President Obama to Pardon/Commute "Hundreds, Perhaps Thousands" of Nonviolent Drug Offenders

Not meaningless to those who get out, or their families.

 

I certainly don't care for private prisons, but I've seen quite a few people who spout that somehow that they are responsible for a lot of the tough on crime laws through lobbying, and that's just not true - the Girl Scouts have more influence on our political system than private prisons. If you want an actual lobby that encourages mass incarceration, look at prison guard unions.

 

In a recent election cycle, the California Prison Guards Union was the single biggest contributor to campaigns in that state.

 

Wait - how are you determining how effective the private prisons' lobbying system is?

That said, I'm sure prison guard unions are involved too. But its messed up system all around - prisons shouldn't exist for profit in general. It creates warped incentives, just like a for-profit police department would.

 

This is great news. I don't care if it is calculated PR. It is the right thing to do, no matter the motive.

 

In the last 6 years, the DoJ has prosecuted nonviolent drug offenders more heavily than the previous admin.

No doubt there are those who will get relief from this but it's like what others have said, a small gesture that doesn't overturn or address a root cause that affects hundreds of thousands of people, not just "perhaps thousands".

Typical partisan debate bait.

 

In those days, I used to vote, but my experience with the system is why I no longer vote.

 

Private prison lobbies aren't fully responsible for all the tough-on-crime legislation, but they are certainly in Washington lobbying on these issues. It was the private prison lobby in Arizona that got the papers please law passed. That law was written by the private prison lobby to line the pockets of the prison shareholders. The very fact that we have private prisons proves how powerful that lobby is. There is no economic or societal reason to have private, for-profit prisons, but we have them anyway. Do not underestimate the power of these scumbags.

And I would think the prison guard lobby would be diametrically opposed to the private prisons. One of the main ways that private prisons make money (besides refusing to take the worst offenders) is by hiring fewer prison guards per 100 prisoners. Not only are there fewer jobs, but the jobs are more dangerous.

 

The largest private prison company in the United States spent around $17 million total in lobbying since 2004, and hasn't spent more than $1.5 million a year since 2008.

That is so tiny as to be basically irrelevant. So, private prisons are a tiny minority of the general prison populace, they don't spend much money, and they don't exactly have a constituency willing to get out there and support them in particular. Textbook example of a weak lobby.

 

Then explain how we made the idiotic decision to privatize prisons if the private prison lobby is weaker than the girl scouts. It doesn't make sense.

 

If something is consider'd no longer illegal by the population, government, why should people stay in jail for it? There's absolutely no reason.

Unless, of course there was violence involved, which is completely seperate situation.

 

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/20...-in-51-billion-for-immigrant-detention-alone/

 

Except you're equating dollars to some absolute level of influence. Who's opposing this movement and what kind of money do they have? If you're the pro-life lobby, $1 billion is going to be less effective against $1 billion from a pro-choice lobby than tens of millions from a private prison lobby will be when facing... no one. It's an easy policy to push because it's not going to have a lot of opposition and it's not likely to get a politician in trouble. Thus, it will require less money to get people on board.

 

Because the idea is that a private prison could be run more cheaply and would be able to implement various reforms faster, just like decentralization initiatives? It's not like private prisons are anywhere near a majority of prisons out there - they're an incredibly small minority.

And I trust ThinkProgress as much as I trust Breibart or the World Net Daily, the AP article that they cite to substantiate their $45 million claim is a dead link, and they also mentions that CCA spends $900,000 per year, which over a decade comes closer to my estimate than theirs.

 

The results of the lobbying speak for themselves...