Here is to hoping the next big issue after marriage equality if fixing our drug laws, which are more damaging than many will admit and far too profitable to law enforcement and the prison industry.
Citation for the "Many"?
Only about 5% of prisoners are in private prisons.
That seems like it would be a union problem and not a prison problem.
The problem is the US Government, and always has been.
The money made on prisons, is made by construction firms, labor that works at the prison, and slave labor used to manufacture things. There is a ton of profit being made from government prisons.
I always find it bizarre that people point to the 5% to 8% problem - corporate prisons - and think that is the problem, while pretending the huge money that circles around the other 92% - the government prisons - is benign by comparison. The other 92% is even more vile than the 8% corporate prisons - it's 11 times larger.
That still means there are millionaires out there lobbying to keep drug laws as is so they can keep filling their prisons. And the other 92% of prisons probably have a ton of people behind bars due to drug laws because of the 8% of prisons that lobby for & profit from them.
Jobs, graft, construction, maintenance, slave labor, etc. - huge sums of profit derived from the government prison system, far more than in the corporate system.
As though the 92% of that equation is looking to give up its jobs and tax dollars. Because we just know how much the government likes to give up its spending.
For the other 92%, how much work does that state-run prison contract out to private companies?
As far as lobbying, the other 92% of prisoners are guarded by very powerful public sector unions, whose incentives are the same.
The existence of even a single for-profit prison provides a perverse incentive to put the marginal criminal into a private, profit-generating cage rather than a public, tax-draining, politically-risky rehabilitation or diversion program.
Furthermore, it is an invitation to corruption. Remember the judge that was sending juvenile defendants to a reform camp, often regardless of the merits of their cases, because he was getting kickbacks from the camp?
Quick, off the top of your head: do you have any idea just how many people are incarcerated in this country, in both absolute and per-capita terms, and how those figures compare to, say, every other country on Earth?
8% of the US prison population is a HELL of a lot of people.
It's 11 times larger. That's a lot of tax money to roll around in, and generates a ton of profit in the form of slave labor manufacturing, graft, jobs that politicians use as platforms, labor unions that get kickbacks and get to dole out well paying jobs.
What's the difference, when we're speaking of "profit" when it comes to whether the corporate prison generates a 7% margin, or whether that 7% goes to a union at a government prison? There is no real difference, it's just a matter of whose pocket the cash ends up in.
http://www.republicreport.org/2012/marijuana-lobby-illegal/
http://mic.com/articles/41531/union-of-the-snake-how-califor...
EDIT: Here's a cute quote from Corrections Corporation of America, one of the largest for-profit prison companies:
"any changes with respect to drugs and controlled substances or illegal immigration could affect the number of persons arrested, convicted, and sentenced, thereby potentially reducing demand for correctional facilities to house them." [0]
[0] - http://phx.corporate-ir.net/External.File?item=UGFyZW50SUQ9N...
If someone comes up with a cure for cancer, a lot of oncologists are going to be out of a job. Does that mean that oncologists are actively suppressing cancer cures?
Corrections Corporation of America and other private prison companies openly fight efforts to relax drugs laws. Same for prison guard unions; In 2008 the CCPoA, California's largest prison guard union, was the most active opponent of Prop 5, which would have expanded treatment for non-violent drug offenders, and reduced criminal penalties for non-violent drug crimes [1].
As far as I know, oncologists are not fighting cancer research in order to protect their careers.
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_5_%2820...
Do private prisons fight relaxing laws to make more money? I'm sure some do, but most don't.
Corrections Corporation of America does, and they account for more than 80,000 of the 133,000 private prison beds in the US. GEO Group does, and they account for about 49,000. Together they thus represents the vast majority of private prisons in the US.
Both of them are part of ALEC - a DC base lobbying group that develops model legislation that it then pushes as a means for state legislators to be "tough on crime".
No, the DC provision does not allow for licensed dispensaries for recreational use[0]. (Dispensaries for medical use have just begun opening under the medical law passed in 2011, but this is separate from the situation in Colorado post-Amendment 64).
> That's pending congressional approval though. (Really it's pending congress not striking it down, which they seem loathe to do except for one very zealous committee member without much power).
Do you have a source for this? Congress has struck down similar measures from DC in the past.
I'm trying to track down my source for the approval, but the general thought seems to be that the republicans other than Andy Harris (aforementioned super opposed member) are less likely to start a fight where they're in the minority on a "state's rights" issue during what should be a quiet legislative session.
Harris isn't a committee chair so he can't bring up the ban/amendment without help. I don't know the committee politics to well enough to know this is likely; but usually they sneak these things in as budget riders which takes the approval of the committee chair.