Crime sells, but who benefits?

In the book, it is argued that crime is popular in the media because it sells.

That is, corporations that own the media benefit from covering it, and covering it in a certain way.

That's pretty obvious.

But who else benefits from the American situation where crime has fallen to historic lows and yet we lead the world in incareration, depriving more citizens of their freedom than any other country?

In The Perpetual Prisoner Machine: How America Profits from Crime, by Joel Dyer, it is argued that large corporations benefit enormously from our huge prison system.

Think about this issue when you consider how the mainstream media are owned by large corporations. Do they cover crime so frequently because they (and other large corporations they are linked to) literally get richer from it? If so, what are the implications for justice?

http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/biblio?show=TRADE%20PAPER:NEW:0813338700:18.00