Originally Posted by OccultHawk

Naturally the same as state and federally run prisons, the tax payer, so there's no advantage there. It's not free market in anyway. The prisons still have a state run monopoly. They call it a capitalist free market system to sell the idea to voters but in practice it's really the worst kind of "communism". Not the nice on paper type of communism that might get lip service from anarco-lefties, but communism as you see it: a state run system incentivized to rule the people while handing power and "profit" to a very select few. These select few present themselves as venture capitalists but in fact they function exactly like government insiders in the most horrifying communist scenarios. The prison wants to house compliant non-violent people because that's the best way to maximize profits. Guilty or not the system is arranged so if you don't plea bargain you risk adding decades to your sentence. So almost everyone pleads out. That's where the public defenders or private lawyers get their cut. They do basically nothing besides run through a formula that determines the plea. Even if the lawyer is honest there's no escaping this system. It's as routine as making Big Macs at McDonald's. More than that, it's actually against the law for them to demand fair sentencing and the defendants and the attorneys will pay if there's any attempt to buck the system. Then the judges get kick backs for streamlining the easiest to manage prisoners to certain institutions. However, once the system becomes established the kick back is called salary and the "privatized" prisons corner the market with sentencing guidelines that the judges are stuck with. You can call it capitalism. You can call it communism. You can call them jails. You can call them gulags. The charge might be a violation of parole or probation (typically driving on a suspension license or pissing dirty) with a resisting arrest tacked on for good measure. Or if it's a communist state it might be a speech violation. Either way you got disenfranchised typically non-violent people being locked away just to fill the space and to exploit slave labor while they're locked up.