Christian Parenti is an American investigative journalist and author. His books include: Lockdown America: Police and Prisons in the Age of Crisis (2000), a survey of the rise of the prison industrial complex from the Nixon through Reagan Eras and into the present; The Soft Cage: Surveillance in America From Slavery to the War on Terror (2003), a study of surveillance and control in modern society. The Freedom: Shadows and Hallucinations in Occupied Iraq (2004), is an account of the US occupation in Iraq.His most recent book is Tropic Of Chaos: Climate Wars and the New Geography Of Violence (2011), Parenti has also reported from Afghanistan, Iraq, Venezuela, Bolivia, Ivory Coast and China.

Dr Parenti engages in a lively discussion about the rise of Neo Liberalism that replaced Keynesian economics and the relationship to the Prison Industrial Complex