[elicash]

The US prison system is about indifference and more like factory farming than inflicting punishment -- the negative effects are mostly a byproduct of high volume and costs.

I got really into this issue maybe two years ago, and it's been pretty sickening to observe. Things like multiple states denying surgeries based on alleged "one good eye" policies. Replacing in-person visits with virtual ones.

Sure, there's profit involved, of course. For example, there are pushes to get rid of prison libraries and their books and music and switch instead to tablet devices, so that the families of incarcerated people (those in prison might be making as little as literal pennies per hour) can be charged subscriptions by various companies. But even that is driven by costs involved in checking donated books for contraband. At the end of the day, we need to incarcerate fewer people for shorter periods of time -- and I'm not just talking about non-violent offenders, either.

The person in this twitter thread served 30 years. Let's start there.