this post was submitted on 06 Oct 2023
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[–] shalafi@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I know it's a popular sentiment, because private prisons are so in-your-face evil, but they're not as ubiquitous as the population seems to believe.

Twenty-seven states and the federal government incarcerated 96,370 people in private prisons in 2021, representing 8% of the total state and federal prison population.

Yes, that's too many. Yes, we need to ban these things at the federal level. But let's not forget the grift from state and local prisons, in many cases worse because they can't be as readily audited.