COMPLEX: A Visual Index of the Immigrant Detention Industry

COMPLEX functions as a broad survey of the vast system of privately operated prisons which incarcerate migrants and refugees under contract with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in the United States. Providing drone images of 34 detention centers across Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico and Texas, this chapter reveals the scale of the private prison industry in the American landscape and presents it as a physical expression of our collective outlook on immigrants and immigration. Working within the legal parameters for the operation of drones, the project COMPLEX functions as a visual survey or typology of detention architecture. The effort capitalizes on the changing nature of geolocation and imaging technology. Sites which have operated beyond public view are increasingly accessible through the use of tools that are both powerful and ubiquitous. In its conclusions, this chapter discusses their enormous implications for journalism, research and activism as such tools were, until recently, only available to state actors.