Is there a reason, other than capitalism/entrenched interests, that the prison service doesn't have its own in house software? A non profit could perhaps assist.
To answer your question though, yes entrenched interests and lack of competition. When you are sole provider, no matter how broke people's families are they are going to dig deep. Some states also allow a "kickback" system where the department gets a % of the fees collected by the providers. Fortunately some states have made this illegal and more are starting to now that we've shown how corrupt and gross the incumbent situation is, but there's still a way to go. I will also say that I've been impressed with a lot of people in the departments. Many of them don't like the current system either and they think it's wrong, so they've been really helpful/willing to work with us.
Related past thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23042558
Profit extraction is one reason, and a large one. However, an equally large one is cruelty: these systems are designed to make prisoners suffer, and public accountability runs counter to that goal.
Plea deals become implied threats. Take this cheaper deal or we'll throw this massive set of stuff at you. Remember Aaron Swartz?
You wipe that out by wiping out plea deals.
Then perhaps we are arresting far too many people for things that don't matter?
If you remove low-level drug offenders from the system, suddenly there is a LOT more capacity.
Or, mentioning my earlier example, why the hell was a federal prosecutor gung ho to go after Aaron Swartz? Apparently there wasn't anything more important to be spending time on. That doesn't look like a very overloaded court system to me.
If the general public had to actually PAY for the justice system, perhaps they'd suddenly discover that they want it a lot smaller.
It seems like there might be room for improving conditions in ways that will help prevent them from being back in prison later. Education and working in a way that develops skills are two ways that come to mind.
Even if you can prove a non-profit, non-funded program reduces recidivism, if it also happens to make prisoners’ lives marginally better in the process, that’s an immediate no.
I mean, most of the people involved in the prison system have decided to work in a place where the users aren’t there willingly or able to change service providers, so I guess they would trend toward minimal competence, right? The more they can leverage software written by anybody else, the better, I guess.