"private jails are filthier, more violent, less accountable, and contrary to what privatization advocates peddle as truth, do not save money."
From our inception, APV has argued against the privatization of the criminal justice system. Imprisoning people for profit can only lead to corruption and a cynical twisting of the law for perverse ends. The article below relates to an ACLU report just released that examines the history and future of the private prison industry, “Banking on Bondage: Mass Incarceration and Private Prisons”. Undocumented labor, non-violent criminals and the failed drug war all come together at the nexus of the private, for profit jail. Can the re-institution of the debtors’ prison, once favored by unlikely leading Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich be far behind?
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“For private prisons whose profits are dependent on a constant and growing pool of prisoners, that means supporting policies that maintain and even increase the incarceration rate. For inmates, that translates to longer sentences, unsanitary conditions, and as Shapiro documents in the ACLU report, brutal violence, corruption, and abuse with little to no oversight.”
Alliance for a Progressive Virginia 