Over the past few weeks we’ve posted about the exploding prison population in the United States and how many of the criminal justice measures are not only ineffective but completely contrary to empirical studies on effective management techniques. This spills over to “sex offender” management schemes, which have become the extreme example of counterproductive measures which dangerously make our population less safe.

Here are the facts:

• With only 5% of the world’s population, the U.S. has 25% of the world’s prison population –that makes us the world’s largest jailer. (Over 2 million people incarcerated.)
• Since 1970, our prison population has risen 700%.
• One in 99 adults are living behind bars in the U.S. This marks the highest rate of imprisonment in American history.
• One in 31 adults are under some form of correctional control, counting prison, jail, parole and probation populations.

All this during a period where crime rates have gone down. So why?

Enter the world of private, for-profit prisons. It’s big business! Between 1999 and 2010 the number of federal prisoners held in private, for-profit prisons increased by 784%! Florida is catching on!

Florida Governor, Rick Scott, awarded the GEO Group contracts to manage 76 percent of Florida’s private prisons worth $57 million annually.

In turn, the GEO Group gave Rick Scott’s Let’s Get to Work PAC $315,000 dollars in the 2014 election cycle and gave the Republican Party of Florida $1,016,000 dollars from 2009-2014.

Is it making more sense now? If not, here’s how it works.

The State locks up more people and for longer periods of time. That means more business for these for-profit prisons. The more people locked up, the more profits these companies make. That, in turn, means more money that gets donated to the politicians awarding the contracts.

The more people get packed in, the more money these guys make! It’s brilliant!!! The Arcadia Civil Commitment Center takes the scheme to a whole new level… now they are locked up indefinitely! They never have to let these people out, so they can keep making money off of them and who is going to care? These are “oh so dangerous ‘sex offenders'” and they are “protecting our children”. BRILLIANT!!! With 20 states committing people deemed violent sexual offenders – Florida has the most committed! At the same time, Florida is the only state whose entire Civil Commitment program is being run by a private, for-profit company.

Lawmakers are taking citizens to be morons by perpetuating the sex offender fear mongering and justifying the absurdly over-reaching efforts by claiming “if it saves one child…”. It’s time someone called B.S.! It’s not about public safety or saving one child. If it were, they would listen to the experts. It’s all about the money!