I’ve previously mentioned the case of the Pennsylvania judge who, receiving kickbacks from local private prisons, sent thousands of children to jail for petty offences and for much longer than they should’ve been sent, in the context of why private prisons, adding the profit motive to criminal prosecution, are a fundamentally bad idea.
Update: he’s pleaded guilty. Apparently there’s a maximum of 20 years he could now serve: we’ll see what he actually gets. Meanwhile, many of his young victims have served well beyond their time and are unlikely to be compensated for the damage the State wreaked on their lives through him.
And, given who those victims are – young people from predominantly poorer backgrounds who’ve probably now, through their unnecessary incarceration, been turned into the next generation of reoffending criminals – I doubt very much they ever will be.
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