Yes—Gilmore’s analysis of prisons as a “fix” for surpluses of labor, land, and capital, and as a racialized mode of abandonment/control, is not uniquely American. While she writes from the U.S. context, similar dynamics can be found elsewhere, often shaped by colonial legacies, neoliberal restructuring, or authoritarian governance. A few key examples:

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1. United Kingdom (post-1980s onwards)

• After deindustrialization under Thatcher, many former industrial towns were left with high unemployment. At the same time, the prison population nearly doubled between the early 1980s and 2010, despite crime rates not rising proportionately.

• Prisons absorbed the “redundant” working class, disproportionately Black and minority ethnic communities.

• Surplus land: deindustrialized regions in the North and Midlands saw prison construction as a substitute for lost manufacturing jobs, echoing Gilmore’s California case.

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2. Brazil

• Brazil has the third-largest prison population in the world (close to 800,000). This expansion accelerated from the 1990s, coinciding with neoliberal reforms and urban restructuring.

• Poor, largely Afro-Brazilian populations are criminalized under “war on drugs” policies.

• Overcrowded prisons serve as sites of abandonment and containment, managing “surplus” populations excluded from the formal economy.

• Like the U.S., this has become profitable: the rise of private prison contracts and construction firms that benefit from expansion.

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3. South Africa (post-apartheid)

• Despite the end of apartheid, incarceration has remained a mechanism for managing surplus Black populations displaced by neoliberal restructuring.

• Massive unemployment (over 30%) has coincided with very high levels of incarceration.

• Prison construction expanded in the 1990s, including private prisons run by multinational firms (e.g., G4S).

• Abandonment here is tied to both apartheid’s spatial legacies and contemporary neoliberal dispossession.

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4. Australia

• Indigenous Australians are vastly overrepresented in prisons—over 30% of the prison population while being ~3% of the total population.

• Incarceration functions as a mechanism of colonial management, especially in remote areas where other state services are withdrawn.

• New prisons are often built in rural/remote regions with surplus land, framed as local job-creation projects.

• This links racialized abandonment, settler-colonial land use, and neoliberal “solutions” to unemployment.

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5. Europe (peripheries, especially Eastern Europe & Greece post-crisis)

• After the 2008 financial crisis, austerity dismantled social support systems. Several countries turned toward intensified policing, detention of migrants, and prison expansion as a way of managing social unrest.

• Greece, for instance, combined austerity with expanded detention of migrants as a way of spatializing abandonment—outsourcing containment to camps and prisons.

• EU border regimes (Frontex, detention centers in Italy, Hungary, etc.) treat migrants as “surplus life,” contained in camps that are politically and economically integrated into state policy and private contracts.

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In short:
Gilmore’s framework travels well. Whether in Brazil’s urban favelas, South Africa’s townships, or Australia’s Indigenous communities, we see the same pattern: prisons and carceral infrastructures function as fixes for capitalist crises and as racialized technologies of abandonment and control. The U.S. is just the most extreme and paradigmatic case.

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Do you want me to map these global examples explicitly back to Gilmore’s “surpluses” framework (finance, labor, land, state capacity), so it mirrors her California analysis point for point?

You said:

Yes

ChatGPT said:

Great — let’s map the global cases explicitly back onto Gilmore’s four surpluses (finance capital, labor, land, state capacity), so you can see how her California analysis resonates elsewhere:

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1. United Kingdom (post-1980s)

• Surplus labor: Deindustrialization left hundreds of thousands unemployed, especially in the North/Midlands. Prisons absorbed part of this “redundant” working class, disproportionately Black and working-class men.

• Surplus land: Deindustrialized and rural areas were repurposed for prison building, presented as regional economic “revitalization.”

• Surplus finance capital: Private contractors and the growing prison-industrial complex (e.g., Serco, G4S) found profitable outlets in prison expansion and outsourcing of services.

• Surplus state capacity: With policing expanded under “law and order” regimes, the state redirected bureaucratic resources from welfare to incarceration.

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2. Brazil

• Surplus labor: Neoliberal reforms + informalization of work produced massive underemployment. Carceral expansion managed populations excluded from the formal economy.

• Surplus land: Peripheral urban zones and rural areas were used for new prison complexes.

• Surplus finance capital: Prison construction and services became an outlet for investment; public-private partnerships proliferated.

• Surplus state capacity: The state expanded punitive apparatuses while retrenching social services, channeling resources into policing and imprisonment.

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3. South Africa (post-apartheid)

• Surplus labor: Transition to neoliberal capitalism left many Black South Africans unemployed. Prisons became holding zones for this “excess” population.

• Surplus land: Rural or marginal spaces, including townships and areas with little economic investment, were targeted for prison construction.

• Surplus finance capital: International prison firms (like G4S) entered, creating new profit streams.

• Surplus state capacity: The democratic state inherited and expanded coercive infrastructures from apartheid, diverting state resources to punitive rather than redistributive policies.

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4. Australia

• Surplus labor: Remote areas suffering economic decline were promised jobs through prison construction.

• Surplus land: Prisons were sited in rural/remote areas on “surplus” land, often overlapping with colonially dispossessed Indigenous territory.

• Surplus finance capital: Prison expansion became a profitable industry for construction firms and private operators.

• Surplus state capacity: The state concentrated its administrative and coercive power on policing Indigenous Australians, while withdrawing from welfare and services.

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5. European Union (migration & austerity context)

• Surplus labor: Migrants, refugees, and unemployed citizens were treated as excess labor populations; rather than being integrated, they were warehoused in camps and detention centers.

• Surplus land: Abandoned or marginal territories (e.g., old military bases, rural peripheries) became sites for migrant detention centers.

• Surplus finance capital: Security firms, construction companies, and NGOs profited from EU detention projects and Frontex contracts.

• Surplus state capacity: In austerity-hit states (e.g., Greece), welfare was gutted, while bureaucratic capacity was redirected toward migration control and securitization.

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📌 Synthesis:
Across these cases, we see Gilmore’s surpluses framework generalize well:

• Labor: Carceral systems manage populations rendered “superfluous” to the economy.

• Land: Prisons occupy and “use up” marginal or devalued territories.

• Finance capital: Investment finds outlets in carceral infrastructure and services.

• State capacity: The state’s organizational power shifts from welfare/provision to coercion/containment.

This comparative mapping shows that Gilmore’s insight—that prisons are not about crime but about managing crises of accumulation and abandonment—has global resonance, even if the racial and historical specificities differ.