Private / for-profit prisons is a strange concept of the US prison system that i think i'll never understand. It just increases the incentives for corruption and harsh prison sentences like the "Kids for cash" scandal:
Mid-Atlantic Youth Services Corp, a private prison company, paid two judges, $2.8 million to send 2,000 children to their prisons for such crimes as trespassing in vacant buildings and stealing DVDs from Wal-Mart. Here's the CNN article about that story: http://edition.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/02/23/pennsylvania.corrupt.judges/
The concept comes from the concept of peonage and the plantation slavery system which originated it.
it's disgusting
building a corporate industry around maximizing the amount of people locked up is insane