As a European, I wonder what kind of dystopia the concept of a “private prison” fits into. I don’t understand how anyone could have imagined that this would end well.
They got so used to prison being absolute shitholes that saying that people get raped in there is apparently funny.
Hey now, we also use it to advertise shitty 1-800 law firms.
From the American republiQan point of view, this is exactly what it’s supposed to create: a hellish nightmare of torture into which any law-abiding citizen will be cast as soon as those in power deem it useful to them.
I noted recently there was a “tough on crime” surge in Canada politics - this is what becomes of that.
It starts out with some common sense ideas; murderers and rapists should be punished, etc. And quickly (and - this is key - very quietly) becomes a huge financial drain that is self-perpetuating.
In the Southeast of America a judge was fairly recently convicted of sending underage boys to a private prison in exchange for kickbacks from that prison. He had been doing it for over a decade. And that’s just one that made the news.
The American republiQan playbook is being run in your country. (Hi Poland!) Beware.
In the Southeast of America a judge was fairly recently convicted of sending underage boys to a private prison in exchange for kickbacks from that prison. He had been doing it for over a decade. And that’s just one that made the news.
It is obvious that something like this would happen. You cannot create a system with perverse incentives and expect the good faith of those who participate to keep it clean. It is exactly the opposite of the spirit of the American revolution (and the rest of democratic revolutions)
The same as private universities, private health care, private banks, private (as in capitalism-driven) politics. Some of which are way worse on a national scale than private prisons imo.
Private banks should mean they can fail without the government stepping in.
Beyond the services of a basic checking account and ability to send money, banking should be private.
Again, I’m European so I can’t be sure about this, but I think some of those issues are worse because of the scale, not the thing itself. The entire healthcare system is private—if all prisons were too, I think that would be much worse than the healthcare situation.
As for politicians, up until this election cycle, they at least had the decency to pretend. From now on, we’ll see what happens.
