> However I do want to note that in general these things do have real concrete negative impacts on the bottomline of the organization.

Not true. Sometimes, things that have concrete negative impacts can BENEFIT organizations.

U.S. prisons are just one of many such examples of this. A concrete positive impact would be lower incarceration and re-offending rates. American prisons have the exact opposite effect. This leads to lots of "customers" in the form of prisoners and victims seeking a more abstract "sense of justice".

The American prison system is probably not the only industry with that kind of business model. There are, no doubt, many contexts where a "concrete negative impact" can be very good for the bottomline. It's also an important lesson about making money in general. It's not about creating value. It's about making others pay for your actions regardless of whether or not said actions are "positive".