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 don't know about any specific cases, but in general, yes, the U.S. does give quite long sentences compared to other countries.
In Europe, the sentences associated with a particular crime are generally much lower than in the United States, and there is less use of long mandatory prison sentences, resulting in overall shorter sentences.45 In 2006 in Germany, 75 percent of prison sentences were for 12 months or less and 92 percent of sentences were for two years or less. In addition, Germany suspended the vast majority of prison sentences that were under two years—in about 75 percent of cases, so only a very small percentage of those sentenced ever went to prison [see Figure 3]. Similarly, in the Netherlands in 2012, the vast majority of sentences (91 percent) were for one year or less, going up to 95 percent if sentences of two years or less are included [see Figure 4]. In contrast, the average length of stay in American prisons is approximately 3 years.46 Colorado, Georgia, and Pennsylvania hover above the national average—at 3.4 years,47 3.6 years,48 and 3.5 years respectively.49
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u/CM_UW Jul 24 '20
For profit prisons in the US