US prison system 'costly failure'

What will the Federal prison system do without it's 19 cents per hour (Unicor) labor force?

and the watched. Longer prison terms, mandatory sentencing...these things do nothing for the crime rate, but they do wonders for the pockets of those who run the prisons. Death sentences are a barbaric practice.

Sentencing guidelines need overhaul, and mandatory sentencing for crimes that don't do a great deal of harm are just ....well. Lacking in common sense.

Who knew going to prison could be so profitable?

Immigration Enforcement Benefits Prison Firms

3 prison stocks poised to break out

Prisons are now factories behind fences.

Once you make prisons a method for making money there is no incentive to find another way to rehabilitate criminals. But there are plenty of incentives to create more prisoners with new laws.

The War on Drugs has been very successful at one thing: Stuffing our prisons.

prison sentences getting stretched out, and minor crimes resulting in jail time. Catherine Austin Fitts talks about it here http://www.dunwalke.com/9_Cornell_Corrections.htm

snip

"Prison stocks also are valued on a “per bed” basis — which is based on the number of beds provided and the profit per bed. “Per bed” is really a euphemism for people who are sentenced to be housed in their prison.

For example, in 1996, when Cornell went public, based on the financial information provided in the offering document provided to investors, its stock was valued at $24,241 per bed. This means that for every contract Cornell got to house one prisoner, at that time, their stock went up in value by an average of $24,261. According to prevailing business school philosophy, this is the stock market’s current present value of the future flow of profit flows generated through the management of each prisoner. This, for example, is why longer mandatory sentences are worth so much to private prison stocks. A prisoner in jail for twenty years has a twenty-year cash flow associated with his incarceration, as opposed to one with a shorter sentence or one eligible for an early parole.<47> This means that we have created a significant number of private interests — investment firms, banks, attorneys, auditors, architects, construction firms, real estate developers, bankers, academics, investors among them— who have a vested interest in increasing the prison population and keeping people behind bars as long as possible.

When you invest in stock, you make money if and when you sell the stock at a higher price than you paid for it....

There are two ways to make the stock go up. First, you can increase net income by increasing capacity — the number of “beds” — or profitability — “profits per bed.” Second, you can increase the multiple at which the stock trades by increasing the markets’ expectations of how many beds or what your profit per bed will be and by being very accessible to the widest group of investors. So, for example, passing laws regarding mandatory sentencing or other rules that will increase the needs for prison capacity can increase the value of private prison company stock without those companies getting additional contracts or business. The passage of — or anticipation of — a law that will increase the demand for private prisons is a “stock play” in and of itself."

see the graphic at the OP's link

I had missed the separate PDF link.

This is a huge problem that is often overlooked even by the progressive community because we don't want to seem to be helping the "bad people." Such a shame.

K&R!