—Our growth is generally dependent upon our ability to obtain new contracts to develop and manage new correctional and detention facilities… . The demand for our facilities and services could be adversely affected by the relaxation of enforcement efforts, leniency in conviction and sentencing practices or through the decriminalization of certain activities that are currently proscribed by our criminal laws. For instance, any changes with respect to drugs and controlled substances or illegal immigration could affect the number of persons arrested, convicted, and sentenced, thereby potentially reducing demand for correctional facilities to house them.

Corrections Corporation of America, the largest private prison operator in America, statement to stockholders, 2005.

In other words: ending the Drug War and eliminating federal mandatory minimum sentences is bad for business.  Adam Gopnik notes that CCA “spends millions lobbying legislators.”  presumably, inter alia, to keep harsh sentencing laws on the books.  Then he nails it:

Brecht could hardly have imagined such a document: a capitalist enterprise that feeds on the misery of man trying as hard as it can to be sure that nothing is done to decrease that misery.

source

(via letterstomycountry)

(via rapcat)