Human lives are nothing but a form of currency to the oligarchs.
Prisons should never be for profit.
this post was submitted on 24 Jan 2025
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On the subject of prison, how can a prison be privatized. I dont live in the U.S and never heard of private prisons. Are there other countries that do this and if so, how many
How does a prison even make many?
They bill the state and use the prisoners for labor. Its a us thing that's disgusting, vile and very profitable.
I think i am asking an obvious question how is this different from government prisons. I assume less regulations and more slave labor but what does the government get out of this deal
It's (theoretically) cheaper to run, because every private company is totally more efficient than a government agency and therefore better (this idea is absolutely idiotic, but people believe it). Additionally, it often is cheaper because the quality of care is so inhumanely low, and, again, the prisoners are used as slaves.
But even if it's not, it gets politicians funds for re-election as well as other benefits, so whether or not it's good deal for the government is irrelevant.
It also creates a middleman. Nobody can blame the state for treating prisoners/slaves like shit, "No no it was them doing the horrible things!" so the politicians don't take any blame.
Same deal with other government contractors. And if one fucks up too bad it just gets resolved/renamed and then it's business as usual.
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It’s presented as a lot more innocent than that. Just like contracting a cleaning service or a company to run passenger rail, you contract with someone to run prisons. The government doesn’t have to focus on that, it can be smaller, and “private companies can run it more efficiently”.
I don’t think my state does that
The guards and the regulation are federally provided/mandated! The building itself is really the privately owned part! The owning corpo receives payment per housed inmate!
The idea was that the free market is going to find cheaper ways for inhabitation, but it really doesn’t! On average privately housed inmates cost just as much, or marginally more than the federally housed ones! And some pr. prisons have contracts with the state that x% of beds have to be filled or must be paid large, and I mean fuckin large fines; the pr. prisons that don’t have such contracts are blackmailing the state with such threats on a semi-regular basis! In result of private prisons non-violent well behaved criminals are rarely ever released parole!
If you replace the word prison with forced labor camp it makes more sense. Other countries with forced labor of prisoners include Russia, North Korea, and China. In the US they use the 13th amendment to prevent organization of prison labor and defense of their basic human rights.
And the thousands of corporations benefiting from both slave labor costs and it's effect on reducing organized labor's bargaining position
Use the prisoners for slave labor. That's capitalism for you.
We don’t get the weapons contracts, homie.
We don’t get the cheap labor, homie.
WE ARE CHEAP LABOR HOMIE
-Immortal Technique
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Slaves. The private prison is demanding that the government give them 300 slaves.
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Then let it fucking close. What kind of threat is that? Good, fucking close it. Is the implication that the other prisoners will just end up on the street doing crimes again? No, they will get transferred, because that’s how the prison system works. If there’s not enough prisoners to fill a fucking prison then close it. That private company that was built on imprisonment can EAT THAT FUCKING COST. Man fuck everything about this.
I once went to object at some kind of public hearing the local government was doing about going forward with building a new prison. They were trying to make the argument that it's not up to them how many people are imprisoned, they just have a legal obligation to imprison people the courts tell them to. I wasn't sure to what extent that was really true, but I'm guessing the first thing that would happen is overcrowded inhumane conditions rather than freeing people.
That’s the thing, right. That’s completely logical in a vacuum. But once you realize there are perverse systemic incentives to lock people up in a country like the US, that argument completely falls apart.
“Haha those americans are so funny! It’s illegal to walk a pig on a paved road after sunset in this small town! Isn’t that random?” No, it’s not random at all. There’s a reason these laws were ever put on the books.
My part of the world is no better than the US regarding mistreatment of undeserving people but at least nobody pretends we live and breathe unparalleled liberty.
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'abolished slavery' my ass
Well they specifically didn't for inmates
Slavery is legal as a punishment, and America has 25% of the world’s incarcerated people.
We used to have laws requiring products made by American slaves to state such, but those have since been gutted or loopholed through 3rd parties.
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The US is a giant slave pen ran by half a dozen megacorps.
Thats all it's been since Reagan.
It was like that before too, theres just less content about it.
Always remember, kids: Slavery is still legal in the United States; why do you think they have 25% of the entire world’s incarcerated people there?
For cheap, slave labor.
Isn’t America great?!
Despite making up only 2.4% of the world's population, Americans commit 25% of the crimes
That would be funny, but I actually just read how some EU countries have more “admissions” than America. They just don’t lock them away in labor camps.
It was actually on the AI Overview, so take that with a grain of salt lol
Ive tried using the references in those AI responses, and they almost never have any relevant information. I dont understand the whole point of having a computer summarize something in its own words. I like the human words I guess.
Oh, I love this comment!
PLEASE put state or federal officials in the beds
In developing world: our prison is so full and most are just minor, non-violent crime, we should decriminalise those offence so prison can free up spaces and use those budget for infrastructure that need the money.
Merica:
This is what happen if you have for-profit, private prison.
Don't worry, it's not a dictatorship. After all, every 4 years you get to choose between keeping this prison open and opening new ones.
I guess they are demanding more criminals. More CEO killers, possibly.
CEOs? Cut out the middle man!
Millennials are ruining our prison system!!!
Not if we make the things they do illegal... Like watching too much book or maybe talking to others during mealtimes? Him?
This is absolutely disgusting. Does Keegan Stephan, who has two first names as a name, work for any papers?
When the prison industry is threatened by plummeting incarceration rates because we're not sending every kid with a dime bag of weed to prison for life...we'll surely see some prison system reforms, right?
Who am I kidding. If the prison industrial complex is threatened and they're not making up the shortfall by imprisoning "deportees" in private federal prisons, we're going to swiftly see marijuana back on schedule 1 with a new reefer madness bullshit propaganda. Or they'll find something new to bolster mass incarceration.
The USA just wouldn't be the same without slave labor! Who'll fight our fires in California? Fuck me, I just searched for US prison produced goods and services and found https://www.unicor.gov/
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LOOMING CRISIS IN CORRECTIONAL FACILITIES THREATENS THE BALANCE OF PENITENTIARY SYSTEM
Supply side economics at its most appalling.
Economies of scale work for prisons as well.
And remember, the criminals used to be us...normal people like you and I until the one day when they screw up noticeably.
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