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It's intentionally misleading to use revenue in this headline. People will read that headline and come away with the impression that private prisons are making
by parineum 2mo ago
It's intentionally misleading to use revenue in this headline.
People will read that headline and come away with the impression that private prisons are making billions. They're expenses are most likely scaling with their revenue.
If your concern is that private prisons exist or that detention is climbing, the dollar figure is secondary to other, better measures. Instead, revenue is (mis)used to give yhe impression that people are getting rich off of this and, while that may be true, the relevant number is the increase in income, not revenue.
In short, NPR isn't above clickbait that's biased towards their audiences.
- woodruffw 2mo agoIndependent reporting on the treatment of detained immigrants might reasonably lead one to believe that expenses are not scaling linearly with increased revenue.
- parineum 2mo agoWhich would be a great thing to write about.
- diabllicseagull 2mo agoIt's a useful figure in that it shows how fast an industry, which shouldn't exist, grows: "Swindle said that CoreCivic's total revenue went up by just over 27% this spring compared to the same quarter last year, for a total of $684.9 million."
- runako 2mo agoNo. Revenue is a generally accepted business metric. It is normal to discuss revenue without being also compelled to discuss profits at the same time. You don't have to like the common way of discussing business, but that doesn't change this. > give yhe impression that people are getting rich off of this CoreCivic is a public company, so we can see that the C-suite each earns over $1m annually in cash compensation. the Chief Development officer earns more cash compensation than the person holding the same title at Hilton, a company worth over 20x more. Then, we can look at the insider roster to see that the CEO currently holds over $10 million in stock, the heads of HR and corrections each hold over $5 million, etc. People should get the impression that people are getting rich off this because people are getting rich off this.
- forgetfreeman 2mo agoThis "well actually" feels like it's in the same vein as tobacco companies funding cancer research. 30 seconds with Google shows that CoreCivic's Q1 earnings for 2026 are ~%50 higher than earnings reported for Q1 from last year. So yeah, they're getting rich off this.
- parineum 2mo agoMy point isn't that they aren't making money. My point is that they aren't making 1.4 billion dollars on it. It's not quite as impressive to say they've increased their profits 60m which gives a much different impression.
- moate 2mo ago>> They're expenses are most likely scaling with their revenue A unique phenomenon that only exists in this industry and is clearly the reason you feel opposed to people performing the same sort of analysis they would on other businesses... Also, nobody would assume a company with 1.4B in rev is "making billions" as that would be impossible based on their revenue being less than 2 billion.
- parineum 2mo ago> A unique phenomenon that only exists in this industry and is clearly the reason you feel opposed to people performing the same sort of analysis they would on other businesses... I'm generally opposed to this metric as used in this headline. I'm not sure what positions you're assuming I hold but there is some misunderstanding because I don't really understand your comment. > Also, nobody would assume a company with 1.4B in rev is "making billions" as that would be impossible based on their revenue being less than 2 billion. Unless they assume they operate for more than 1 year.