Plantations, Prisons and Profits

This piece discusses Louisiana and why exactly it is the world’s prison capital. The state is offered as the starkest, most glaring example of how private prisons do not serve the public interest and how the mass incarceration as a form of job creation is an abomination of justice and civility and creates a long-term crisis by trying to create a short-term solution. In order for its local prisons to remain profitable, local prison officials are on the phones bartering for prisoners with overcrowded jails in the big cities.

This piece discusses Louisiana and why exactly it is the world’s prison capital. The state is offered as the starkest, most glaring example of how private prisons do not serve the public interest and how the mass incarceration as a form of job creation is an abomination of justice and civility and creates a long-term crisis by trying to create a short-term solution. In order for its local prisons to remain profitable, local prison officials are on the phones bartering for prisoners with overcrowded jails in the big cities. Further, criminal sentences must remain stiff and prisoners who wind up in these local for-profit jails, where many of the inmates are short-timers, get fewer rehabilitative services than those in state institutions, where many of the prisoners are lifers.