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Comment by fennecfoxen | Hacker News Reader

I guess this is nice, but I think the question of "private prisons" can become a bit of a distraction. Maybe they make things worse, but they're not the root of our problems. Consider that California state prisons were trying to save money by illegally sterilizing inmates as recently as 2010.

Here's a great headline to consider: "California Bans Sterilization of Female Inmates Without Consent". 2013. In the United States. Two thousand and god damn thirteen. https://www.nbcnews.com/health/womens-health/california-bans...

other links. https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2013/07/09/200444613... https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/08/califo...

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Private prisons have a financial incentive to detain inmates for as long as possible. The prison has some input into when a detainee is released (good behavior, etc) and private prisons have been observed abusing this power. Private prisons also have incentives to find ways to cut costs and often do so in ways which harm detainees. Private prisons also have incentive to lobby for longer mandatory prison terms regardless of whether it makes sense for the crime or not.

Tons of conflict of interest in private prisons which are in addition to the potential abuses associated with public prisons.

It doesnt have to be. Why don't they do something like pay private prisons the bare minimum per diem but then offer a trailing commission for every year an ex-con is out of jail past a certain date.

Do the statistics for average time to return to prison, and pay them a bonus every year a prisoner is over that average date for 10 years type thing.

So jails make little money for the incarceration but earn profits from the rehabilitation.

What could also make sense is paying the prison a lump sum for the convict instead of a per diem. This changes the incentive structure from keeping people locked up as long as possible to rehabilitating and releasing them as fast as possible.

Just skip the rehab step entirely and just release them - it's cheaper for the prison and the increased chance of re-offending means they'll get another lump sum next go around too!

That's not up to the prison. The only way for a convict to leave prison early is to convince the State that they are worth paroling.

Therefore, the prison would be incentivized to work with the prisoners to encourage good behavior and to show the parole board that a prisoner is worth paroling.

> This changes the incentive structure from keeping people locked up as long as possible to rehabilitating and releasing them as fast as possible.

So long as private prisons have a say in when a prisoner is released there is conflict of interest. If a private prison gets paid $100k for a prisoner, they are going to ensure they are released at the very soonest opportunity instead of detaining them as long as possible. If they get paid per diem, they will keep them as long as possible.

> So long as private prisons have a say in when a prisoner is released there is conflict of interest.

I agree. This would work best if the prison had no influence on the parole board's decision. That way, the only way to get people out of prison faster is to actually rehabilitate them and encourage good behavior.

I don't see where the incentive to rehabilitate is? They're just incentivized to release them ASAP so they spend as little as possible.

Aren't parole boards and the justice system in general involved in the process of releasing people from prison? Its the State that ultimately decides when a prisoner is allowed out.

> They're just incentivized to release them ASAP

And the only way to do that is to show the parole board that a person is worth paroling, e.g. by rehabilitating them.

> releasing them as fast as possible

Why do you want incentivise a private company to release someone who is so dangerous they have to be removed from society as fast as possible?

Your proposal emphasizes rapid release, not rehabilitation.

An inmate can have his prison sentence extended through loss of good time. All while in a private prison.

Because profits are maximized by the current practices.

Not if you change the way that prisons make money, with is what your parent is talking about...

The issue isn't that you can structure incentives to make private prisons prioritize rehabilitation. The issue is that private prisons create a risk of regulatory capture. What creates the largest ROI for the private prison under your suggestions? Sinking loads of money into rehabilitation programmes losing money until decades later where they start to see their trailing commission, or ploughing loads of money into lobbying to change the rules to provide a high per diem and no rehabilitation goals?

The government run prisons in CA are worse than the private prisons they closed. The prisons in CA are so bad, the federal government actually took over oversight of the medical care as they failed to provide a constitutional level of medical care to its prisoners:

>... US District Court Judge Thelton Henderson said he was “driven in large measure by the stunning testimony that was uncontroverted that a prisoner in one of California's 32 prisons dies on average every 6 or 7 days as a result of malpractice, negligence, or some other deficiency in the State's medical care delivery system.”

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS014067...

As fennecfoxen pointed out they also did things like forced sterilizations.

The real problem is that we spend many billions on a prison industrial complex and there are many public sector unions, contractors, builders, etc who profit from it. The political contributions of the CA prison guard union are obviously not being done to lower the number of prison guard positions. As wikipedia says "...The CCPOA is widely considered one of the most powerful political forces in California politics. ... Lobbying efforts and campaign contributions by the CCPOA have helped secure passage of numerous legislative bills favorable to union members, including bills that increase prison terms, member pay, and enforce current drug laws."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Correctional_Peace_...

This isn't to say that CA prisons are the worst in the country - likely other state's prisons are just as bad as CA. When you have the people regulating a system be the same people who are running the system, you really can't expect things to be that good.

I'm in 100% agreement on the perverse incentives of private prisons; however it's worth noting that similar incentives exist for prison guard unions, even for publicly managed prisons: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Correctional_Peace_...

Abolishing private prisons is a good start, but we need much more drastic reform to the prison-industrial complex and failed "tough on crime" policies, particular in the realms of drug policy, community investment, and mental health.

Prison guard unions have vastly less financial resources to work with and a wider range of issues they care about. They often brought up to deflect discussion, but simply operate at a order of magnitude smaller scale.

I'm on the left, and I'm not trying to deflect, engage in "whataboutism", or castigate unions in general. But all humans can succumb to perverse incentives: executives, stockholders, political representatives, and yes, even middle-class workers. The systemic corruption of police and prisons runs so deep, we need to be able to "walk and chew gum" in order to fix it, rather than assume that we can pull out a single thorn of bad policy.

>...They often brought up to deflect discussion, but simply operate at a order of magnitude smaller scale.

That is simply not correct.

>...In the 2016 election cycle, private prisons gave a record $1.6 million to candidates, parties and outside spending groups.

90% of that came from one company (GEO Group).

https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus.php?ind=G7000

Now compare the private prison industry to the prison guard union in CA CCPOA(California Correctional Peace Officers Association).

>...These dues raise approximately $23 million each year, of which the CCPOA allocates approximately $8 million to lobbying.

This is just the CA prison guard union and it is $8 million a year.

From the same article:

>...many of [CCPOA’s] contributions are directly pro-incarceration. It gave over $100,000 to California’s Three Strikes initiative, Proposition 184 in 1994, making it the second-largest contributor. It gave at least $75,000 to the opponents of Proposition 36, the 2000 initiative that replaced incarceration with substance abuse treatment for certain nonviolent offenders. From 1998 to 2000 it gave over $120,000 to crime victims’ groups, who present a more sympathetic face to the public in their pro-incarceration advocacy. It spent over $1 million to help defeat Proposition 66, the 2004 initiative that would have limited the crimes that triggered a life sentence under the Three Strikes law. And in 2005, it killed Gov. Schwarzenegger’s plan to “reduce the prison population by as much as 20,000, mainly through a program that diverted parole violators into rehabilitation efforts: drug programs, halfway houses and home detention.”

https://californiapolicycenter.org/the-role-of-the-prison-gu...

Besides lobbying for more incarceration, they also lobby to prevent accountability:

>...Between 1989 and 1999, 39 inmates were shot to death, and 200 more were wounded. Not one district attorney in the state prosecuted a correctional officer for any of these assaults. ... Local district attorneys have good reason to hesitate before taking a position against the CCPOA’s interests. Greg Strickland, former district attorney in Kings County, home to Corcoran state correctional facilitity, attempted to take a brutality case to the grand jury. The CCPOA fueled his opponent with $30,000 in the next election, leading to Strickland’s defeat. A similar scenario happened in Del Norte County and in Susanville.

https://web.archive.org/web/20061006074501/http://www.cjcj.o...

The second quote which gives various numbers across multiple different years, including 1994 lobbing showing relatively small amounts in most years. Though one very big one in 2004 at 1 million, but just $75,000 in 2000. So, very rare big spends on election years vs constant multimillion dollar annual donations.

You further misunderstood the first link the bar chart below lists 4.3 million in 2019 and 2.8 million in 2016. But, that’s a subset of total spending which very focused on their bottom line.

PS: California is both very large and unusual in it’s use of propositions for major policies which confuses the issue. Nationwide union spending has a vastly lower average.

>...The second quote which gives various numbers across multiple different years, including 1994 lobbing showing relatively small amounts in most years.

I never implied this was a total breakdown of their lobbying money. They spend an estimated 8 million a year on lobbying. As the wikipedia article says:

>...Although its membership is relatively small, representing only about one tenth the membership of the California Teachers Association, CCPOA political activity routinely exceeds that of all other labor unions in California.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Correctional_Peace_...

>...You further misunderstood the first link the bar chart below lists 4.3 million in 2019 and 2.8 million in 2016. But, that’s a subset of total spending which very focused on their bottom line.

Sorry, I was in a hurry and didn't notice they had a chart for Lobbying Totals, 1998-2019, that gives a better indication than just 2016. That shows a little over $4 million total political lobbying nationally by the private prison industry. That compares to $8 million alone in CA by the prison guard union. You originally said:

>...They often brought up to deflect discussion, but simply operate at a order of magnitude smaller scale.

This one union in one state spends more on lobbying than the private prison industry. And as the article says:

>...“The formula is simple: more prisoners lead to more prisons; more prisons require more guards; more guards means more dues-paying members and fund-raising capability; and fund-raising, of course, translates into political influence.”

The political contributions of the CA prison guard union are obviously not being done to lower the number of prison guard positions. It wasn't the private prison lobby that pushed through all that bad policy in CA.

In reality, private prisons are often brought up to deflect discussion. The reality is private prisons house a small percentage of prisoners and are a tiny part of the prison industrial complex.

CA getting rid of private prisons isn't going to help reform a broken prison system.

>...Nationwide union spending has a vastly lower average.

You haven't given any evidence that is true. Even if true, just because it costs less to influence policy in other states, doesn't mean they aren't trying to do it.

> not being done to lower the number of prison guard positions.

True, but number of guards and their salaries are surprisingly independent of the number of prisoners. https://www.scstatehouse.gov/CommitteeInfo/HouseLegislativeO... Unions can thus lobby for higher wages or more officers without lobbing for more prisoners. Private prisons on the other hand directly profit on a per inmate basis. As they need to look cost competitive with public prisons they thus need to lobby for more prisoners if they want increased profits. That’s either from more private prisons or more prisoners at existing prisons.

Again I am not saying unions don’t do a lot of lobbying they clearly do for all sorts of things, most recently to stop prisoner transfers during COVID-19 and get more PPE. https://www.thetimes-tribune.com/coronavirus/canaan-federal-... So what I am saying is their don’t focus on increasing the prison population as a primary motivation, thus you need to look at the issues their spending money on. Ex: https://www.texasobserver.org/texas-prison-guard-union-calls...

> You haven’t given any evidence that this is true

CA: As of 2017, the union had 39,750 members

Just one of many examples of a union at the other end of the spectrum: https://mnlabor.wordpress.com/2013/07/20/prison-guards-vote-...

The election makes WACLE the representative for about 5,900 state security and public safety workers, a big chunk of the 22,000 members who belonged to WSEU before Act 10 outlawed most state employee collective bargaining and made union membership voluntary.

PS: Private prisons are recent and growing thing making comparisons even a 10 years ago misses the current reality.

>...Unions can thus lobby for higher wages or more officers without lobbing for more prisoners.

Rather than coming up with hypotheticals of how you think they could operate, it is more useful to look at what they did:

I don't know where private prisons spend their lobbying money, but in terms of a hypothetical private prison, they have such a small percentage of prisons, the best return for their money would probably be to lobby for privatization and bidding against government prisons. The only thing we really do know is that industry spends less nationally than the prison guard union in CA alone spends on lobbying. The prison problems in CA can't be blamed on private prisons and trying to do so is simple deflection.

>...Again I am not saying unions don’t do a lot of lobbying they clearly do for all sorts of things, most recently to stop prisoner transfers during COVID-19 and get more PPE.

Yes health/safety issues are the things they should lobby for, the issue that they have so much money, they also lobby for lots of things they shouldn't be involved with.

>Just one of many examples of a union at the other end of the spectrum:

Well there has been a backlash against public sector unions in Wisconsin and one group of prison guards has decided to leave AFSCME and form a new union with supposedly less interest in electoral politics. That doesn't tell us much about how much influence they had before this point.

>PS: Private prisons are recent and growing thing making comparisons even a 10 years ago misses the current reality.

Not really. Private prisons first started around 1987 and have a slow growth in the number of prisoners compared to public prisons. The last 10 years have been stagnant with little growth.

https://www.prisonpolicy.org/graphs/private_prison_growth_to...

It is clear though that claiming that prison guard unions "simply operate at a order of magnitude smaller scale." is simply wrong.

With the way they are currently regulated, it isn't clear if private prisons are much better than state run prisons, but to focus on them and ignore law enforcement public sector unions is a deflection.

The current system is broken though. Those of us who care about prison reform, also care about the lack of accountability of prison guards and the cruelty for cruelty sake that seems to permeate the prison system. When you have the people who regulate the system are the same ones who run it, though what do you expect? Take the example of Cochran prison. This was a prison which shot and killed more prisoners than any prison in the country and the guards were setting up and then betting on gladiator battles.

>...Guards and inmates described macabre scenes in which prison officers gathered in control booths overlooking cramped exercise yards in advance of fights, which were sometimes delayed so that female guards and even prison secretaries could be present.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/staged-fights-betti...

After 60 minutes covered the story, the California Department of Corrections did an investigation and naturally found no "'widespread staff conspiracy' to abuse prisoners".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_State_Prison,_Corco...

First prison guard unions try and protect guards even in situations where they arguably shouldn’t. But, that’s also arguably their job and not trying to increase number of people in prison.

Anyway, I don’t want to bring up the same point, but over a 26 year period that quote covers nearly 1% of total spending which is clearly not a major focus.

> The last 10 years have been stagnant with little growth.

Yes, and like many industries that’s changed their focus. EX: https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/profiting-enforcemen...

In 2015, the private prison industry operated 62 percent of immigration detention beds and ran nine of the ten largest detention centers housing ICE detainees. Although the model of prison privatization varies, a private prison typically charges a daily rate per person incarcerated to cover investment and operating costs, and to turn a profit. In FY 2017, DHS spent approximately $126 per day for each detained noncitizen. As immigration detention costs steadily increased to around $2 billion annually, industry profits soared. Between 2007 and 2014, CoreCivic’s overall annual profits grew from about $133 million to $195 million, and GEO Group’s profits grew from about $42 million to $144 million yearly.

When your talking 62% of a specific market that’s worth lobbing for. As shown by very healthy profit growth in a ‘stagnant’ industry.

>... arguably shouldn’t

Preventing any accountability for many murders, probably goes a little beyond "arguably shouldn’t". Though in particular, the infamous gladiator spectacle at Cochran though was likely more a case of what happens when an organization regulates itself. People seem to understand that it isn't a good idea for businesses that could harm the public to regulate themselves, but forgot that idea when it is a government agency.

>...Anyway, I don’t want to bring up the same point, but over a 26 year period that quote covers nearly 1% of total spending which is clearly not a major focus.

That is more like the tip of the iceberg. LA Times reporter Dan Moraine estimates the prison guard union might have 11 PACS.

>The political budget flows out in 6 main directions.

>CCPOA pays for public relations.

>CCPOA pays for lobbying services.

>CCPOA funds affiliate groups.

>CCPOA contributes “soft money” to political parties, political events, debates.

>CCPOA gives direct contributions to candidates.

>Election winners support the CCPOA political agenda.

>Tough on crime legislation fuels expansion of the correctional system.

>Expanded correctional system adds membership to the CCPOA.

https://web.archive.org/web/20061006074501/http://www.cjcj.o...

>In 2015, the private prison industry operated 62 percent of immigration detention beds

Immigration detention is not usually what the average person thinks of when they think of private prison, so it is good to call out the differences so everyone is talking about the same things.

>...When your talking 62% of a specific market that’s worth lobbing for. As shown by very healthy profit growth in a ‘stagnant’ industry.

Their lobbying though is a tiny fraction of the lobbying of law enforcement groups.

> Abolishing private prisons is a good start, but we need much more drastic reform to the prison-industrial complex and failed "tough on crime" policies, particular in the realms of drug policy, community investment, and mental health.

Yes, very much so.

A simple way to fix incentives would be to allow private prisons, and to allow inmates to choose the prison they will stay at.

Why is this comment greyed? It's not an insult, or troll, it's a known problem and the OP shifted the debate to horrible stuff done in state prisons, which is equally true and awful, but doesn't change the facts, right?

From the ACLU:

https://www.aclu.org/issues/smart-justice/mass-incarceration...

Here's a classic example: "Kids for Cash", 2011 in PA:

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2011/08/11/139536686...

I have a friend that's spent time in both state and private facilities and he's said--hands down--he'd rather be at a private facility than a state-run one.

According to him, the quality of the food, cleanliness, staff is WAY higher at a private facility than the state run one.

Additionally, they usually contract with the government for a minimum occupancy, where the government pays the cost if they can't fill up enough beds.

Current contractual incentives on both sides of the prison company / government relationship are too perverse.

I disagree, private prisons are a moral hazard by nature. Pointing out a separate failure by state prisons is a straw man I think.

The operator of the first private prison in the US came to speak at a class of mine back in the 90s. They provided a minimum-security facility in an old hotel in Denver. The owner was very sincere, they honestly believed that they could provide a better experience for the prisoners, and they did. The focus was actually on rehabilitation, they were able to relax a lot of the rules for good prisoners that state and federal facilities were not. Some inmates could go to school during the day or hold down a job. The owners could make $50-70/night per room operating as a hotel or $140/night as a prison. They made money and were able to provide better care than most government facilities. She was absolutely appalled at what the industry then developed into.

I don't think they are necessarily a moral hazard by nature - like charter schools, there is the possibility of having something good come from private industry, as well as things not so good. I don't know what the systemic obstacles are that need to be overcome, however. State and federal prisons did not used to be as much the over-crowded, brutal institutions they have become in the last 50 years, perhaps the problem is not so much with private prisons per se.

I think they are if they're a public company. It doesn't matter if the original founder of the company has great intentions. Sooner or later they'll be squeezed out in favour of someone who prioritise profits for the investors.

The problem is profit motive which is what drives private industry and is why some things should generally be divorced from making a profit. Same for charter schools. And it’s a moral hazard because it’s “hazardous”, it creates the possibility for danger but doesn’t require it so in that sense it is exactly a moral hazard.

That’s a warm and fuzzy anecdote.

You’re right it’s not private prisons per se.

It’s the private ownership model that we’ve seen abused again and again.

This is one of those situations where the warm fuzzy anecdote is overpowered by evidence that scaled the model is rife for abuse.

At scale, yeah a dozen voting fraud stories here, and there. But mathematically we can show that it’s largely been working . Whether the candidates we get are “ours”, gerrymandering, and gaming the electoral college are aside from the fact the math on Election Day has largely worked out as one would hope.

The same is not true given a macro view of private prisons. Profits are going up, so is over crowding, incarceration rates, the result is racially and financially biased, we get more uptight with offenses to fill beds (Google it, it’s not rocket science, there’s history of bias), and it feeds a cottage industry of work that’s essentially reiterating daily to workers at these places we should just treat each other like animals. Go home, have your light beer, and watch news, that’s a good boy. Come back tomorrow.

Note too how “profit is up” “inequality is up” are more of those types of math results. They say something in numbers entirely without considering how that acts as a forcing function on the populace. We’ll just paper over it with rhetoric about protecting individuality and how yours matters most, and forget about how our culture literally is profiting from taking it away from others that need not be in that position

Some mathematicians have suggested upward of 25% of inmates may be innocent because of inequities in the justice system

Private prisons are a big bright mathy spot that shows clearly those inequities.

Private prisons are a major problem because of the authority that is delegated.

In the US, the government derives its authority to govern (and by extension, the justice system derives its authority to imprison and punish criminals) only by the collective consent of the people.

It's the same reason private police and private courts are a big moral problem - they are in a position of authority over people that only government to whom the people have consented should be.

Arguably charter schools shouldn't exist either

It's not a straw man, it is fact. Parent post wasn't saying this was no big deal, just pointing out correctly that there are more fundamental issues in play - like qualified immunity and the cultural racist cancers we suffer from that demonize poor and brown people and fetishize the military and police. Private prisons are awful. Any sane ethical person must agree with that. But calling out that it isn't the root of the issue is far from a straw man. It is a rallying call that the fight is far from over (!!)

A strawman argument can be true, but still be a strawman. The essential point is that it's a distraction.

Saying "we have to fix state prisons too!" is not an argument against "private prisons are a moral hazard". We should do both!

That's not what a strawman argument is.

A strawman argument is when you restate someone's argument in a way that's stupid, then you refute the stupid argument. Or in the extreme case, argue against an argument that the person never made. In both cases, you're not arguing against the other person, you're arguing against a straw man that you made up. Hence the name.

It's still a logical fallacy, just a different one. Fallacy of relative privation applies.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies#Fallacy_of_r...

NIT: I think you mean red herring. A red herring fallacy is misdirection with irrelevant information. A straw man is a type of red herring which specifically involves misrepresenting the original argument.

https://socratic.org/questions/what-is-the-difference-betwee...

A strawman is when you misrepresent an opposing position or argument to make it appear weaker than it is, and argue against the weak version. Fighting an opponent made of straw which was created in order to be defeated.

(Similarly, a weakman is when you seek out someone who genuinely holds a weak (easier to argue against) version of the position you wish to push against, argue against this weak version, and act as if you have argued against the stronger versions.

Neither of these appear to be what has been done here.

This is absolutely not straw man. Just because one changes prisons from "private" prisons to "state" prisons doesn't change the fundamental issue of putting humans in cages.

Acting like there's only one problem with private prisons is the strawman.

What would you say is the fundamental issue with putting humans in cages?

The issue is not "private prisons", it's incentive structures that are not aligned with what our goals should be.

Currently, private prisons are generally paid a flat rate per prisoner. Since they make profit per prisoner, that means they want more prisoners. They are incentivized to discourage positive outcomes and fewer prisoners, because that means less profit.

If instead private prisons were paid by some sort of rehabilitation metric, things would change very quickly. For example, if you paid more per prisoner to prisons with low recidivism rates post-release.

Capitalism works great for efficiency, you just need to make sure you have the right incentive structure in place, in order to make sure the thing you are optimizing is the thing you actually want to optimize.

Would you say this is true outside of the US as well? Does the moral hazard get introduced with lobbying, or do you find it to be problematic on its own?

Am I missing something here? How can sterilizations save money when prisons are already gender segragated? Unless they are saying that it is inpractical to have male prison guards/staff not have sex with the inmates.

I'm not sure but I think inmates can have special "conjugal visits" where sex with a visitor is allowed. I assume that when a female inmate has a baby, she keeps it with her until the child reaches a certain age like 3 years old or something, maybe with special accommodations. This is based on a video I saw about Mexican prisons but I assume it could be the same in the US.

> This is based on a documentary about Mexican prisons but I assume it could be the same in the US.

Assuming stuff like this isn't a good idea. They're completely different countries.

I double checked and it's also the case in several US states. Sex during conjugal visits and prison nurseries. The rules vary, sometimes the mother must be pregnant when entering custody to be eligible, but not always. The duration of the child stay in the prison varies as well, between a month to 30 months.

Perhaps the theory is that the children born to criminals will likely be criminals as well, thus by preventing those children from being born there will be long-term cost savings?

On the other hand, I have a hard time seeing someone being both that diabolical and long-term in mindset.

Wow that is awful. I didn't realize this was happening. Here's a link: https://www.nbcnews.com/health/womens-health/california-bans...

Also, to your point, private prisons only account for 8.41% of the prison population in the U.S. Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_prison#United_States

During the 30-35 years of the rapid prison population expansion, private prisons represented an even smaller portion of the US prison population, closer to 2-3% averaged. Their expansion in market share has occurred at a time when the US prison population has been shrinking, but that's a wildly inconvenient fact.

It was government prisons nearly all of those people were put into during the prime years of the massive drug war, not private prisons. Commenters always and without exception intentionally ignore that fact, for obvious reasons (implodes the propaganda). I'm entirely against private prisons, however it's comical the lengths people will go to, to pretend it wasn't government prisons those millions of people were put into. The prison boom was a government prison boom. The prison industrial complex was a government effort almost exclusively. The drug war was a government effort. The cops (government) benefitted, the police unions benefitted, the government contractors benefitted, the politicians benefitted (jobs and construction in their districts, along with more tax money and government spending).

>Their expansion in market share has occurred at a time when the US prison population has been shrinking, but that's a wildly inconvenient fact.

Are you making the claim that private prisons reduce total inmates? If not, this claim, truth or not, is irrelevant.

Private prisons are an easy scapegoat to a much larger problem. In my opinion ending private prisons just removes a tool that politicians can use to avoid responsibility, so in that way, ending their practice is net good.

There are 2 problems with prisons in the United States: 1) There are way too many people in US prisons. We have the highest prison population in the world by percentage and total numbers of any country. That is a metric you don't want to win at.

2) The conditions are absolutely horrifying.

To solve the first problem, you need to do obvious things like eliminate mandatory minimums. But you also need to do less obvious things like reduce overall sentencing across all crimes. You also need to reduce or eliminate prison sentences for most non-violent offenders. We also need to put in place better negotiating power for accused people so that the innocent don't have to take plea bargains (basically we need more fair trials).

The second problem can be solved in a number of ways, but the big thing that is missing is oversight from groups unrelated to the prison who are responsible for metrics. Imagine you have centralized offices where people watch video in prisons remotely and bring charges against people on this inside or implement policies. Those people would have to be completely isolated from the guards/wardens etc. of those prisons. Imagine they sit in a central office in Houston or whatever and watch prisons in Montana, California etc. What prisons need is a set of eyes that can be truly impartial.

It is great that the discussion are becoming mainstream, but we have so far to go in this country. Its truly astounding.

>illegally

Presumably illegal. There wasn't a state law banning it, and Buck vs. Bell technically still stands allowing state run compulsory sterilization.

There would still be various human rights treaties banning stuff like that.

Have the USA even ratified those?

Maybe not, but the USA have invaded countries that also didn't ratify human rights conventions and executed people as war criminals for human rights violations. So the USA seem to think they do apply. Human rights are generally thought to apply universally, not only in countries that agree.

Those US invasions were usually illegal under international law, contained the US committing war crimes and not being punished, and led to the US passing a law allowing "all means necessary" to bring about the release of anyone associated with the US government being held by a country/group at request of the ICC.

Human rights have never applied universally, the lack of any Nuremberg trial against the Allies made that clear.

> I guess this is nice, but I think the question of "private prisons" can become a bit of a distraction.

Sure, it's neither the main problem nor the main area of recent reform, either in corrections specifically or law enforcement more generally, in California.

That's insane. I didn't know that was happening. I lived in CA for 20 years. I think banning for-profit prisons is a good first step. Next stop: stuff like this! Thanks for the enlightenment.

> Maybe they make things worse, but they're not the root of our problems.

I have a hard time believing there are a few "root" problems. We got where we are because the entire incentive+accountability structure was completely skewed for decades. IMHO, there are thousands of "root" issues at this point, to the point where the word "root" is moot.

That sounds to me like a symptom of state prisons being run like private prisons.

No, it is a symptom of governments being greedy, cruel, self serving, wasteful and criminal.

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