Vending and Connectivity (1/2): How FreeCap is Untangling the Web in Prison Vending
FreeCap Financial is a research company that provides investors and money managers with intelligent, social-justice oriented data to equip individuals and collectives with the tools they need to enact positive change in this world. We capture information from a wide variety of sources and translate it into investible insights for financial advisors, asset managers, and institutional investors so they can more easily align their portfolios with their clients’ values.
Our first product, the Criminal Justice Scorecard, helps investors gain a deeper understanding of the social and environmental risks associated with the criminal justice system and take steps to mitigate them. The scorecard provides a comprehensive look at companies and their positioning within the criminal justice space and the prison industrial complex more specifically.
The FreeCap team has learned a lot through the development and production of the Criminal Justice Scorecard. One of those learnings is heavily centered on the depth and complexity of connectivity in the space of prison vending relationships independently as well as in relation to the larger criminal justice space.
The overall concept of vending relationships is central to how the U.S. economy and the prison industrial complex operates. At some point and time in every organization, whether they be public or private, there will be financial, service or supply needs that they can’t fill for themselves. Transactions between enterprises and entities to fulfill these needs at scale make up an overwhelming portion of economic activity in the country.
American capitalism is unique in the depth and complexity of the relationship between private enterprises and public sector entities. There are numerous types of relationships that exist between enterprises and entities. One of the clearest, though, lives within the vending (buyer-supplier) space.
In this vending space, enterprises and entities facing service or supply gaps take on the role of “buyers” and deepen their level of connectivity in the macrolevel financial and economic sectors. Buying organizations go out into the marketplace in searching for “supplier” enterprises and/or entities that can help them fill their operating or growth needs. At a high-level, it’s an extremely basic concept but one that becomes incredibly complex at the scale of a country like the U.S.
This particular vending relationship space is vast and one of the most unique and relevant segments, in terms of connectivity centers around prisons and criminal justice. It’s a space that FreeCap has devoted a lot of its time and resources into better understanding and sharing with customers and the world. Analysis of America’s prison vending relationships provides important insights for those trying to discover connectivity.
For those of us at FreeCap, we hope the analysis and its insights can drive the discovery of understanding and sustainability in criminal justice and our economy at large. Understanding these connections, and these intricacies can better help individuals make better decisions with how they invest their money. Our next blog post will look at a high-level breakdown of the things provided by private enterprises in the prison vending space.
Written by Jordan Brown
Jordan Brown is the Data Science Lead at FreeCap Financial and Founder of Alluvium Insights. He holds a B.A. in Political Science from the University of Notre Dame and a M.A in Education Policy from George Washington University. Throughout his career, Jordan has managed and conducted rigorous research analyses and developed visualizations/dashboards for a wide range of clients ranging from federal government departments to small nonprofits. He is a native of Laplace, Louisiana, and is currently based out of Washington D.C.