Some private prison corporations and judges both felt it was profitable enough.
Two Pennsylvania judges received $2.8M in bribes from private prisons to send 4,000 kids to the private prisons with long sentences; apparently ruining 4,000 kids lives was profitable enough to justify $2.8M in bribes. One of the judges has managed to get released early.
Right, you’ll see pockets of individual corruption but that doesn’t account for why there is a systemic overpopulation. Unless you are suggesting every judge is on the take, in which case no amount of law reform will matter without first removing all of the judges.
I am suggesting that this example of corruption is evidence that there is sufficient profit in private prisons to motivate efforts (legal and illegal) to affect policy.
E.g., private prisons likely spend at least as much in legal lobbying efforts to maintain high prison populations as they do in bribes.