Just being government run is just one ingredient in a successful prison system.
Next you need to find good people that strongly want to accomplish the organization's goals. And who are smart enough to actually do that.
And you need to make sure those leaders have adequate funding and time to make the necessary changes. As well as having a legal system that is at least half-way working correctly.
it's probably necessary. and i must ask, you've studied philosophy? that's the only time i see people talking about "necessary and sufficient conditions"
Thing is, private prisons are 10% of prisons. Which means public prisons are 90% of prisons, and so public-sector prison guards are at least 90% of prison guards (maybe 100% if they get the state to require collective bargaining in private prisons). That means a majority of the special interests are there either way. There is a conflict of interest with private prisons, but private prison owners are a small and not-very-powerful special interest compared to others.
Like, let’s talk marijuana legalization. I’m pretty sure fast food franchise owners are already a bigger special interest than private prison operators. They probably would be even if 100% of prisons were privatized.
On the other hand, the prison guard union has some real power. If they go on strike, you have to call up the National Guard and panic to get the prisons in working order before the prisoners start rioting and/or starving to death. If a private prison owner pulled that shit, it’s just one private prison owner, and regardless, they’re ruined for life. It only even becomes a remotely comparable risk if there was a single private prison monopoly across the whole state, whereas public prisons already have a prison guard monopoly in the form of the union.
none of that matters, there's a conflict of interest with private prisons, and they shouldn't exist.
That there are things we also need to fix with public prisons is an orthogonal issue. private prisons are clearly a problem. The idea of commercializing the locking up of human beings is horrifying from a moral perspective.
FWIW, I've never studied philosophy (unless you count formal logic, but we never talked about "necessary and sufficient conditions" in the two courses I took), and I use that terminology a fair amount. I'm not sure where I picked it up, but it certainly wasn't in philosophy classes.
The government won't lobby itself; the prison guards unions may, however.