235 Comments
founding

How soon do you all reckon that debtor's prison will become a thing again? It is a wonderment to me why the RWNJs aren't slipping the idea into the discourse already, given their constant pressure to make America a rich Libertarian's Utopia.

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founding

675 prisoners paid for

450 prisoners in prison.

This is called "featherbedding" in another context. It is called "waste, fraud and abuse" when it is a wingnut denouncing a Democratic institution. How about we make up the shortfall from GEO Groupe's corporate suite? And the state officials who signed off on this gross abuse.

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Processing that as a six year old... man.

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"Chart 1" aka "an illustration of the effect of the War On Drugs".

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It apparently costs $35,000 to $40,000 per year per head to imprison people in the US (this is the federal figure, I can't find one for Arizona). This disregards police, and court costs etc, which are even more substantial; it's purely the "hotel cost" rate. The Arizona minimum wage is c. $26,000 per annum, and the minimum wage labourer will pay taxes back to the state on that sum.Using prison labour is actually substantially more expensive than hiring people directly, it's just cheaper for businesses because the rate is massively subsidised by the Arizona taxpayer. Every one forced labourer replaced with a paid worker would actually save Arizona at least around $10-15,000 per year, probably more. Politicians saying otherwise are most likely simply shills for the Arizona slavery private prison labour industry.

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"A slave is the most expensive kind of worker, since he will work only as hard as he must to avoid punishment." - Adam Smith, paraphrased.

But of course it's the left who don't understand economics.

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Seen elsewhere: "Being younger than the Boomers is like playing a game where each level is a different era of history, and the boss is always Ronald Reagan in a different hat."

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Or the state was in the South and didn't want to be a slave state.

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As if people don't learn a lot in prison. 😁

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I also heard that political power comes from the count of humans in your county or state, while the ease with which you can get that power comes from the count of voters in your county or state. Guess who doesn't have voting rights so they contribute to the first but not to the second?

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I hadn't heard about that counter evidence yet. Got a source for me?

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Slavery never really went away, they just changed the name. Private for-profit prisons are crimes against humanity and those working for and supporting them need to be hanged by the neck until dead just like the Nazis at Nuremberg.

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One of the worst ever presidents of the last 50 years.

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I felt that the draft was a form of involuntary servitude.

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compare and contrast with the states where they now send you a bill for your incarceration.

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“…trickle tinkle…”

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