Larger Inmate Population Is Boon to Private Prisons

Like I said, prisons will be a major growth industry in America.

Stephanie Chen at WSJ is reporting:

Prison companies are preparing for a wave of new business as the economic downturn makes it increasingly difficult for federal and state government officials to build and operate their own jails.

The Federal Bureau of Prisons and several state governments have sent thousands of inmates in recent months to prisons and detention centers run by Corrections Corp. of America, Geo Group Inc. and other private operators, as a crackdown on illegal immigration, a lengthening of mandatory sentences for certain crimes and other factors have overcrowded many government facilities.

Prison-policy experts expect inmate populations in 10 states to have increased by 25% or more between 2006 and 2011, according to a report by the nonprofit Pew Charitable Trusts.

My bet is that these incarceration rate projections are too low.

Once Obama starts implementing his unworkable programs, the big question will be whether or not he uses force and prison time to try and muscle his programs. If he does, incarceration rates are headed way up---for the the college educated and white collar working class.

As I wrote:

I certainly hope it doesn't get this bad, but I fear it may...It won't happen right away. It may be barely noticeable, at first, but at some point you will think twice about doing something you do now without hesitation.

If Barack Obama is serious about sharing the wealth and bringing on bigger government, it is not going to be pretty. The greatest tyrants on the planet were big government socialists, Mao and Stalin at the top of the pack. Part of the reason they became tyrants is because the programs they instituted didn't work and thus surveillance and force were instituted.

Socialized healthcare won't work and could eventually result in black market healthcare with doctors ending up in jail. Other, regulations will make lawbreakers out of others who right now can't imagine that they will ever end up in jail. Ultimately, the broad based forcing of human action in a direction it doesn't naturally want to go has to be enforced at the point of a gun.