The American prison system is massive. It's yearly profit eclipses 133 nations

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BRUTALITOPS

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The American prison system is massive. So massive that its estimated turnover of $74 billion eclipses the GDP of 133 nations. What is perhaps most unsettling about this fun fact is that it is the American taxpayer who foots the bill, and is increasingly padding the pockets of publicly traded corporations like Corrections Corporation of America and GEO Group. Combined both companies generated over $2.53 billion in revenue in 2012, and represent more than half of the private prison business. So what exactly makes the business of incarcerating Americans so lucrative?

read more: http://www.smartasset.com/blog/news/the-economics-of-the-american-prison-system/

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This is perhaps one of the most unsettling things about our nation. Profit and prison should never go hand in hand. There might be this little thing called "a conflict of interest." We have businessmen trying to make a profit off of humans... lobbying our legislators for laws that will give them more customers. The privatized prison system is A MODERN DAY SLAVE TRADE.
 
"Fire and Blood" said:
The American prison system is massive. So massive that its estimated turnover of $74 billion eclipses the GDP of 133 nations. What is perhaps most unsettling about this fun fact is that it is the American taxpayer who foots the bill, and is increasingly padding the pockets of publicly traded corporations like Corrections Corporation of America and GEO Group. Combined both companies generated over $2.53 billion in revenue in 2012, and represent more than half of the private prison business. So what exactly makes the business of incarcerating Americans so lucrative?

read more: http://www.smartasset.com/blog/news/the-economics-of-the-american-prison-system/

~~~~~~~~~~~

This is perhaps one of the most unsettling things about our nation. Profit and prison should never go hand in hand. There might be this little thing called "a conflict of interest." We have businessmen trying to make a profit off of humans... lobbying our legislatures for laws that will give them more customers. The privatized prison system is A MODERN DAY SLAVE TRADE.
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Yes well, I wonder if you might wake up and reconsider who the real takers are in the USA?
 
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Prisons Full of Innocents

There are probably more innocent men and women in prison in the United States now than there were people in prison here total — innocent and guilty — 30 years ago, or than there are total people in prison (proportionately or as an absolute number) in most nations on earth.

I don’t mean that people are locked up for actions that shouldn’t be considered crimes, although they are. I don’t mean that people are policed and indicted and prosecuted by a racist system that makes some people far more likely to end up in prison than other people guilty of the same actions, although that is true, just as it’s also true that the justice system works better for the wealthy than for the poor. I am referring rather to men (it’s mostly men) who have been wrongly convicted of crimes they simply did not commit. I’m not even counting Guantanamo or Bagram or immigrants’ prisons. I’m talking about the prisons just up the road, full of people from just down the road.

I don’t know whether wrongful convictions have increased as a percentage of convictions. What has indisputably increased is the number of convictions and the lengths of sentences. The prison population has skyrocketed. It’s multiplied several fold. And it’s done so during a political climate that has rewarded legislators, judges, prosecutors, and police for locking people up — and not for preventing the conviction of innocents. This growth does not correlate in any way with an underlying growth in crime.

At the same time, evidence has emerged of a pattern of wrongful convictions. This emerging evidence is largely the result of prosecutions during the 1980s, primarily for rape but also for murder, before DNA testing had come into its own, but when evidence (including semen and blood) was sometimes preserved. Other factors have contributed: messy murderers, rapists who didn’t use condoms, advances in DNA science that helps to convict the guilty as well as to free the innocent, avenues for appeal that were in some ways wider before the 1996 Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, and the heroic work of a relative handful of people.

An examination of the plea bargains and trials that put people behind bars ought to make clear to anyone that many of those convicted are innocent. But DNA exonerations have opened a lot of eyes to that fact. The trouble is that most convicts do not have anything that can be tested for DNA to prove their guilt or innocence. Here are 1,138 documented exonerations out of that tiny fraction of the overall prison population for which there was evidence to test. One study found that 6% of these prisoners are innocent. If you could extrapolate that to the whole population you’d be talking about 136,000 innocent people in U.S. prisons today. In the 1990s, a federal inquiry found that DNA testing, then new, was clearing 25% of primary suspects. You do the math.

more
http://my.firedoglake.com/davidswanson/2013/06/20/prisons-full-of-innocents/

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Now that dems have crushed homophobes into being laughing circus material when they are boxed into a game of whack a mole for speaking. It's time to shift the civil rights machine on the cannabis Prohibitionist.
 
The Dude said:
Now that dems have crushed homophobes into being laughing circus material when they are boxed into a game of whack a mole for speaking. It's time to shift the civil rights machine on the cannabis Prohibitionist.
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It was not the Dems. The Dems are the major party that has been most receptive, sure. But the civil rights movement is clearly separate from them and includes libertarians and many Republicans, like Ted Olson.

The Obama admin has argued the courts could/should limit their ruling to California and the other states that have legalized same sex marriage. To pretend it was Obama and the Dems that have lead the way in bringing change is absurd and based on fallacy.
 
Professor Baxter said:
It was not the Dems. The Dems are the major party that has been most receptive, sure. But the civil rights movement is clearly separate from them and includes libertarians and many Republicans, like Ted Olson.

The Obama admin has argued the courts could/should limit their ruling to California and the other states that have legalized same sex marriage. To pretend it was Obama and the Dems that have lead the way in bringing change is absurd and based on fallacy.
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It seems some activists are cutting off funds to the Democrats because of their frustration.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/05/29/us-usa-immigration-gays-idUSBRE94S1H620130529

Sorry to derail thread.

The "for profit" prisons were and are a huge mistake.
 
Professor Baxter said:
It was not the Dems. The Dems are the major party that has been most receptive, sure. But the civil rights movement is clearly separate from them and includes libertarians and many Republicans, like Ted Olson.

The Obama admin has argued the courts could/should limit their ruling to California and the other states that have legalized same sex marriage. To pretend it was Obama and the Dems that have lead the way in bringing change is absurd and based on fallacy.
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Ok your gay or libertarians. You get .005 percent of the credit
 
The Dude said:
Ok your gay or libertarians. You get .005 percent of the credit
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There is no group other than homosexuals that deserve much credit. Civil libertarians (including Libertarians, Democrats and even some Republicans) would be next in line. Neither Obama nor Jerry Brown did anything more than Schwartzenegger. The fact that many Democrat politicians pandered for votes from the movement is not much reason to give them the bulk of the credit. Some have put in effort in changing state laws, but most of the progress has been made in the courts.
 
Professor Baxter said:
There is no group other than homosexuals that deserve much credit. Civil libertarians (including Libertarians, Democrats and even some Republicans) would be next in line. Neither Obama nor Jerry Brown did anything more than Schwartzenegger. The fact that many Democrat politicians pandered for votes from the movement is not much reason to give them the bulk of the credit. Some have put in effort in changing state laws, but most of the progress has been made in the courts.
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Ahh, my point is more he issue is over, thus time for the next improvement.
So you know, I think dems are only slightly less douchey than republitards.
 
The Dude said:
Ahh, my point is more he issue is over, thus time for the next improvement.
So you know, I think dems are only slightly less douchey than republitards.
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Well, I am not so sure it is over. I still expect the court will most likely punt, by either denying Hollingsworth standing or by limiting the reach of their ruling to California and/or states that have legalized same sex marriage.
 
If we would legalize drugs, then take half the money we spend on prison and prosecution and spend it on treatment... we would be in a much better place and those who want treatment for drug abuse would have an option.
 
Legalizing most drugs would also have the effect to reducing soooooo much seemingly non-drug related crime. When I was a prosecutor I observed that 70-80% of "non-drug" crime was related to drugs. Most assaults, batteries, theft and burglary, murder, fraud, and child abuse is related to the fact that drugs are illegal.
 
I'm not aware of a big push to legalize heroin or cocain.
Stick with cannabis, at least decrim and gov spending goes down by billions.
Educated arguments for prohibition are as rare as a republican who can dance to rap!
 
Jarod said:
Legalizing most drugs would also have the effect to reducing soooooo much seemingly non-drug related crime. When I was a prosecutor I observed that 70-80% of "non-drug" crime was related to drugs. Most assaults, batteries, theft and burglary, murder, fraud, and child abuse is related to the fact that drugs are illegal.
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Marijuana is a drug that is dangerous because it's illegal. It isn't illegal because it's dangerous. There are drugs in use that are far more harmful than marijuana--such as alcohol. Legalize marijuana and the dangers go away. -- Dr. Jill Stein, 2012 Green Party candidate for President.
 
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