gAlienLifeform@lemmy.world to News@lemmy.world · edit-22 months agoHundreds of counties around the USA have ended in-person jail visits, replacing them with video calls and earning a cut of the profitswww.newyorker.comexternal-linkmessage-square22fedilinkarrow-up1339arrow-down13file-text
arrow-up1336arrow-down1external-linkHundreds of counties around the USA have ended in-person jail visits, replacing them with video calls and earning a cut of the profitswww.newyorker.comgAlienLifeform@lemmy.world to News@lemmy.world · edit-22 months agomessage-square22fedilinkfile-text
Archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20240515104635/https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/05/20/the-jails-that-forbid-children-from-visiting-their-parents
minus-squareCosmicTurtle0@lemmy.dbzer0.comlinkfedilinkEnglisharrow-up5arrow-down1·2 months ago I’ll never understand how and why prisons and anything related are allowed to be privatized. It starts with a government trying to balance its budget. It can’t cut schools because parents will get upset. You can’t cut services because they are already cut to the bone. You can’t raise taxes because that will just piss off everyone. So…who can you piss off and they can’t vote you out? Cutting the prison budget often doesn’t get headlines. But raising their budget often does and makes you “soft on crime”. So it’s an easy target for budgets, especially at the local level.
It starts with a government trying to balance its budget. It can’t cut schools because parents will get upset.
You can’t cut services because they are already cut to the bone.
You can’t raise taxes because that will just piss off everyone.
So…who can you piss off and they can’t vote you out?
Cutting the prison budget often doesn’t get headlines. But raising their budget often does and makes you “soft on crime”.
So it’s an easy target for budgets, especially at the local level.