10 ms·

> a response to a spike in crime that started in the 1960s Care to back that statement up? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_Drugs https://en.wikipedia.org

> a response to a spike in crime that started in the 1960s Care to back that statement up? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_Drugs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_Drugs Crime and punishment is a for profit business. If you don't believe that... well then I don't know what to tell you. The War on Drugs, DRAMATICALLY increased the prison populations in the United States. States that saw an explosion in their prison populations and that we strapped for cash / didn't care to deal with the incarcerated (particularly southern states) turned to private industry to house their incarcerated populations. > Money from where? What money? Taxpayer money. And once private business get's a taste of blood, and politicians in the US get that first taste of kickback money, we all know where it goes from there. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kids_for_cash_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kids_for_cash_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prison%E2%80%93industrial_complex https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prison%E2%80%93industrial_comp... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School-to-prison_pipeline https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School-to-prison_pipeline If WE as a society decide that WE want to sent people to prison, WE should have to deal with the consequences of it. WE should be responsible for the incarcerated. WE should be who those prisoners are reporting to. After all, WE should have reform as the end goal. We should't have some black box prison company as the intermediary who's best interest it is to hush, abuse and prevent reform of prisoners in order to keep them coming and their pockets fat.

rayiner 10y ago
The spike in crime started in the 1960s. Incarceration rate started ramping up in the 1970s. Drug war started ramping up in the 1980s. Private prisons started ramping up in the 1990s. https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http%3A%2F%2Fcdn.factcheck.org%2FUploadedFiles%2F2016%2F07%2FViolent-Crime-Rate-Chart1.png&imgrefurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.factcheck.org%2F2016%2F07%2Fdueling-claims-on-crime-trend%2F&docid=J6YtPeKXWOex6M&tbnid=AQb3aEIt35hq2M%3A&w=500&h=315&hl=en-us&client=safari&bih=628&biw=414&ved=0ahUKEwjXiKrZhczOAhVJGx4KHcFnAD4QMwhDKBIwEg&iact=mrc&uact=8 https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http%3A%2F%2Fcdn.factch... Your theory of causation (kickbacks from private prison companies cause harsher laws and more incarceration), though popular, doesn't explain the data. If you look at the ordering of events, what makes more sense is actually the opposite causation. Crime started going up in the 1960s due to depopulation of the cities and exporting jobs. Drugs got blamed as the bogeyman, which got the drug war started in the 1970s and 1980s. Fed up with skyrocketing crime, people voted for tough on crime laws (by huge margins and often in public referendums rather than legislation) in the 1970 through 1990s. And the last step in the chain, in the 1990s and 2000s, was private companies springing up to take advantage of the massive growth in need for prisons.
- swyman 10y ago
  Does it need to be the main cause (or even a cause at all) of the initial jump in incarceration rates for private prisons and their lobbying (and incentives in general) to be objectionable? There's a group of relatively influential people and businesses who have a direct economic incentive to prevent the rehabilitation of prisoners and to lobby for harsher penalties across the board. At a systems level, I'd argue that needs fixing.
  - rayiner 10y ago
    I didn't say that private prisons aren't a problem worth fixing. But every time private prisons get trotted out as the explanation for the problems with the justice system, it's yet another lost opportunity to understand the real problems. CCA isn't the problem. They're just opportunists. Part of the real problem is all the parents and teachers shrieking "just say no!" all through the 1980s and 1990s who voted dutifully for three strikes laws, "probation reform," etc. The other part of the problem is Americans: we're the most violent people in the developed world, with crime rates that are, even after decades of decline, several times higher than in Europe.
    - John23832 10y ago
      > CCA isn't the problem. They're just opportunists. I agree totally.
- rlucas 10y ago
  One need not posit a theory of causation here to have a legitimate concern about the role of private industry in influencing the criminal justice complex. In fact, one could take all of rayiner's assertions at face value and still share GP's concerns. There are many many examples where private, for profit industry may not have nefariously instigated some governmental program, but surely fights to expand and continue it. For example, we need not think that WWII was entered at the behest of a nascent aero-defense industry in order to boost revenue, but look what happened. (and ask that lefty Dwight Eisenhower, who coined the very term "military-industrial complex" in a warning speech to the republic as he left office) Similarly, the utter buffoonery of our health care "insurance" industry is directly a consequence of some mid-century tax code finagling which made health "insurance" a deductible pretax employee benefit. Did those who would someday run the "blues" collude to create that system in some plot? No, but once it was well entrenched, the lock-in started with big money and big influence. Did a bunch of far sighted conspirators get together to create the mortgage GSEs so that decades hence they could dole out lucrative sinecures? No, but once in place... etc. The debunking of loosely reasoned talking points is, of course, the brand promise of a rayiner comment, but in this case he goes too far. There most certainly are self-perpetuating loops in government-business symbiote combinations and to deny them is willful blindness.

rayiner 10y ago

The spike in crime started in the 1960s. Incarceration rate started ramping up in the 1970s. Drug war started ramping up in the 1980s. Private prisons started ramping up in the 1990s. https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http%3A%2F%2Fcdn.factcheck.org%2FUploadedFiles%2F2016%2F07%2FViolent-Crime-Rate-Chart1.png&imgrefurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.factcheck.org%2F2016%2F07%2Fdueling-claims-on-crime-trend%2F&docid=J6YtPeKXWOex6M&tbnid=AQb3aEIt35hq2M%3A&w=500&h=315&hl=en-us&client=safari&bih=628&biw=414&ved=0ahUKEwjXiKrZhczOAhVJGx4KHcFnAD4QMwhDKBIwEg&iact=mrc&uact=8 https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http%3A%2F%2Fcdn.factch... Your theory of causation (kickbacks from private prison companies cause harsher laws and more incarceration), though popular, doesn't explain the data. If you look at the ordering of events, what makes more sense is actually the opposite causation. Crime started going up in the 1960s due to depopulation of the cities and exporting jobs. Drugs got blamed as the bogeyman, which got the drug war started in the 1970s and 1980s. Fed up with skyrocketing crime, people voted for tough on crime laws (by huge margins and often in public referendums rather than legislation) in the 1970 through 1990s. And the last step in the chain, in the 1990s and 2000s, was private companies springing up to take advantage of the massive growth in need for prisons.

swyman 10y ago
Does it need to be the main cause (or even a cause at all) of the initial jump in incarceration rates for private prisons and their lobbying (and incentives in general) to be objectionable? There's a group of relatively influential people and businesses who have a direct economic incentive to prevent the rehabilitation of prisoners and to lobby for harsher penalties across the board. At a systems level, I'd argue that needs fixing.
- rayiner 10y ago
  I didn't say that private prisons aren't a problem worth fixing. But every time private prisons get trotted out as the explanation for the problems with the justice system, it's yet another lost opportunity to understand the real problems. CCA isn't the problem. They're just opportunists. Part of the real problem is all the parents and teachers shrieking "just say no!" all through the 1980s and 1990s who voted dutifully for three strikes laws, "probation reform," etc. The other part of the problem is Americans: we're the most violent people in the developed world, with crime rates that are, even after decades of decline, several times higher than in Europe.
  - John23832 10y ago
    > CCA isn't the problem. They're just opportunists. I agree totally.
rlucas 10y ago
One need not posit a theory of causation here to have a legitimate concern about the role of private industry in influencing the criminal justice complex. In fact, one could take all of rayiner's assertions at face value and still share GP's concerns. There are many many examples where private, for profit industry may not have nefariously instigated some governmental program, but surely fights to expand and continue it. For example, we need not think that WWII was entered at the behest of a nascent aero-defense industry in order to boost revenue, but look what happened. (and ask that lefty Dwight Eisenhower, who coined the very term "military-industrial complex" in a warning speech to the republic as he left office) Similarly, the utter buffoonery of our health care "insurance" industry is directly a consequence of some mid-century tax code finagling which made health "insurance" a deductible pretax employee benefit. Did those who would someday run the "blues" collude to create that system in some plot? No, but once it was well entrenched, the lock-in started with big money and big influence. Did a bunch of far sighted conspirators get together to create the mortgage GSEs so that decades hence they could dole out lucrative sinecures? No, but once in place... etc. The debunking of loosely reasoned talking points is, of course, the brand promise of a rayiner comment, but in this case he goes too far. There most certainly are self-perpetuating loops in government-business symbiote combinations and to deny them is willful blindness.