Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Chief
Well for one I fail to see how jails make money. I know there is the economic arguement that it is pumping money into the US economy by hiring American's, etc to work there, but it isn't really a valid arguement (considering the money could be spent on much better things). The Justice system as a whole is a very very expensive process, and ultimately the money could be pumped back into the US economy in much more positive ways. But in any event (and this is just one example), and correct me if I am wrong, illegal immigrants wouldn't be paying tax on the money they earn, so for one the US Government could offer tax breaks to those people that work low-end jobs. I am not saying there aren't some economic benefits to illegal immigration, but some people talk about it as if stopping it would bring down the US economy, which is ridiculous. The US could certainly go along ok without it. Some adjustments would have to made no doubt, but the US has certainly faced harded situations before and come out on top.
|
You're missing the point. Jails are money makers, because the facilities to build and the costs to operate a correctional facility are much lower than money being paid to the private owners to maintain them (by federal, state and local governments handing them YOUR tax money).
Like many things in the US, a large portion of the criminal justice system is privatized. Yes, there are people who actually make a great deal of money for every petty thief, every pothead, every street whore who gets tossed in the clink. Originally, the push to privatize was based on studies showing that the publically administrated system was overcrowded and difficult to administer. Some marginal cost savings have indeed been realized by privatizing, but now there exists a powerful and growing lobby body which has a
vested interest in keeping people incarcerated for longer periods and for lighter offenses. The US prison population has
tripled since the Carter administration, and (coincidentally?) it was the Reagan administration what started the push for privatization, and set the groundwork for mandatory minimum sentences. To say that privately run prisons have been a serious cash cow is a major understatement.
So it's not that the prison industry actually 'makes money' overall for the country (although the cost of running same, over $30bil annually, is added to the GDP), but it is certainly a money maker for those few who are capitalizing on crime, and which horses they back at elections time with their political contributions.
For those of you looking at making money off this, be advised: The public system is once again reaching dangerous levels of overcrowding, which means that more private institutions will most likely be going up... according to the latest numbers I could find, there was a 3.4% increase in a
half year between January and June 2004. The outlook seems bullish to me!
See the report here.
As I said though, all that is orthogonal to the illegal immigrant situation. Really, prisons and immigration barely affect each other.