Here are Six Companies Who Get Rich off Prisoners

[Chef Ramsay]

There are currently 2.4 million people in American prisons. This number has grown by 500% in the past 30 years. While the United States has only 5% of the world's population, it holds 25 percent of the world's total prisoners. In 2012, one in every 108 adults was in prison or in jail, and one in 28 children in the U.S. had a parent behind bars.

Why do we have so many people in prison?

Money is a huge reason we have so many prisoners.

Several corporations make huge profits off prisons. It costs an average of $23,876 annually to house a state prisoner for a year. To save money, cash-strapped states (aka, us, the taxpayers) pay companies to deal with their prisoners. Companies make money by running prisons as cheaply as possible and squeezing the prisoners and their families for money for basic necessities and fees. As a result, private prisons are a $70 billion industry.

Even crazier, 65 percent of private prison contracts require an occupancy guarantee. That means states must have a certain amount of prisoners -- typically between 80 and 90 percent of occupancy -- or pay companies for empty beds. Talk about bad incentives -- a state throws money away if it does not have enough prisoners./quote]

http://www.attn.com/stories/941/who-profits-from-prisoners?utm_source=social&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=usu

[Tarantino]

The prison industrial complex is an abhorrent system and it just goes to show you how corrupt America is when it lets shit like this happen. It's obvious that money buys democracy there. Prisoners are used as legal slaves and to make it worse they just lock poor people up for minor offenses in the first place so its just one big business sending people to prison.

[keyscore44]

Occupancy guarantees make them sound more like housing associations than for-profit prisons. There are even more industries making $$$$ from prisoner exploitation in the US.

http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/9-surprising-industries-profiting-handsomely-americas-insane-prison-system

Food Supply Companies: Supplying food for prisons can be extremely profitable. Just ask the Philadelphia-based Aramark Corporation, which brings in millions of dollars bringing food to around 600 prisons in North America. Aramark’s profits continue to roll in even when the company does a terrible job. In 2014, Aramark received fines of $98,000 and $200,000 from the state of Michigan for a long list of infractions, including meal shortages, unsanitary conditions (maggots found in the food, for example) and Aramark employees smuggling contraband into prisons. But such fines were a small price to pay in light of the fact that, in December 2013, Aramark signed a three-year, $145-million contract with the state of Michigan. Aramark has had problems in other states as well, including Kentucky (where corrections officers said poor food service led to a prison riot in 2009), Florida (where state officials ended a contract with Aramark after accusing the company of boosting corporate profits by skimping on meals) and Ohio (where Aramark employees have been fired for having sex with inmates)

Clothing Manufacturers: Prisoners are making a lot more than license plates these days. A wide variety of products are being manufactured in U.S. prisons, from office furniture and bedding to sinks, toilets and clothing. All kinds of clothing is made in American prisons: shirts, hats, pants, shoes, jackets, you name it. Even Victoria’s Secret has profited from the prison-industrial complex: in the 1990s, Victoria’s Secret subcontractor Third Generation hired 35 female inmates in North Carolina to sew lingerie.

[KonstantinosM]

Occupancy guarantees make them sound more like housing associations than for-profit prisons. There are even more industries making $$$$ from prisoner exploitation in the US.

http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/9-surprising-industries-profiting-handsomely-americas-insane-prison-system

Food Supply Companies: Supplying food for prisons can be extremely profitable. Just ask the Philadelphia-based Aramark Corporation, which brings in millions of dollars bringing food to around 600 prisons in North America. Aramark’s profits continue to roll in even when the company does a terrible job. In 2014, Aramark received fines of $98,000 and $200,000 from the state of Michigan for a long list of infractions, including meal shortages, unsanitary conditions (maggots found in the food, for example) and Aramark employees smuggling contraband into prisons. But such fines were a small price to pay in light of the fact that, in December 2013, Aramark signed a three-year, $145-million contract with the state of Michigan. Aramark has had problems in other states as well, including Kentucky (where corrections officers said poor food service led to a prison riot in 2009), Florida (where state officials ended a contract with Aramark after accusing the company of boosting corporate profits by skimping on meals) and Ohio (where Aramark employees have been fired for having sex with inmates)

Clothing Manufacturers: Prisoners are making a lot more than license plates these days. A wide variety of products are being manufactured in U.S. prisons, from office furniture and bedding to sinks, toilets and clothing. All kinds of clothing is made in American prisons: shirts, hats, pants, shoes, jackets, you name it. Even Victoria’s Secret has profited from the prison-industrial complex: in the 1990s, Victoria’s Secret subcontractor Third Generation hired 35 female inmates in North Carolina to sew lingerie.

I think that is a reason why the war on drugs keeps going on and why everything in the US is over-criminalized.

Case in point. Peeing when you really have to. It's rare but sometimes you really have to go. Here in the states even if you're very careful. Even if you pee on your own yard (maybe the bathrooms are occupied. You are considered a sex offender.

This is unbelievably messed up.


In fact, if I where to pee behind some bushes I'd consider it harassment if an officer came up to me and hassled me. In this case it is clear and logical that the police would be the aggressor and I the victim of circumstance. Under our current system I may get jailed. What ever happened to freedom?

Here is an example: http://dailysignal.com/2012/11/27/mother-of-3-year-old-fined-2500-for-toddlers-public-urination/

Overcriminalization in our society also means that poorer people get hit harder. Someone who is rich and important could probably pee directly on another person (who is unwilling) and not go to jail. But if the lower 95% does that it's probably jail time.

For the 50% and below it's probably a giant setback ruining a persons life. All for the most natural and sometimes uncontrollable human behavior.         Your stuck in traffic. You are on a long hike. You have to pee.


Does the state expect us to go around with ruptured bladders or pee our pants? This is one of the most inhumane examples of where overcriminalization takes us.


Should people pee and poop all over the place? Hell no.  But when one has too it shouldn't carry jailtime, a sex offender designation and be life ruining. A $10 fine, or an apology to the city seems good enough.