Dan Kowalski’s Commentary

Theoretically, states like New Mexico, Texas and Florida privatize prisons to relieve overcrowding and lower corrections costs.  But the non-partisan Institute on Money in State Politics did a study that suggests that often less noble agendas may be at work too as the prison corporations attempt to influence lawmakers to enact stiffer penalties in their respective states, thereby increasing “business” for prison profiteers, writes SILJA J. A. TALVI for In These Times.