CCA inadvertently rehabilitated former prisoner Alex Friedmann and gave him a new career, lobbying against prison privatization. He says:

In my view, the worst thing is that they have normalized the notion of incarcerating people for profit. Basically commodifying people, seeing them as nothing more than a revenue stream….

If you incarcerate more people and you put more people in your private prisons you make more money. Which provides perverse incentives against reforming our justice system. And increasing the number of people we’re putting in prison, whether they need to be there or not, just to generate corporate profit. I think that’s incredibly immoral and unethical, I think that’s the worst aspect of our private prison industry.

This comes from the ACLU’s Prison Voices, Episode 1: Private Prisons: Continue reading →