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The US justice system is sad... ending private prisons would probably help fixing it.
by Rackedup 4y ago
The US justice system is sad... ending private prisons would probably help fixing it.
- ars 4y agoPeople always like to blame private prisons for everything, despite them being a tiny fraction of prisons (8%). It helps no one to blame the wrong thing.
- eweise 4y agoIn this case, how are private prisons not to blame?
- Broken_Hippo 4y agoThe article was literally about judges getting kickbacks from private prisons. They aren't blaming the wrong thing: This wouldn't have happened without the private prisons existing (and even more issues solved for taking away other financial incentives in the system).
- thelock85 4y agoWrong thing or just not the main thing? The prevalence of private prisons is unrelated to whether or not they should be closed, never mind that they still operate within and are funded by a public system.
- Rackedup 4y agoEither way, what would you blame?
- kingkawn 4y agoPrivate prisons are an atrocity. That they are 8% does not change that the entirety of that 8% is deriving profit from the suffering of others. Acting like this corrupt practice is an unimportant part of this story is absurd and betrays a deep ignorance of the US prison system’s many different ugly faces.
- kiba 4y agoif there were less prisons in the first place, then there would be less people ending up in jail.
- pyuser583 4y agoOr there would be extreme overcrowding. You can pack quite a few people into an extremely small place when you aren’t concerned about their well-being.
- Rackedup 4y agoThey already aren't very concerned about their well-being... not sure how it would make it any worst...
- pyuser583 4y agoWhere I live there’s basically a two tier system for long term prisoners. Either prisoners are sent to a prison for long term prisoners, or to jail for “short term” prisoners. But many “short term” prisoners include those serving consecutive short term sentences that add up to a lot of time. Jails are the correctional equivalent of a bus station. Not the sort of place you want to live in. Jails aren’t long term facilities, but some prisoners can spend over a decade in them. Even worse than jails is being sent out of state. The state pays out of state prisons and jails to incarcerate our felons. These prisons are money making machines for the states that offer them. The wide variety of conditions we have now prove pretty clearly things could be much better or worse.
- ada1981 4y ago
- adgjlsfhk1 4y agoEven though they're only 8%, their existence creates strong lobbying groups for longer incarceration.
- trhway 4y ago> despite them being a tiny fraction of prisons (8%) to start filling those 8% you have to over-fill the 92% of the government ones. Giving the guaranteed minimum vacancy clauses in the private prison contracts, state officials have to send people there, and they wouldn't look good doing that while having free space in state prisons, so they need to keep the state prisons overfilled.
- Rackedup 4y agostart getting rid of the worst part, and work your way up from there.
- optionalsquid 4y agoAbolishing slavery would probably also help in that regard.