As states across the country adopt harsh new sentencing laws, private prison companies are celebrating, telling investors that they soon expect more people in their prisons — and even higher profits.
From Mississippi to California, many states have taken a decided “tough on crime” tack over the past two years in a strengthening backlash to criminal justice reform efforts in the wake of George Floyd’s murder in 2020. This year, Louisiana passed a package of harsh sentencing laws that will keep some people in prison for years longer. A new parole board in Mississippi is keeping people in prison for longer terms by denying early release. In March, Washington, DC, enacted a sweeping anti-crime package.
These laws, advocates warn, threaten to reverse years of progress in the fight against mass incarceration. Instead, they would again trap people in prison for lengthy terms, ripping apart communities and exacerbating racial and socioeconomic inequality — while enriching the private firms that manage prisons and their shareholders.
Ludicrous. People are not a commodity - and considering us as commodities strips us of the sacredness of our humanity. And sets an artificial division between us - the owners and us -the chattel(property). Stupidity - ours - in allowing ourselves to self-debase in making our time out societal punishment and our ill health to profit someone/a corporation. Given capitalism with its insatiable greed why would it not operate to their advantage - like an other apartheid outfit - control, conquer and make a pay off of it?Both prisons and healthcare must be public affairs. Not private. Not for profit. Just like libraries and our beleaguered post office.