| > Hiniger makes $1 million? The total cost of 8 or 12 government cops. You claimed that profits, not revenues, constitute "the profit motive sum" for private prison operators. But if revenue is tied to executive compensation, that's clearly not true. I didn't offer the number as a comparative, but rather as a way of refuting your claim that total revenues don't contribute to profit motive. Aside from this point, I don't really think Hiniger's salary is relevant to this conversation. > Peak war on drugs existed during peak government prison complex. Nobody likes to talk about that. So are you really claiming that private prisons caused prison populations to decline? If not, what point are you trying to make by mentioning this obviously-not-causative correlation? > rather, it's to highlight that the public system is radically larger and just as financially motivated You'll find just as much "hysteria-like concern" here on hn, and elsewhere, about profiteering in public prisons. And yes, that includes concern over lobbying by prison guard unions. I agree with your general point that a wave of stupid in the 80s and 90s is more to blame for our current situation than profit motive. And to get back to the article, Sessions has always been in the eye of that hurricane of stupid. But profiteering -- by unions, by private prison suppliers, by suppliers to public prisons -- certainly helps sustain the present situation. Different people choose different subsets of that Goliath. So what? Like I said above, I really, really don't understand the battle lines you're trying to draw here. Surely, we can all agree that the solution is putting fewer people in jails, right? |