politics

Imagine investing in for-profit prisons, as a regular person. You're hoping that society tears itself apart so you can watch line go up. Monstrous indeed.

It's silly because it doesn't matter how bad the punishment is if every criminal from petty to professional thinks "I'll never get caught". They aren't even considering a possibility of failure, and thus the consequences will never be a deterrent to their actions.

Once they get to prison, no amount of human rights abuses is going to magically make them into upstanding citizens. But somehow people think that if prison is a bad place nobody would want to go back. While that's true, it's a naive point of view from people who have never stopped to think about how someone freshly released from jail earns money or pays rent or buys necessities.

If, as a society, we truly care about reducing crime and not just punishing criminals out of a sense of twisted vengeance, we should be prioritizing rehabilitation and reform, rather than letting prisoners who could otherwise be saved languish in a system that seems to be okay with criminal gangs having total control of the social hierarchy on the inside.

You can thank the Prison Industrial Complex for sponsoring the Republican "Tough on Crime" propaganda. Reactionary idiots think there's a one step solution to all of society's ills, and if it doesn't work, it's the other political party that made it fail!

People just think punishing crime more reduces crime more and it’s not (necessarily) correct. And in a democratic system we reward what people think is true over what is true.

This is one of those rare instances that (to them) punishment is openly the point. It doesn't matter that there are ways to save money and increase everyone's quality of life in the process. And it doesn't hurt that an entire industry has grown to steal money from the state to punish these people and a small portion is put back into advertising/lobbying to make sure the cycle continues.

In addition to people somewhat naturally wanting to punish crime, A lot of people like to feel superior to others in any way they can. That way they can be internally excuse their own shortcomings.

Ex: I may be unsuccessful but at least I'm not a druggie, criminal, black, or a heathen. Too many Americans would rather hate and suppress someone in different circumstances rather than help them out.

I'm afraid a lot of people don't even care if it's working - they just think being "though on crime" makes society masculine and cool (and preferably white). They'd vote for it even if they knew it's bad policy.

It's very sad that in the US we have a justice system for protecting the rich and a revenge system for punishing everyone else.

As a former two-time inmate in the Ohio DRC, I can confirm that there is ZERO I'm the way of rehabilitation. 3.5 years total incarceration with nothing to show for it.

Edit: spelling

US prisons are for profit

The US definitely has a large for-profit prison industry but it's still a minority of prisons. About 8%, to be exact.

Of course even the prisons that aren't private entities still use prisoner labor. I think the for profit prison isn't the real problem with the US. Obviously it creates messed up incentives. Private prisons fund special interest groups who for example lobby against federal legalization of marijuana. They know it would reduce the number of prisoners and therefore less reason for them to exist. But in terms of influence, they aren't the largest players.

There's a lot of jobs in prisons, courts, law enforcement, etc. And they all depend on the massive prison industrial complex. So at this point it's hard to decouple because those groups have a lot of influence, even though they aren't private for-profit entities.

The cynic in my believes that the US prison system, the system that imprisons more people both in absolute terms and per capita than almost any country in history - comparable to the USSR during their peak gulag era - is meant to keep down potentially rebellious young men. These are the primary movers of revolts and dissent. Turn them into perpetual criminals so you have justification to lock them away forever.

The passives ones don't end up in prison and are also less likely to revolt, join a radical group, etc.

Your time is up and your parole's begun