There is extremely significant unemployment in the US as well. It's just not counted. The number of people in US prisons alone adds about 2% to the total unempl

There is extremely significant unemployment in the US as well. It's just not counted. The number of people in US prisons alone adds about 2% to the total unemployment rate. And abstracting a little from the endless and pointless arguments about whether work should be funded by taxation or by sales - and the correct answer there is it depends - imprisonment not alone removes productive people from society, but also remove other productive people to guard them. But of course, if you have private prisons, then the objective will always be to increase sales. For the same reason, paying surgeons by the operation is also a terrible idea.