What else will we do with all these surplus unproductive labor pools? Everyone knows if someone isn't useful to the stock market, they deserve to suffer.

The higher the recidivism rate, the higher the private prisons profit!

So you lock them in with all the other bad influences?

American prisons are in no way a "clean break with bad influences". The entire system is basically set up how it'd be if you asked someone to make sure recidivism was high as possible. Long harsh sentences for non-violent crime, low contact with the outside, no real job training, roadblocks for jobs for ex-cons on the outside, stuck with a ton of debt in court fees on release plus a parole system designed to put people back in jail.

To reduce crime you need to either support a community or create opportunity. Instead we starve communities to fund putting people in jail and block them from opportunities once they make it outside.

Your comment is unpopular but in some ways it's probably right. I think family, indirectly, forces a lot of crime. Once you have kids to feed the desperation is real. You may be able to support yourself on minimum wage but add a kid or two into the mix and no real skills and the result is having a family results in crime. Toss a court order for child support on top of that, and hey it's go to jail for non-payment or go to jail for theft or whatever -- at least the theft charge has a definite ending whereas child support they can chase you literally forever for that.

When I look at peak imprisonment rates it corresponds pretty well to when men are at max pressure to provide for dependents. Most of us wouldn't hurt someone else for our own good even if starving but look your starving kid in the face and the question becomes more difficult and theoretical about morality and risk of getting caught may go out the window.