wealth and inequality (and so poverty) also go hand in hand.
For a few to be very wealthy, the many may remain impoverished.
For a few to be very wealthy, the many may remain impoverished.
A wealthy state like Texas has a lot of cops and a lot of prisons. And, those cops are given incredible leeway in how they do their job.
Texas is a case study in whether "law and order" Republican policies work, and the evidence indicates it doesn't. We're just killing people in capital punishment cases for the joy of killing, not because it reduces crime. We're spending half our cities funds on militarized police because we want our private prisons full, not because it keeps people safer.
Most extremely Republican states with lax gun laws and capital punishment are poor states, with less money for cops (though they still imprison people at a high rate, they often fund it with slave labor).
There are ways for states to spend money that reduces crime, but Texas chooses to spend it on violence, instead.
Similarly cops many times get incentivized to fill in quotas, and end up making up stuff to get paid more.
Also all the companies around making money around these problems, have 0 incentives to make the problems go away, quite the contrary are incentivized to make these problems visible and acute enough that their services remain warranted to be required.
Lobbying being legal, means Capital owns Democracy. Big money can buy out and make careers of any politican morally-lacking enough to sell their constituents wellbeing to some shameless Corp that will set him up for life and give him the money needed to get the votes, etc etc