The “too-big-to-fail” bank Wells Fargo received a $37 billion bailout from the government after playing a major role in sparking the 2008 collapse of the housing market. Now the bank is bigger than ever and investing heavily in one of the country’s fastest-growing industries — for-profit prisons.

From Salon:

Wells Fargo has been busy expanding its stake in the GEO Group, the second largest private jailer in America. At the end of 2011, Wells Fargo was the company’s second-largest investor, holding 4.3 million shares valued at more than $72 million. By March 2012, its stake had grown to more than 4.4 million shares worth $86.7 million.

Unfortunately, it’s a safe investment. While a 50 percent growth in the number of human beings our society cages in rape factories may sound impressive – or perhaps the word is “revolting” – a study released last year by the Justice Policy Institute found that the private prison industry grew by more than 350 percent over the last decade and a half. While other industries of course benefit from state-granted privileges, companies like GEO profit by the state literally kidnapping and handing them clientèle, particularly as of late about-to-be-deported immigrants, of which President Barack Obama has ensured there is a steady, record-breaking supply.

It’s a win-win situation for Wells Fargo, which apparently has realized that housing for prisoners is a much less risky business than housing for free people.

The Salon story calls to mind the award-winning movie The Graduate, in which Dustin Hoffman’s character, a young college grad, is pulled aside and given career advice from a friend of his father’s: “I just want to say one word to you, just one word, are you listening? Plastics.” If The Graduate were remade now, the magic word might be prisons.