I'm also skeptical of the influence of private prisons on criminal policy (mostly just because voters unfortunately seem to love putting people in prison regard

I'm also skeptical of the influence of private prisons on criminal policy (mostly just because voters unfortunately seem to love putting people in prison regardless, no special lobbying required), but I think there are some interesting correlations at the state level. For example, the 6 states with the lowest incarceration rates (New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Minnesota, Maine) have no private prisons. And 9 out of the 10 states with the highest incarceration rates do have private prisons. - Percent of privately incarcerations: https://www.sentencingproject.org/publications/private-prisons-united-states/ https://www.sentencingproject.org/publications/private-priso... - Incarceration rates by state: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_incarceration_and_correctional_supervision_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_incarce...