The likely outcome of such a system would be for the for-profit prisons to hire lawyers to get their past "clients" off on technicalities.
How about creating a system where we help people who have been to prison to avoid going there again - say training them for good jobs and treating them like human beings when in jail so they treat others the same way when they get out?
I once had a good friend who told me he was unemployable because he was a felon. I don't know what he did but it must have been bad.
I suggested that he learn to write code then hang out his shingle as a self-employed consultant.
It turned out that he was already quite a good computer programmer as he was taught how while in prison. But even so he refused to consider self-employment because he was so down on himself.
While there are many reasons to pursue self-employment, among them is that one cannot find paying work any other way.
The reason prisons are commonly called "Penitentiaries" or "Correctional Institutes" is that they are not intended for punishment but to set their inmates onto a righteous path.
At least that was the stated intention at one time.
You don't have to something super bad to be labelled a felon. Simple drug possession, not selling but being caught with certain drugs or a certain amount, will result in felony charges. In fact, a majority of felons in Federal prisons are drug related, though that percentage is much lower in State prisons, where there are more violent offenders.
Unfortunately prisons (and society in general) seem to not be too interested in helping prisoners avoid repeating their past errors. Leaving aside morals, vengeance is not an intelligent way of running prisons if you are going to let people out.
What I don't understand is why the for profit prisons are even in the US at all? Why not put them in Vietnam, Mexico or the Philippines where all costs are cheaper. I'd halve their sentences or give them beach access for doing call center work or sewing laptop bags.
It would be interesting to see the unionization rates in the for profit prisons. I am sure the FPP would love to lower their staffing costs and influence while having a more opaque regime overseas.
What I don't understand is why the for profit prisons are even in the US at all? Why not put them in Vietnam, Mexico or the Philippines where all costs are cheaper.
Because cutting off family support for these prisoners would make a bad situation worse?
And what right does a nation with poor track record of human rights have, to just assume that other countries should be okay with this nation shipping people it considers undesirable, to that place?
Oh, I don't like this in my house, let me just toss it into the neighbour's place since I am powerful and the neighbour can't complain...
Maybe the family could pay for premium incarceration to be housed in the US. I am sure there are lots of inmates who are never visited during their entire stay.
Maybe the family could pay for premium incarceration to be housed in the US. I am sure there are lots of inmates who are never visited during their entire stay.
And the wealthy don't get enough preferential treatment in the criminal justice system now?
The current system does a great job draining additional money from poor inmates and their families. Just look at the price of phone calls, one of the most basic means to keep people connected.
The wealthy are already less likely to be investigated (living in a non-poor neighborhood), less likely to be charged with a crime (better lawyers), and less likely to be convicted (ditto).
I think there is a huge untapped market in privatizing prosecutorial duties, with the full cost of a trial born on a 3rd party to go after (for instance) environmental and white collar crime, while that 3rd party would see at least half of the money from fines as well as court costs. It would be a corporation that eats the rich.
