The Clinton legacy: How “tough-on-crime” politics built the world’s largest prison system

[BrotherIvan]

21. Remember how we were talking yesterday that it would be interesting to see what Sanders has to say

Well someone asked him the question yesterday.

QUESTION: We have a law enforcement quota, 34,000 immigrants are to be detained daily. Congress mandates that for a price tag of 2 billion dollars a year. About 60 percent of that is going to two corporations, Corrections Corporation of America and GEO. We are detaining people that present no threat, immediate threat to themselves or us. And then we see a certain Senator accepting campaign donations,

SANDERS: She's not talking about me so be clear (laughter and applause from audience)

QUESTION:– then he's voting against his own comprehensive immigration reform bill. I would like to know would you help us shut down the for-profit prisons, would you you shift money away from detaining people to other more humane methods, immigration judges for examples […] and would you work for comprehensive immigration reform?

SANDERS: The answer is, yes, yes ,yes. Clearly one of the crises we face in our nation is that we have more people behind bars than any other country on earth […] China is a nation that is 3 or 4 times larger than us population wise, it is an authoritarian country Communist country, and we have far more people behind bars than does China. And what we do in our jails is we run a great educational system, we education people how to be even better criminals. So it seems to me that rather than spending huge amounts of money on jails and on private corporations who are incentivized to keep people in jail, it might make a lot more sense to spend money on job training and education so that people do not end up in jail in the first place. And yes I'm certainly in favor of comprehensive education reform.