> do you think taxpayers would prefer to pay more for prisons just so that companies running private prison don’t make a profit? I think they'd prefer to pay m

> do you think taxpayers would prefer to pay more for prisons just so that companies running private prison don’t make a profit? I think they'd prefer to pay more for prisons that prioritize reducing recidivism over increasing profits. And that is logic that I apply to construction projects, if it was demonstrated that private construction companies were making a profit by building structures that collapsed more often and killed people, ultimately increasing the costs of infrastructure by forcing us to constantly rebuild failing bridges, then I would have a problem with that. That being said, the debate of private/public prisons really misses a fundamental point of how prisons work in America: public prisons are also regularly exploitative, and they also funnel resources/money into private companies and personal/pet projects; resources that would be better spent reducing recidivism rates. Even when private companies are not involved, the State itself has found out that it can exploit prisoners for cheap labor, taxes/fees, federal funding, better census data, and just general political ends. It is inaccurate to frame prison reform as a debate about public vs private prisons, when in reality prison reform is a debate about how even the State prioritizes prisoners as resources over encouraging their rehabilitation. The State often does this to the benefit of private companies and often with permission from a society with regressive and/or uninformed views about the purposes of prison and how our prison system currently functions. In both cases, public and private, reducing costs to the taxpayer means reducing recidivism rates. It is always a costly burden on the taxpayer to imprison someone; it doesn't matter where you put them, all prisons are costly. When we look at profits (both private and State profits), we need to ask if it's good for the incentives of the taxpayer and the incentives of the State/companies to be so misaligned. It is undesirable for either a private company or the State to benefit from someone being in prison when both the taxpayer's wallet and society in general would rather benefit from keeping them out of prison.