose alternatives that pull them apart.