I was looking total incarceration not just federal.

 

Many many more prisoners held in state and local jails and prisons. Overall I think the private prison population is under 5%...or it was when I looked at it a few years ago.

 

From the Bureau of Justice Statistics:

 

Of states with prison facilities operating at more than 100%

maximum capacity, both Ohio and the BOP decreased the

number of inmates held in private facilities. Illinois, Nebraska,

and Massachusetts do not house any prisoners in private

facilities. In 2014, 131,300 inmates were held in private

prison facilities under the jurisdiction of 30 states and the

BOP, a decrease of 2,100 prisoners from yearend 2013 (table

9). The federal prison system held 1,100 fewer prisoners in

private prisons (down 3%), for a total of 40,000 or 19% of the

BOP population. Idaho had the largest decline (down 77%)

in private prisoners during 2014, as operations at a prison

facility formerly run by a private entity were taken over by the

state DOC.

Seven states housed at least 20% of their inmate population

in private facilities at yearend 2014, including New Mexico

(44% of the total state prison population), Montana (39%),

Oklahoma (26%), and Hawaii (24%). Since 1999, when BJS

began tracking the number of prisoners in private facilities

at yearend on an annual basis through the National Prisoner

Statistics (NPS), the size of this population has grown 90%,

from 69,000 prisoners at yearend 1999 to 131,300 in 2014.

The use of private prisons was at a maximum in 2012, when

137,200 (almost 9%) of the total U.S. prison population were

housed in private facilities (figure 6).

Between 5% and 7% of state prison inmates were held in

private facilities each year, while the BOP increasingly

relied on facilities not managed by a state, federal, or local

government to house inmates in recent years, including both

secure and nonsecure facilities, and home confinement. In

1999, almost 3% of federal prison inmates were held in secure

private facilities. This grew to more than 13% in 2012 and

2013, before declining in 2014 to slightly less than 13%. In

2014, 13,000 (32%) of the BOP’s 40,000 privately supervised

inmates were in nonsecure community corrections facilities or

on home confinement, up from 6,100 in 2000, the first year the

BOP reported this population to BJS (not shown).

A link for the study:

http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/p14.pdf

Prison Industry? So now instead of blaming private prisons, which house an insignificant number of the total of incarcerated individuals in this country, we should blame the guy that sells produce to the local prison too? Or Johnson and Johnson that sells them bandaids or Proctor and Gamble that sells them cleaning supplies?

 

There are some issues with 3 Strikes laws in some states, I agree. But there are a relatively small number of people committing the vast majority of crime in this country. At some point enough is enough with these people, if they can't live by the rules of society maybe prison is the best place for them.

 

Don't play coy with me and act like you're unaware of the influence the prison industry lobby puts on legislators.

Don't play coy with me and act like you're unaware of the influence the prison industry lobby puts on legislators.

 

Lobbyist impact everything and rarely to the benefit of anyone other than their own pockets.

 

Not surprised they do it here...probably some of the same lobbyist that sold commodity food to the government back in the government cheese days...I'm sure they lobbied to keep people poor and on welfare.

Just got an update on my phone, swimmer to be released after 3 months.

Just got an update on my phone, swimmer to be released after 3 months.

 

Poor kid and now he is a registered sexual offender for life. :sarcastic: The news anchor was lamenting about how if he has children later, he would not even be allowed at their school, to drop them off or attend sports activities or classroom presentations. And how embarrassing it would be for other parents to know. ALARM: THE OTHER PARENTS SHOULD KNOW.

I'm all for the scarlet A in this situation. No way he should be out of jail yet. Ridiculous. I hope he gets a good old fashioned beat down in the near future.