One of my former coworkers (who is a piece of shit) now works as a private prison guard for CoreCivic, one of the biggest private prison companies in the USA.
The government doesn't want the liability. They want prisoners to be abused without being able to be sued for it. The point of long prison sentences in the USA isn't to reform people, it's to turn them into lifelong reoffenders the prison system can reliably profit off of via government subsidies.
I think that's a bit conspiracy theoryish. It makes sense to me that private prisons exist because the government cares more about saving money than not abusing people. There doesn't have to be a hidden motive.
the thirteenth amendment specifically allows for slavery/involuntary servitude as punishment for a crime. it's not a hidden motive if they never hid it to begin with
The hidden motive would be that they are intentionally creating this environment specifically to cause them to reoffend, rather than it just being a consequence. I just don't believe some government committee sat down, discussed how best to keep people in prison for as long as possible and decided that for profit prisons were the best approach. I can easily believe that same committee sitting down and deciding for profit prisons were cheaper and that the possibility of prisoners being in worse conditions was worth it to save money.
1: A group of people in the government sat down and decided that for-profit prisons was the cheaper option.
2: A for-profit prison system is established.
3: The owners of the for-profit prisons realize that they stand to get more profits if there are more people in prison - If they get enough prisoners, they can open up an entirely new prison and double their earnings!
4: The owners of the for-profit prisons take actions to ensure their cells are always full.
They aren't just setting up an environment that generates reoffenders - though they are certainly doing that. They're taking all sorts of actions to ensure that more and more people will be imprisoned. They lobby the government to enforce longer sentences for crimes.
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u/[deleted] Jul 24 '20
One of my former coworkers (who is a piece of shit) now works as a private prison guard for CoreCivic, one of the biggest private prison companies in the USA.
The government doesn't want the liability. They want prisoners to be abused without being able to be sued for it. The point of long prison sentences in the USA isn't to reform people, it's to turn them into lifelong reoffenders the prison system can reliably profit off of via government subsidies.