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Comment on It's never been about helping people

They don’t care because the breakdown is:

The tax-payer is out 66k in order to imprison the homeless That 66k goes to a prison, the prison makes money The imprisoned person is enslaved to prison labor, which the prison then leases out. The prison makes money.

The prison lobbies politicians to be “tough on crime” and pass laws that criminalize more and more things instead of helping people, that way the prison will make more and more money.

The people would be happier, healthier, and pay less in taxes if we just helped people, but we never will because helping people doesn’t make prisons money. Same thing for policing. Police, as an institution, did not begin as law enforcement. They began as slave catchers. Their attitude and overall goal has remained the same. The police exist to ticket and fine people wherever possible in order to generate revenue, and, when able, arrest and charge people with the goal of filling prisons with slave labor.

If you eliminate the part of the 13th amendment that says ‘except as punishment for convicted crime’ and make slave labor illegal period, and in fact, make it illegal for any entity anywhere to profit off of incarcerated persons, you will eliminate a metric shit ton of problems in the U.S.

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Flower@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
The prisons sue the states when not enough prisoners come in. That’s the state of things.

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- Tidesphere@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  What on earth could they possibly be suing for??
  
  Not that I doubt you, mind, it just sounds incredulous!
  
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  - Flower@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    
    The lawsuit centered around the Marana prison, a 1,400-bed facility operated by MTC. The contract between MTC and Arizona included a provision guaranteeing 97% occupancy.
    
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    Tidesphere@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    Oh, so there’s a contract with the state that says that they’ll keep it at max occupancy. That’s fucked.
    
    Here’s how I would get around it: We enact the legislation that says that prisons cannot profit off of any labor by incarcerated individuals, nor may their labor be leased, for any reason. Take that revenue away.
    
    We hold to the occupancy contract, and they can have a prison full of people they have to care for but can’t profit from.
    
    Then we let the contract end and refuse to sign another one.
    
    Would that work?
    
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diaphragmwp@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
One tiny note, with markdown formatting, you gotta put two spaces after a line for a newline. But that’s only if you are absolutely absolutely sure, it’s best to use two newlines for a new paragraph. OR make a list by adding the minus sign to the start of each line.

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