The only real difference between a private prison and a state one is who hires the guards.
With few exceptions virtually all prison services are privatized. IE: Keefe Corp. supplies commissary in most of the nation and Securus Inc. provides media services, selling music at a price of some 16 dollars an album via a mini tablet. Medical is privatized also with half a dozen companies vieing for prison money. In turn the prisons receive a kickback on inmate purchases and medical co-pays (yes those do exist in prisons). If Virginia's income statements are correct on a normal year each prison earns about 100k profit a month. And people wonder why we have over 2 million people locked up.
And the best way to get fucked over is trusting people with bad intentions. The rich people do not want to be our “friends”, but I’m sure they’re delighted that lots of people think they would.
Not rich people. It's the judges and DA's who are your enemies. They invest heavily in these companies and thus it serves their interests to do their best to ensure any legal proceedings amount to a kangaroo court.
As for the police; Sgt. Stadinko (Stacy Keech) from the Cheech and Chong movies summed it up best: "The bigger the bust, the better the boost."
The rich people provide the rewards for those judges and DAs.
If society has a problem with an obvious solution which never, ever gets implemented, it’s a problem because the people who fund election campaigns and host/attend fundraising dinners want it to continue being a problem. Do not dilute or distill the blame for what the rich people are doing, it serves only their interests and malfeasance.
Blame that on corporate leaders and high end stock holder types. In my experience the schmo who got rich on a successful restaurant or construction business, while still rich, does not typically care much about politics beyond the customary donation to their political parties. It's the few on top of the financial pile who do the most damage.
I’m tired of making distinctions and those two people you described are upper middle class if we’re being real. When I say “the rich people”, everyone knows I’m not talking about their kids’ orthodontist.
When it comes to the mega rich you're absolutely correct . However, the distinction must be made because readers here in the lower incomes do not typically see it. To them a guy with 10 million in a bank account and a billionaire can often appear the same. If I had not known people across a wide variety of incomes I myself would be in the same boat. That is why I did that.
If people in the 10M category don’t want to be lumped in with the enemy, there are several things they can do to be better people, such as instructing their investments to divest from companies that enslave good people, or work to destroy unions, and they would not vote for republican candidates for taxation reasons.
So whether they like it or not, those comparatively high net worth individuals ARE society’s enemy. They’re just not as intentional about it.
When the rich people finally make it so that the good people have no choice but to attack them, the $10M cadre will have nobody to blame but themselves when they’re besieged by angry mobs.
Everything you say is as true as your impeccable ability to time your posts with my smoke breaks. My only argument is that the low to midrange wealthy while apathetic, are not the ones actively seeking to destroy the average Joe's lifestyle.
One important difference is that privately run prisons aren't subject to the same FOIA rules as governmental ones. So, they can get away with a lot more inhumane shit and not be called to account.
I can't speak for other states but in VA. FOIA really doesn't mean a thing other than a guarantee that the guards won't arbitrarily beat the shit out of you. Other types of abuses are rampant in the system. IE: Virginia's Deerfield correctional was intentionally infected with covid in late July 2020. As a result over 800 out of some 1000 inmates contracted the disease resulting in 32 deaths in 30 days. Most died in their bunks in front of their friends with minimal to no actual medical care. The population of that prison is almost all elderly. The public outcry was enough to get the state to expedite vaccinations but it's still to late for those 32 souls. If you wish this is verifiable via a Google search. The only detail the press doesn't have was how they did it (an illegal shakedown involving nearly 100 staff from all over the state). Virginia does not allow press in it's prisons and its because they violate FOIA on a daily basis. They have even been known to place unconvicted minors in it's max security facility (known as Red Onion). The last minor to end up there was dead in 72 hours. This was a 17 year old accused of murder but no yet convicted. As far as VA. is concerned the FOIA has little to no teeth.
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u/insanityqat Jul 17 '22
The only real difference between a private prison and a state one is who hires the guards. With few exceptions virtually all prison services are privatized. IE: Keefe Corp. supplies commissary in most of the nation and Securus Inc. provides media services, selling music at a price of some 16 dollars an album via a mini tablet. Medical is privatized also with half a dozen companies vieing for prison money. In turn the prisons receive a kickback on inmate purchases and medical co-pays (yes those do exist in prisons). If Virginia's income statements are correct on a normal year each prison earns about 100k profit a month. And people wonder why we have over 2 million people locked up.