Friendly reminder that prisons are a profitable business. There are relatively few private prisons, but companies like Sysco make a ton of money from public prisons and prisoners are leased out as slaves too.
As is government owned prisons. Corporations profiting from punitive slavery and bribing politicians to keep the slaves coming is the norm for ALL US prisons, not a “private ones only” exception.
I’m pretty sure you’re absolutely right. I just can’t say much about all this myself because I’m from Europe. Things are very different here: private prisons are unimaginable for very obvious reasons. Doesn’t mean that we don’t have similar problems (people trying to get rich on this) with public prisons, but at least all this is treated less as a business in Europe, which of course it should never be for very obvious reasons.
It is already solved in 24 US States. The federal government hasn’t done shit, so the States changed the laws themselves. Of course that doesn’t resolve issues like drug tests for federal jobs, or questionnaires for firearms purchases, but those are edge cases that don’t affect most people.
So yeah that solves one fraction of the problem… IE bigger one being, a single mistake at one point in life, basically wrecks your ability to reform and become a productive citizen.
Not solved until it’s federally legal, those “edge cases” effect a lot more people than you’d think, and add in the non-legal states who’re also affected. 24 isn’t even half.
That’s okay we just replaced them with homeless people who are charged with assaulting a police officer after the 5th time they’ve watched their entire life go into a trash bin.
In parts of the US. I hate living in a progressive state and getting lumped in with the backward ass parts of the country. This problem in particular differs across state lines. Unfortunately the best I can hope for now is for my state to be left alone.
I don’t know what you mean. I thought California was one of the states that banned private prisons, but I live on the other side of the country, in NJ, where we’ve also banned private prisons, and are trying to stop the feds from putting private immigration detention centers in too.
If you mean prisons in general, I think that’s a different discussion.
Completely understandable. From my point of view, I can’t understand how there can be such a thing as private prisons at all. It’s a terrible approach, no matter where in the world. I haven’t looked into it much, but as far as I know, the US is the only country that organizes state sovereignty according to capitalist logic(at least in some states). In my opinion, that is absurd.
I feel like I understand but if you can elaborate on the last part I’d appreciate it. And I just mean it seems to extend far beyond just capitalism, although that’s surely a driving factor. It’s hard to remove capitalism from a place that basically was made by people trying to hang on to their money.
What I mean is that I am not aware of any other country that privatizes state sovereign rights in the way that the US does: If someone is sentenced to prison for any crime, it is a punishment that the state determines and thus usually carries out. In the US, however, it is possible for a private company to enforce the sentence “on behalf of the state”. This is a very US-American procedure which, as far as I know, is not implemented in this way anywhere else. I may be wrong, but where I come from, Europe, this is unthinkable because private companies are not allowed to take on government tasks as important as these - at least not to this extent. Another example is the privatization of the military, as Blackwater, now Academi, and others have been doing for decades in the US (recently also Musk with Starlink). In Europe, this is also a matter for the state and the state alone. Even in Russia under Putin’s regime, private armies are officially illegal, although of course they still exist (not officially tho).
Biden? Yeah he said he would but he’s running out of time. OH you meant Kamala? Yeah she probably said it too, but of course she lost so there’s that, and it’s questionable if she’d actually have solved it or left it on the table so she could run on it again in 4y, and again in 8y when the next guy runs.
That’s true, but unfortunately it won’t be solved, at least not in the US. Simply because private prisons are such a profitable business there.
Nothing will meaningfully improve until the rich fear for their lives
Friendly reminder that prisons are a profitable business. There are relatively few private prisons, but companies like Sysco make a ton of money from public prisons and prisoners are leased out as slaves too.
As is government owned prisons. Corporations profiting from punitive slavery and bribing politicians to keep the slaves coming is the norm for ALL US prisons, not a “private ones only” exception.
I’m pretty sure you’re absolutely right. I just can’t say much about all this myself because I’m from Europe. Things are very different here: private prisons are unimaginable for very obvious reasons. Doesn’t mean that we don’t have similar problems (people trying to get rich on this) with public prisons, but at least all this is treated less as a business in Europe, which of course it should never be for very obvious reasons.
It is already solved in 24 US States. The federal government hasn’t done shit, so the States changed the laws themselves. Of course that doesn’t resolve issues like drug tests for federal jobs, or questionnaires for firearms purchases, but those are edge cases that don’t affect most people.
I assume you mean the problem of going to prison for a little weed, right? Or are private prisons illegal in 24 states? That would be news to me.
Weed
So yeah that solves one fraction of the problem… IE bigger one being, a single mistake at one point in life, basically wrecks your ability to reform and become a productive citizen.
Not solved until it’s federally legal, those “edge cases” effect a lot more people than you’d think, and add in the non-legal states who’re also affected. 24 isn’t even half.
That’s okay we just replaced them with homeless people who are charged with assaulting a police officer after the 5th time they’ve watched their entire life go into a trash bin.
In parts of the US. I hate living in a progressive state and getting lumped in with the backward ass parts of the country. This problem in particular differs across state lines. Unfortunately the best I can hope for now is for my state to be left alone.
Nah dude. Every prison is a profit center. California just voted to be a slave state to keep those profits rolling.
I don’t know what you mean. I thought California was one of the states that banned private prisons, but I live on the other side of the country, in NJ, where we’ve also banned private prisons, and are trying to stop the feds from putting private immigration detention centers in too.
If you mean prisons in general, I think that’s a different discussion.
All that means is the private company cannot own the actual prison. They can staff, supply, and build prisons; and use prison labor to make products.
Completely understandable. From my point of view, I can’t understand how there can be such a thing as private prisons at all. It’s a terrible approach, no matter where in the world. I haven’t looked into it much, but as far as I know, the US is the only country that organizes state sovereignty according to capitalist logic(at least in some states). In my opinion, that is absurd.
I feel like I understand but if you can elaborate on the last part I’d appreciate it. And I just mean it seems to extend far beyond just capitalism, although that’s surely a driving factor. It’s hard to remove capitalism from a place that basically was made by people trying to hang on to their money.
What I mean is that I am not aware of any other country that privatizes state sovereign rights in the way that the US does: If someone is sentenced to prison for any crime, it is a punishment that the state determines and thus usually carries out. In the US, however, it is possible for a private company to enforce the sentence “on behalf of the state”. This is a very US-American procedure which, as far as I know, is not implemented in this way anywhere else. I may be wrong, but where I come from, Europe, this is unthinkable because private companies are not allowed to take on government tasks as important as these - at least not to this extent. Another example is the privatization of the military, as Blackwater, now Academi, and others have been doing for decades in the US (recently also Musk with Starlink). In Europe, this is also a matter for the state and the state alone. Even in Russia under Putin’s regime, private armies are officially illegal, although of course they still exist (not officially tho).
Wasn’t there a candidate during the last election who wanted to legalise cannabis?
Don’t ask me since I’m from Europe. But even I know that this candidate could not possibly have been Trump.
Biden? Yeah he said he would but he’s running out of time. OH you meant Kamala? Yeah she probably said it too, but of course she lost so there’s that, and it’s questionable if she’d actually have solved it or left it on the table so she could run on it again in 4y, and again in 8y when the next guy runs.