Interesting graphs and charts department

[classicman]

A major cause of such high numbers is the length of the prison sentences in the United States. One of the criticisms of the United States system is that it has much longer sentences than any other part of the world. The typical mandatory sentence for a first-time drug offense in federal court is five or ten years, compared to other developed countries around the world where a first time offense would warrant at most 6 months in jail.[16] Mandatory sentencing prohibits judges from using their discretion and forces them to place longer sentences on nonviolent offenses than they normally would do.

bold mine

[ZenGum]

Regarding the politicians who wrote those laws, were they being lobbied by the owners of private prisons, perhaps?


Minor point - the graph suggests the growth in prison population has slowed since 2000, but the last column is only from 2000 to 2006, but is still drawn as wide as the other ten-year columns. Probably growth has continued at the same rate.

[Lamplighter]

Prisons, Privatization, And Public Values *
Stephen McFarland
Chris McGowan 
Tom O'Toole
Presented to Prof. Mildred Warner 
Privatization and Devolution CRP 612 
December 2002

Introduction to Prison Privatization

The movement towards the privatization of corrections in the
United States is a result of the convergence of two factors:
the unprecedented growth of the US prison population since 1970
and the emergence out of the Reagan era of a political environment
favorable to free-market solutions.

Since the first private prison facility was opened in 1984, the industry has grown rapidly;
gross revenues exceeded $1 billion in 1997. This paper will examine the industry's growth
in the US in recent decades, and its current scope. The evidence for and against
claims that private prisons can realize gains in efficiency will be weighed,
and implications of privatization for other public values including safety, justice, and legitimacy will be examined.
<snip>

A note in passing: The GEO Corporation used to be named the "Wackenhut Corrections Corporation"
Sounds a bit like McCain's "Wack-A-Mole" theory of war.