3 ms·
>what good does it really do to prevent him from being able to function on the outside? From whose perspective? Part of the problem is that some powerful grou
by tiedieconderoga 3y ago
>what good does it really do to prevent him from being able to function on the outside?
From whose perspective?
Part of the problem is that some powerful groups are incentived to keep people coming back to prison. Private prisons reap profits, politicians get an easy way to drive fear in their constituents, telcos can charge an arm and a leg for phone calls, commissaries clean up by charging exorbitant prices for toothpaste and ramen, etc.
Until we start connecting positive outcomes for those groups to positive outcomes for the prisoners, it'll always be an uphill battle.
As Upton Sinclair used to say, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it."
- masklinn 3y agoKeeping people in prison forever is also a very “law and order” position which plays well with certain groups, and is very easy to sell: you don’t need any sort of nuance, you don’t face empathetic conflicts, etc…
- iamthirsty 3y agoPrivate prisons comprising a much smaller percentage of inmates than people realize.[0] [0]:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_States#/media/File:Adult_incarceration_statistics_for_the_USA._Timeline.gif https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_St...
- ROTMetro 3y agoNow do private companies providing the phone call service. Now do commissary. Now the computers where you pay per minute to write and read emails. Now do UNICOR (like forced labor for McDonalds Corporation who has UNICOR do the CAD work for their franchise store remodels all the way to CAD work being done on the new World Trade Center).
- iamthirsty 3y agoI've done that research, and companies like JPay have incredible monopolies, and make a good amount of money. But that isn't what people refer to, and not the point I made. The common misconception is that private prisons themselves are the issues. Sure, the ancillaries are terrible, but relatively small by comparison. Sure, the government isn't providing those services, so private companies stepped in and monopolized. Regardless, they are providing a service for money. Not as shocking and horrible as it's made out to be.
- avgcorrection 3y agoTurns out that every problem can be solved with one more level of indirection also works for privatization.