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Prisons are a for-profit industry, and filling prisons with people gets votes. There is absolutely no way that the DOJ is thinking, “I’d like to send these peop
by braythwayt 10y ago
Prisons are a for-profit industry, and filling prisons with people gets votes. There is absolutely no way that the DOJ is thinking, “I’d like to send these people to jail, but alas, there are aren’t enough jail cells.”
The sad answer is simply that prisons are a kind of security theatre. For that theatre to work, you have to appear to be imprisoning people that voters emotionally identify as threats,
Locking up street criminals, people of colour, and so forth fits in a world where the media and ruling politicians demonize them at every turn.
Locking up business executives doesn’t.
- gmarx 10y agoYes, security theater...except coincidentally as we in the US massively ramped up our rate of imprisonment. our crime rate went drastically down. For those who don't remember the 70s and 80s it is understandable to wonder why so many people are in jail when there is so little crime. Oddly, removing criminals from society lowers crime in society
- braythwayt 10y agoI do remember the 70s and 80s, and I also bothered to take enough of an interest in criminal justice to know that crime subsequently decreased in both the US and in Canada, without the rampant increase in incarceration in Canada, or anywhere else. Oddly, repeating the sound-bites issued by "law and order" politicians does not magically persuade those of us who live outside of the conservative talk radio bubble.