This article aims to understand the role of the criminal justice system from the incarceration rates of the past 20 years, interacting economic concept of profit maximization with the criminological discourse of selectivity of the penal system. The discourse transformations in the field of criminal policy, characterized by a constant and strong prosecution, passing "penal welfarism" (correction) the increase in punishment, suffer significant interference from the economic model, in particular modulating the practices of incarceration with private interests, producing a significant increase in incarceration rates, permanent selectivity of action of the penal system and the changes in both the contemporary way of life as the action of the organs and structures of control and criminal justice.
Incarceration; Privatization; Selectivity