Commercial for profit prisons are a huge problem. Huge. There is a whole lot of sentencing and prison reform that needs to be taking place, particularly for non-violent crimes.
The focus on "for profit" prisons is such a disappointing distraction.
The prison guard union is one of the most powerful lobbyist groups in California (and significant in the US as a whole) and has all the same perverse incentives as private prisons.
If you want to really address the problems, the prison guard union and police unions are literally 100x more powerful and impactful to laws and policies, and their PR teams love it that the internet stays distracted by the 8.2% of prisoners who are housed in privately-run prisons.
100% agree. Correctional Corporations of America and its prison wage labor model are just terrible. It obviously incentivizes excessive law-making to fill cell beds while those who are part of the establishment such as judges and lawyers become a separate social class with more power which is backwards.
