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The US Federal Government spends about 8.5 billion dollars on prisons (which are all government-owned as far as I know), and about half of prisoners are there o
by nickff 10y ago
The US Federal Government spends about 8.5 billion dollars on prisons (which are all government-owned as far as I know), and about half of prisoners are there on drug-related offences, though many of those have committed other offences as well. A much smaller percentage of state prisoners are there on drug offences (somewhere on the order of 10%), but many states have private prisons. I am not sure that this amount of money would be a meaningful contribution to healthcare.
Please also remember that some of the strongest advocates for greater incarceration rates are the prison staff unions, which have very strong lobbying groups, and are much larger than any of the private prison corporations. The unions can monopolize the state supply of jailers, whereas the prison companies cannot.
- dragonwriter 10y ago> The US Federal Government spends about 8.5 billion dollars on prisons (which are all government-owned as far as I know), They are not; the justice department only just announced that it would begin phasing out the use of private prisons.
- Jarwain 10y agoRoughly 6% of state prisoners are in private prisons, and 16% of federal prisoners. All in all, private prisons are a minority compared to public. Phasing out the use of private prisons is a step in the right direction, but the private companies that service prisons hemorrhage money. https://www.aclu.org/issues/mass-incarceration/privatization-criminal-justice/private-prisons https://www.aclu.org/issues/mass-incarceration/privatization...