Who makes money from the Nation’s prison system?

June 20. 2009

Dare I say it, but, it seems the time is at hand to review the nation’s prison systems and the ‘war on drugs’ (regardless of whether such a war is currently defunct). Who stands to gain from housing so many criminals in the nation’s prisons (albeit a violent or nonviolent criminal)? What are the costs associated with housing the prisoners and fighting the ‘war on drugs?’ Furthermore, what are the social costs associated with the current policies? What levels of cash flow do the ‘Prison Industries’ generate? The nation’s tax-payers pay massive amounts of monies to house prisoners and yet do the prisoners potentially generate more cash flow for the prison systems than the cost of housing all the prisoners? And, if so, who benefits from any possible positive cash flow to the prison systems? I mean, without a positive cash flow, why would any private-type corporate entity desire to run any prison systems for the state – which seems to be a current trend? Does anyone have any specific answers to these questions? Are these nonsensical questions?
AVT