The Justice System as Economic Infrastructure: A Comparative Fiscal Analysis of Labour and State Prison Expenditures

This work examines the justice system not as a neutral arbiter of law but as a structurally engineered economic engine. It argues that contemporary legal and penal infrastructures generate revenue, sustain institutional growth, and maintain labor flows through the production, management, and circulation of criminalized bodies. Rather than functioning primarily as a mechanism for public safety, the justice system operates as a self‑reinforcing economic apparatus whose incentives are aligned with expansion, not resolution. The analysis traces how fines, fees, court costs, policing budgets, carceral labor, and privatized service contracts form an interconnected revenue network. These mechanisms disproportionately target marginalized communities, transforming vulnerability into extractable value. The paper situates this dynamic within broader histories of racialized governance, algorithmic risk scoring, and administrative burden, showing how economic incentives shape enforcement patterns, sentencing outcomes, and the everyday experience of criminalization. By reframing the justice system as an economic engine, the work exposes the financial logics embedded in legal decision‑making and highlights how structural incentives undermine equity, accountability, and democratic legitimacy. It calls for a re‑evaluation of justice infrastructures that centers transparency, economic disentanglement, and the dismantling of profit‑driven enforcement architectures.