Well for-profit prisons have been the target of pop culture for the last couple of years (e.g. John Oliver did a segment on them, Orange is the New Black, etc).

Well for-profit prisons have been the target of pop culture for the last couple of years (e.g. John Oliver did a segment on them, Orange is the New Black, etc). People incorrectly assumed that since they were bad that it meant the public ones were somehow better (standard good vs evil thinking that plagues political discourse in the US).