Private Prisons Love Mass Incarceration Dollars

Locking up our fellow citizens is good for the economy. We're not buying as much stuff as we should because we're being careful with such money as we've got, but fear not, we still pay our taxes and the Prison Industrial Complex prospers on them.

TPMMuckraker

Report: Private Prisons Love Mass Incarceration, And Want Politicians To Love It Too

Private prison companies have helped fuel government policies which lead to an increase in prison population and boost their profits, according to a recent report.

The private prison population has grown 353.7 percent in the past 15 years, according to a study by the Justice Policy Institute. Major private prison companies have an incentive to encourage policies which keep that number on the rise.

"Steady increases in the number of people in private prisons, especially those coming from federally contracted beds, translate into increased revenues for private prison companies," the report says.

"With most states and the federal government operating under record deficits and decreasing budgets, private prison companies have a growing desire to establish influential connections with policymakers, with two goals: pitching private prisons as a lower cost alternative to building or maintahttp://www2.blogger.com/img/blank.gifining state facilities; and fighting policies that might reduce the use of incarceration," the report states.

The report also points to the revolving door between the private prison companies and the government agencies that have a say in their spending.

Naturally we're not going to buy prison sentences for ourselves, and they make lousy gifts, but we seem to be quite happy buying them for 'other' people such as minorities and minor drug offenders. Don't get me wrong - I'm all for incarceration of real criminals and am happy to pay for locking up murderers, rapists, arsonists, and especially Wall St. and corporate executive thieves and their political enablers. We don't lock up near enough of the latter, and they're too in cahoots with private jailers to go to private prisons so they should go to government-run ones. Gitmo is very nice for that, and when it gets too overcrowded maybe we can make a deal with the Frogs or their successors and lease the Îles du Salut. Even more of a tropical paradise for our finest class of criminals!