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A comment on How I Survived a Year in ‘The Hole’ Without Losing My Mind. Parent comment

Re:How I Survived a Year in ‘The Hole’ Without Losing My Mind by hedora on Sunday October 30, 2022 @12:54PM (#33396113)
In most other countries, the prison system's job is to reform the prisoners.

In the US, it is designed to be punitive, and there is a direct financial incentive to increase the percentage of prisoners that are sent back to prison after serving their time.

The system is working as designed: the US has a much higher percentage of its population in prison than most other countries, and extremely high recividism rates.

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Re:How I Survived a Year in ‘The Hole’ Without Losing My Mind by dahfizz on Sunday October 30, 2022 @01:30PM (#33396535)
You're really overplaying the financial angle. Only 8% of prisons are private. And even then, it's the government that has to pay the prisons. Imprisonment always costs tax money.
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Re:How I Survived a Year in ‘The Hole’ Without Losing My Mind by hedora on Sunday October 30, 2022 @10:12PM (#33401292)
The prison labor alone is worth $11 billion dollars a year (from 800,000 workers):

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jun/15/us-prison-wo...

Also, many state run prisons outsource things to contractors that price gouge.

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