Private, for-profit prisons have failed. They cost taxpayers more than public prisons, are less safe for prisoners (the one private prison in Idaho has 4 times the number of prisoner-on-prisoner assaults than the seven public prisons in the state combined), have had repeated scandals (including one where judges were bribed by the prisons in exchange […]
This is a map showing incarceration rate (number of prisoners per 100,000 population). Note that it doesn’t even include all prisoners in the US — it leaves out prisoners in juvenile detention, prisoners held in US Territories (which I presume includes Guantanamo), jails contracted by the US Marshals Service, and jails in Indian country. Actually, […]
It is too bad that I don’t have a category for “sanity in an insane world”. This story definitely qualifies. Los Angeles County Sheriff oversees the largest jail system in the nation, and yet he travelled to Washington to lobby the government to give him less money, and instead spend the money on preschools, saying: […]
Arizona has had more than a few problems since turning over a dozen of its prisons to private corporations. Security problems increased, most famously allowing two convicted killers to escape from a private prison in 2010 and wreak murder and havoc. Even worse, the annual review of the private prisons shows that in many cases, […]
Ever get the feeling that you’re being had by all the “law and order” politicians who keep screaming that we have to get tough on criminals (cough, Rick Perry, Ric Scott, JD Alexander)? Even though the US incarcerates more people than any other country on earth. Well, you are being had, and the con is […]
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