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A comment on United States incarceration rate.

Re:United States incarceration rate by beloch on Sunday June 09, 2013 @05:12PM (#5850632)
There are certainly problems with the for-profit prison industry. For example:

1. Is it reasonable to expect a corporation that wants to expand its "clientele" to rehabilitate prisoners into law-abiding citizens rather than repeat offenders?

2. Is it really a surprise that the prison industry has managed to reform the law to drum up business in a country where Mickey Mouse will never enter the public domain?

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:United States incarceration rate by yummyfajitas on Monday June 10, 2013 @06:45AM (#5853464)
The incentives for (2) are reduced by privatization. Any individual prison operator can sit around freeloading while the other guys lobby for harsher laws.

In contrast, in a system with government run prisons, the prison guard union has strong incentive for rent seeking - they will capture all the rents.

Privatization has problems, but this isn't one of them.

[ Parent | on HN ]