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by _hcuq 1028 days ago
If there is profit in holding people prisoner, then there is an incentive to falsely imprison people. Or give them overly long sentences.
2 comments

Agreed. There should only be a cost associated with punitive action. The incentive should be to get them out of the system (or, don't laugh- maybe rehabilitate them?), not to keep them in it.
But the people who profit are not the people who are able to falsely imprison people.
Except when judges get kickbacks from prisons for sending them prisoners.

https://www.npr.org/2022/08/18/1118108084/michael-conahan-ma...

I think this is sort of the exception that proves the rule. The people profiting form prisons have direct incentives to increase prison populations , but the people who can actually falsely imprison people have, at best, illegal side channel incentives.
There are non-illegal side channels, like "tough on crime" judges getting political donations from deep-pocketed interested parties.