Okayyyy, I’ll join everyone else in responding to today’s news (instead of just sighing, gazing into middle distance). The profit incentive baked into private prisons is a mess. But you know what else is a HUGE MESS?

The revenue incentive in the federal jail market. 🧵

The federal government spends an estimated $1.3 billion to house people in a loose network of local jails. These agencies—primarily the US Marshals and ICE—are directly under federal control.
All of this federal $$ has incentivized counties to BUILD BIG when they’re thinking about adding local jail space.

The wonderful Jack Norton @jcknorton calls this “an intercounty carceral arms race... to build and bigger and bigger jails.”
https://t.co/98s22r2fWL
As he point out in the piece, this was catalyze largely by “The Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984,” which I like to “the lesser know crime Bill ™️.” After passage, the no.
of people detained by the Marshals increased 32 percent in ONE YEAR.
The fact that so many people are now held for ICE in local jails—or at least that the contracts are in place to allow that—is a legacy of this bill. And you know who was was among the bill’s biggest champions? That’s right, one @POTUS Biden.
This system ties local revenue to the increased detention of asylum seekers, immigrants, and people detained on federal charges. That has political consequences: county budgets are tied to increased detention of Black, Brown and poor people.
(I just said “tied to” a lot, but you get the gist).

This is a terrible system all of the time. As @jcknorton found in Glades County, FL, it can create this whole new WEIRD system of private profits, going to investors who back big new jails.

https://t.co/EsTK4wd7EX
As COVID-19 spread, continued transfers through this detention empire have been CATASTROPHIC. As @keribla writes, reports began to pop up earlier this year about the Marshals transferring people with active COVID-19 infections
https://t.co/DuSz7HtEHp
According to reporting by @keegan_hamilton @ Vice, the BOP knew about “super spreader” jails holding for USMS. Yet absolutely nothing has been done to stop transfers.

https://t.co/35ggeNKe0E
This is a big, consequential facet of the justice system that the current administration has direct control over. If they’re serious about addressing spread of COVID-19 on both sides of the bars, addressing perverse $$ incentives, and advancing racial equity, look @ ICE and USMS
They have GOT to start taking these contracts offline. And if they’re trying to figure out where to start, one obvious place would be the MANY jails where people held for the feds have died of abuse and neglect, even PRIOR to COVID-19. Via @SethFW
https://t.co/qljBoNGHaa
The other obvious place are the many counties—and now states—where communities are already pushing their local governments to eliminate Federal contracts. Imagine how else A BILLION dollars could be invested in communities.
https://t.co/fc0Gv6plwr

More from Government

They shouldn't be.

The pattern is:
GOP in power - GOP dictates policy

Dems in power - GOP dictates policy


The Dems shouldn't legislate toward the GOP.

The GOP doesn't represent its constituents.

The GOP can push it's agenda on its own time.

If Dems push an agenda that actually helps people, it'll also actually help the GOP constituency.

The GOP won't. So give them nothing.

The Dems should ignore the GOP just like the GOP ignores the Dems.

Make them pay for every moment of obstruction.

Just a hard press on legislation that is unassailable and shine a light on the GOP.

Constant. Relentless. Unyielding.

Shut them out and shut them down.

The GOP is not a legitimate political party. It is an anti-democratic, fascist criminal syndicate with no interest whatsoever in governance.

Nobody should give them the slightest bit of credit or legitimacy ever again.

Not a fucking ounce.

Nobody should engage them in legitimate debate in Congress.

They should be pariahs and treated as unserious occupants of Congress.

Because these people were totally ok with their colleagues being killed in furtherance of the destruction of the insitution.

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This is a pretty valiant attempt to defend the "Feminist Glaciology" article, which says conventional wisdom is wrong, and this is a solid piece of scholarship. I'll beg to differ, because I think Jeffery, here, is confusing scholarship with "saying things that seem right".


The article is, at heart, deeply weird, even essentialist. Here, for example, is the claim that proposing climate engineering is a "man" thing. Also a "man" thing: attempting to get distance from a topic, approaching it in a disinterested fashion.


Also a "man" thing—physical courage. (I guess, not quite: physical courage "co-constitutes" masculinist glaciology along with nationalism and colonialism.)


There's criticism of a New York Times article that talks about glaciology adventures, which makes a similar point.


At the heart of this chunk is the claim that glaciology excludes women because of a narrative of scientific objectivity and physical adventure. This is a strong claim! It's not enough to say, hey, sure, sounds good. Is it true?