The Term Prison-Industrial Complex Has Been Used by Critics to Describe

question 54

Multiple Choice

The term prison-industrial complex has been used by critics to describe the current American prison system. What does this fact refer to?

• A) High rates of incarceration of persons of a lower class have led to a decrease in the industrial labor force.
• B) Prisons increasingly employ inmates in factory work (for example, constructing furniture or imprinting license plates).
• C) Large numbers of people have vested economic and political interests in the expansion of the prison system.
• D) Jails and prisons have instituted costly job training programs for inmates to enter industrial jobs on release.

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Definitions:

Learned Irrelevance

The presentation of a stimulus without an unconditioned stimulus (UCS) leads to the recognition that the stimulus is irrelevant, stops attention to that stimulus, and impairs conditioning when the stimulus is later paired with the UCS.

Conditioned Stimulus

A previously neutral stimulus that, after being repeatedly paired with an unconditioned stimulus, starts to trigger a conditioned response similar to the response to the unconditioned stimulus.

Unconditioned Stimulus

A stimulus that naturally and automatically triggers a response without the need for prior learning.

Wagner

A reference to theories postulated by Robert A. Rescorla and Allan R. Wagner on conditioning processes, focusing on the associative strength between stimuli and responses.