Inside private prisons

"When the tough-on-crime politics of the 1980s overcrowded state prisons, private companies saw potential profit in building and operating correctional facilities. Today more than a hundred thousand of the 1.5 million incarcerated Americans are held in private prisons in twenty-nine states and federal corrections. Private prisons are criticized for making money off mass incarceration--to the tune of $5 billion in annual revenue. Based on [the author's] work as a prosecutor, journalist, and attorney at policy think tanks, [this book] blends investigative reportage and quantitative and…