U.S. prison population soars in 2003, ’04
While the crime rate has fallen over the past decade, the number of people in prison and jail is outpacing the number of inmates released.
Politicians get elected by screaming “let’s git tough on crime.” Plus there’s big money to be made in building and maintaining prisons – and let’s not forget that construction is notorious for being a swell way to make clean money vanish and dirty money get laundered. That’s at least one reason politicians are always howling for big construction projects to happen.
The convicts. Oh yeah, them. Well, let’s pass some barbaric sentencing laws, then lock them up and keep them there. We got a sweet little gravy train going on, and we need lots of convicts to keep it happening.
The prison-industrial system is rotten to the core, corrupt too.