by Micki » Mon 26 May 2008, 00:30:08
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'Y')es, I see a problem with society generating a bunch of lawbreakers.
The "society" wants these lawbreakers. They are cheap labour.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'B')ut since 1979 prisons have been encouraged to let prisoners work directly for external commercial employers. At first this was conducted on a small scale, but in recent years the US prison population has exploded to more than two million people (from 300,000 in 1972 and one million in 1990). At the same time, the number of privately-operated prisons has jumped from five to 100 in the past decade alone, and is still growing.
Because it means the criminal justice and prison industry has become one of the biggest and fastest-growing sectors of the US economy. In 2004, for example, it employed 2.2 million people, more than General Motors, Ford and Wal-Mart combined. Scores of ‘prison towns’ have sprung up, where the flagging local economy depends on the local private prison – and towns compete on cost to ‘import’ long-term prisoners from state penitentiaries. Meanwhile, the private use of prison labour is legal in 37 states and has been enthusiastically embraced by dozens of household-name firms, including IBM, Boeing, Microsoft and AT&T.