How does the US make money off of prisons?

[NakamuraNutShot]

Slave labor. And "the U.S." isn't pocketing the profits.

Slave labor? Have you ever spoken with a prisoner?

99% of these guys prefer scrubbing toilets and making license plates to sitting in their cell all day.

Jobs are a hot commodity in prisons, jails, etc.

 

[Fawlty]

Slave labor? Have you ever spoken with a prisoner?

99% of these guys prefer scrubbing toilets and making license plates to sitting in their cell all day.

Jobs are a hot commodity in prisons, jails, etc.

Yeah making slave wages working for a corporation is probably better than sitting in a cell...and?

 

[NakamuraNutShot]

Yeah making slave wages working for a corporation is probably better than sitting in a cell...and?

You speak as though they’re manufacturing cars on an assembly line.

“And?” They’re not forced to work.

 

[bad seed]

The reason private prisons were created in the first place was to deal with the sudden tidal wave of incoming prisoners due to Clinton’s Three-Strikes laws and the Clinton Crime Bill - something good 'ole Hillary campaigned hard for on behalf of Bill.

And yes, Hillary was all about that private prison lobby (in her '16 election bid) until she was outed by Twitter for being a hypocrite.

while you are correct that the Clintons engineered that crime bill (it was the height of the crack epidemic and everyone was paranoid), the GOP wanted far more draconian measures than what ultimately passed. Clinton met resistance from his party but his hand was forced due to the "soft on crime" rhetoric shouted from the right.

 

[tonni]

Same can be said for government prisons. What is the financial incentive for them to do their jobs properly? The goodness of their hearts?

At least the invisible hand of the free market ensures efficiency.

Efficiency in what way?

 

[Goonerview]

Efficiency in what way?

The private sector generally doesn't like losing money.

If an enterprise has high risk, low reward, it generally will find it hard to get private investments.

In the real world, if a company doesnt make a profit, it folds.

The government is not subject to market pressures and can afford to spunk money away. Whether it's sending it abroad in "government aid" or building shit or hiring people that doesn't provide any value or profit.

The government doesn't have to be efficient. Private companies do.

You end up getting these government hired teachers complaining about their salaries, despite their huge pensions and long holidays ... when in the real world, if they were subject to market pressures, half of them wouldn't provide enough value to warrant their jobs.

 

[WTF2008]

The country itself doesn't make money. The private prison industry does.

Privatize profits, socialize losses. It's the American (Republican more so than Democrat, but both parties to an extent) way.

I'm also very skeptical about the "it costs the government X-amount to house prisoners." Too often, the statistics are based on somewhat spurious data. It's very definitively a loss on taxpayers, as it should be, but how much is hard to say.

The "government" is made up of people. And people are dicks that want money.

There are a lot of people that will do horrible things for money.
There was a judge that sentenced juveniles to prison for cash.

Which is why you want a billionaire orange man for president over someone that stole furniture from the Whitehouse while her husband stuck cigars in intern's vaginas.

 

[WTF2008]

The level of African-American support for the Clinton Klan has always been very confounding to me. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry during the 2016 Democratic primaries, so depressing.

She had hot sauce in her purse and did a dab on Ellen you racist bastard.

 

[Goonerview]

The "government" is made up of people. And people are dicks that want money.

There are a lot of people that will do horrible things for money.
There was a judge that sentenced juveniles to prison for cash.

Which is why you want a billionaire orange man for president over someone that stole furniture from the Whitehouse while her husband stuck cigars in intern's vaginas.

No, the brainless masses want "career politicians" that have never had a real job.

Because according to media, Donald Trump is "not qualified" ... whatever the f**k that means, smh.

 

[WTF2008]

The private sector generally doesn't like losing money.

If an enterprise has high risk, low reward, it generally will find it hard to get private investments.

In the real world, if a company doesnt make a profit, it folds.

The government is not subject to market pressures and can afford to spunk money away. Whether it's sending it abroad in "government aid" or building shit or hiring people that doesn't provide any value or profit.

The government doesn't have to be efficient. Private companies do.

You end up getting these government hired teachers complaining about their salaries, despite their huge pensions and long holidays ... when in the real world, if they were subject to market pressures, half of them wouldn't provide enough value to warrant their jobs.

And yet, the most fiscally responsible and successful President is the most denigrated.

 

[Quequeg]

And yet, the most fiscally responsible and successful President is the most denigrated.

Fiscal responsibility = massive deficit? Only in Trump world where black is white, up is down, etc.

 

[Goonerview]

Fiscal responsibility = massive deficit? Only in Trump world where black is white, up is down, etc.

Massive deficit that grew hugely under Obama

 

[Neph]

Same can be said for government prisons. What is the financial incentive for them to do their jobs properly? The goodness of their hearts?

At least the invisible hand of the free market ensures efficiency.

The Government has clear incentives to do prisons well as they are an enormous burden on tax payers. Tax rates can decide elections.

The private market has clear incentives to have the most possible people in prison at any time and to not rehabilitate people. This is how they make profit.

The invisible hand of the free market ensuring efficiency is simply untrue. An individual corporation does not want an efficient market (and may actively agitate to prevent this from happening) as it is not the ideal circumstance for profit. The invisible hand is only the most broad concept that falls down as soon as the concepts of perfect markets and perfect competitions meet reality.

 

[Goonerview]

The Government has clear incentives to do prisons well as they are an enormous burden on tax payers. Tax rates can decide elections.

The private market has clear incentives to have the most possible people in prison at any time and to not rehabilitate people. This is how they make profit.

The invisible hand of the free market ensuring efficiency is simply untrue. An individual corporation does not want an efficient market (and may actively agitate to prevent this from happening) as it is not the ideal circumstance for profit. The invisible hand is only the most broad concept that falls down as soon as the concepts of perfect markets and perfect competitions meet reality.

Tax rates can decide elections to a small extent, but so can the promise of free shit. I would say the latter is more influential.

I don't really have a dog in the fight when it comes to whether prisons should be privatized or not. But, I would rather the prisoners actually had a job and produced some value.

The invisible hand of the market is true. Decentralized free markets are far more superior to government central planning. The USA winning the Cold War is a testament to this.

 

[Neph]

Tax rates can decide elections to a small extent, but so can the promise of free shit. I would say the latter is more influential.

I don't really have a dog in the fight when it comes to whether prisons should be privatized or not. But, I would rather the prisoners actually had a job and produced some value.

The invisible hand of the market is true. Decentralized free markets are far more superior to government central planning. The USA winning the Cold War is a testament to this.

The comment about the invisible hand is more to do with the way it is rabidly argued by some folk - I'm not necessarily saying it is you, but the people who follow this extreme capitalistic model do so pretty blindly and probably haven't spent much time examining the framework. The invisible hand is contingent on perfect competition which has far too many assumptions and relaxations of reality to actually be true. It is a worthwhile model but is one that is really only at the most elementary level of economics. As assumptions become relaxed you start to get a more realistic view of the world.

 

[WTF2008]

Fiscal responsibility = massive deficit? Only in Trump world where black is white, up is down, etc.

Numbers don't lie. If the economy tanked when Trump came in, would we be blaming Obama?

But it didn't. It exceeded anything even Obama could imagine but we're supposed to praise him for it?

 

[Goonerview]

The comment about the invisible hand is more to do with the way it is rabidly argued by some folk - I'm not necessarily saying it is you, but the people who follow this extreme capitalistic model do so pretty blindly and probably haven't spent much time examining the framework. The invisible hand is contingent on perfect competition which has far too many assumptions and relaxations of reality to actually be true. It is a worthwhile model but is one that is really only at the most elementary level of economics. As assumptions become relaxed you start to get a more realistic view of the world.

I disagree.

If there is money and profit to be made. There are usually people with money ready to capitalize.

 

[Quequeg]

Numbers don't lie. If the economy tanked when Trump came in, would we be blaming Obama?

But it didn't. It exceeded anything even Obama could imagine but we're supposed to praise him for it?

Look up fiscal responsibility and get back to me, hint it is not running huge deficits during economic booms.

 

[Quequeg]

Numbers don't lie. If the economy tanked when Trump came in, would we be blaming Obama?

But it didn't. It exceeded anything even Obama could imagine but we're supposed to praise him for it?

Look up fiscal responsibility and get back to me, hint it is not running huge deficits during economic booms.

 

[Prefect]

I’m sure plenty of you know, USA has the highest incarceration rate and prison population in the world.

I’ve heard that USA makes money off of prisons though.

How is this possible if the average cost of housing an inmate is $31,000 per year? https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.ma...rld/how-much-does-it-cost-send-someone-prison

By USA, you must be meaning the people that own the prisons. I have yet to see any of that sweet, sweet prison money.