WOOOOOOOOOOOO California just outlawed private prisons! Some are talking about how this affects ICE detention centers, and sure that’s important, but this is fucking huge for human rights even beyond that issue. Public prisons are underfunded overcrowded dangerous messes, private prisons made those factors worse by bidding their way to the bottom of the barrel, feeding people moldy scraps and letting them die of horrific diseases. Shame this phase out plan is gonna take nine years. Now if they can just outlaw prison labor too – or at least restrict the scope of it to public works instead of a corporate slave industry – we might really be getting somewhere.
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One curious thing about libertarians and conservatives – whenever some part of public sector starts malfunctioning due to understaffing and underfunding, their response is not to raise its funding so it can be properly staffed and function again, but to privatise it. Despite the demonstrable fact of the matter that there is ample evidence showing that education, health care, infrastructure, justice and some other things do not work well when privatised due to their inherent nature that does not in fact allow for competition in any maningful degree, or even at all.
This stalwart refusal to accept reality is, to me, staggering.
Private prisons?