Not disagreeing on incentive but for clarification...
My understanding would be that freeing non-violent criminals would be a matter of legislation and the court system. The choice would not be up to the prison. But do you think the prisons influence the legislation (or, horrifically, the judicial system)?
To say that it's a the root cause is to say that for-profit prisons drive legislation on drugs, but I do not believe that is the root cause of that legislation.
> In the Public Interest (ITPI), a Washington, D.C.-based research and policy group on public services, reported in September 2013 that it found so-called bed guarantees in around 65% of the more than 60 private prison contracts it analyzed, including contracts from Texas, Ohio, Colorado and Florida. The bed guarantees, or “lockup quotas,” ranged from 70% minimum occupancy in at least one California facility to 100% occupancy at three Arizona prisons. The most common bed guarantee was 90%.
> Public officials who agree to lockup quotas, according to corrections experts, become obligated – against their communities’ best interests – to keep prisons filled to ensure that taxpayer dollars aren’t being wasted.
> “It’s really shortsighted public policy to do anything that ties the hands of the state,” said Michele Deitch, a senior lecturer at the University of Texas School of Public Affairs and an expert on private prisons. “If there are these incentives to keep the private prisons full, then it is reducing the likelihood that states will adopt strategies to reduce prison costs by keeping more people out.”
Looking at the history of slavery and prison labour in the US, I'm not sure I share your optimism. Many new (and victimless) crimes were introduced after slavery was abolished, and slavery was never abolished in prisons. Locking someone up for "vagrancy" and then forcing them to work for you does sound an awful lot like slavery.
I'm not sure what you are disagreeing with. Prisons and prison labor existing because of racism is what you're arguing, and I didn't say anything to disagree with it. But root cause here is the same, assuming that laws against drug use are intended to catch more non-whites than whites.
My understanding would be that freeing non-violent criminals would be a matter of legislation and the court system. The choice would not be up to the prison. But do you think the prisons influence the legislation (or, horrifically, the judicial system)?
To say that it's a the root cause is to say that for-profit prisons drive legislation on drugs, but I do not believe that is the root cause of that legislation.