I'm shocked and happy.

ts not all talk with the rising star of the Democratic presidential contender Bernie Sanders, the senator from Vermont says in September he will be introducing full federal legislation to abolish private for-profit prisons.

The announcement came at a campaign rally attended by approximately 4,500 supporters in Nevada on Tuesday.

Hillary Clinton, the former Secretary of State, has recently announced her candidacy for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination.
Clinton's Democratic Support Below 50% for the First Time as Sanders Rises
“When Congress reconvenes in September,” Sanders said, “I will be introducing legislation, which takes corporations out of profiteering from running jails.”

The senator spoke at length about unfair policies which disproportionately affect people of color and his plan to focus much of his campaign on the War on Drugs.

The senator is sure to face extreme backlash for his plans, as the private prison industry is massively profitable.  Between the two leading prison corporations, Corrections Corporation of America and GEO Group, they bring in over 3 billion dollars annually- much of which is used for lobbying lawmakers.

“We want to deal with minimum sentencing,” Sanders stated at the rally,“too many lives have been destroyed for non-violent issues. People that are sent to jail have police records. We have got to change that. Our job is to keep people out of jail, not in jail.”



Read more: http://sputniknews.com/us/20150821/1025999008.html#ixzz3jhcHJQ2K

I don't know - or care - enough about the prison deal to comment on that, but I can't help thinking about this possible nightmare scenario.

Repubs won't nominate Trump. He runs third party. Splits Repub vote. Hillary is forced to withdraw or doesn't get Dem nomination. Sanders does and winds up as the next president.

Whole country turns into Detroit, Baltimore, Chicago, NYC, in the next four years.

What people don't know is that the prisoners are working for corporations, paid less than a dollar an hour, competing with the very troubled labor market. They release REAL criminals, which causes crime which justifies increased militarization of police, but they keep nonviolent criminals for
Working. AND, the state has signed contracts to Maintain the prison population at 90% or so, or , pay a penalty.
I am very troubled by that.

justin_o_guy2 wrote on 08/24/15 at 07:24:38:


You're right. I didn't know any of that. Probably because there are no private prisons in New York. In fact they are banned here by a law passed in 2000 apparently. The little bit of reading I've done so far indicates that most corporate run prisons are in the southwest and in California and Florida. I still don't know enough to have an opinion but I guess I'll have to retract my comment that I don't care till I read some more.

I did find one thing I read interesting.  One article I read said that a large part of the population in  some of these places was illegal immigrants. Around here they don't deport many illegals  OR lock them up, at least not until they kill someone, so maybe the private joints are good for something.