In ‘Lockdown America,' Christian Parenti partly analyzes policing and prison-building in California. There has been a kind of Keynesian effect. See also Richard D. Vogel’s piece in the Sept. 2003 edition of Monthly Review http://www.monthlyreview.org/0903vogel.htm.
Seth Sandronsky
Re: threatened cut-backs for the disabled in California by Jurriaan Bendien 03 December 2003
Perhaps another way of looking at it is this: why lend money to build gigantic prisons, when you could lend money to put people who are likely to commit criminal activities into jobs, that generate new income and tax revenue and thus help balance the budget ? I mean if you pauperise people so that they commit crimes, then you have to spend gigantic amounts to put them in prison, and you have a budget blowout. But, finance aside, suppose that you stick them in prison, does this make these people stronger, more effective, more successful human beings, or do they come out of there with more grudges ?
J.
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