TW: Conrad Black certainly has a checkered background (convicted mega fraudster) and writes his piece with obvious bias as he is currently a convict. However, he is an articulate writer and he frames an important issue. The huge and growing role of the "prison economy" in the US. Over the past thirty years, prisons- building, servicing and guarding them- have become a massive business with the associated interest groups (e.g. builders and guard unions) agitating for more. Some regard this evoluation as progress, I most definitely do not.
From Black via the Time of London:
"...The US is now a carceral state that imprisons eight to 12 times more people (2.5m) per capita than the UK, Canada, Australia, France, Germany or Japan. US justice has become a command economy based on the avarice of private prison companies, a gigantic prison service industry and politically influential correctional officers’ unions that agitate for an unlimited increase in the number of prosecutions and the length of sentences. The entire “war on drugs”, by contrast, is a classic illustration of supply-side economics: a trillion taxpayers’ dollars squandered and 1m small fry imprisoned at a cost of $50 billion a year; as supply of and demand for illegal drugs have increased, prices have fallen and product quality has improved."
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article5213243.ece
1 comment:
To read Conrad Black's full jail diary, visit spearswms.com
Post a Comment