PBS NOW: Prisons for profit

Corporations are running many Americans prisons, but will they put profits before prisoners? A grim new statistic: One in every hundred Americans is now locked behind bars. As the prison population grows faster than the government can build prisons, private companies see an opportunity for profit. This week, NOW on PBS investigates the government's trend to outsource prisons and prisoners to the private sector. Critics accuse private prisons of standing in the way of sentencing reform and sacrificing public safety to maximize profits.
qualmsays...

Comparing incarceration rates in the USA and Stalin's U.S.S.R.

U.S.S.R. (1950) ....... 1,423 per 100,000

U.S. (2002) ........... 2,298 per 100,000

Incarceration rates of black men in apartheid South Africa and contemporary America

South Africa (1993) ....... 851 per 100,000
U.S. (2002) ............... 7,150 per 100,000

Source: U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics, Prison Policy Initiative, "The International Use of Incarceration", Marc Mauer of The Sentencing Project.

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