http://hiphopandpolitics.com/2013/04/24/jailhouse-roc-the-facts-about-hip-hop-and-prison-for-profit/ Interesting. Rocket River
This is why drugs won't be legalized. Politicians will spin it and say it's about morality or whatever when in fact, as always, it's about money and protecting the system around which the money flow is built.
Remove drug offenses. . . just the drug users. . . and maintaining a 90% occupancy rate would be d*mn near impossible Rocket River Smaller Prisons???? NEVER!!
I'm skeptical. I do believe that they want occupancy assurances because the private prisons are paid per inmate. But, the language is probably only a profit assurance -- keep at least 90% or else pay for the difference. For the state doing business with them, it's probably still cheaper to not incarcerate people. They pay the same whether that incremental person in imprisoned or not, but not imprisoning him still saves court costs and other variable costs for arresting and processing them. So, I don't think the state has a real incentive to needlessly imprison people -- well, no moreso than they did with state prisons -- though the disincentive might not be as great as it had been. And, the guarantee is probably only effective for a certain number of years, to give investors enough time to recoup the capital costs. Maybe 10 years? Not great, but not forever. Then they can move the baseline. Don't get me wrong, though, I think a private prison industry is a very bad idea and will have lots of unintended consequences that will hurt the common good. But, I don't think there's some grand conspiracy to propagandize, legislate, police, prosecute and imprison in a way that maximize the earnings of the prison industry. That's too tin-foil-hat for me. I think we do great evil in all things for impure motives, but they aren't nearly so organized. Media companies will sell what sells, legislators want to be elected, voters are afraid, policemen want to make their numbers, courts are plain dysfunctional, and prisons want to minimize costs (and now, maximize profits).
Everything is a Tin-Foil-Hat until its not. <iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/uYbLNGnVccA" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> Let me guess. . this is an 'isolated incident' Rocket River