The genuine purpose of all US prisons, private and public, are exploitation not rehabilitation. It’s slave labor either way, not just with private
By far, though, most prisoners work menial jobs simply maintaining the lockups that hold them: “More than 95 percent of public prisons and nearly 90 percent of private prisons have work programs that employ incarcerated people to support and maintain” the prisons that cage them, the ACLU/UCLS report noted. Government is the biggest beneficiary of prison slave labor. Prisoners produce over $2 billion in goods and perform $9 billion worth of prison support and maintenance—all of which goes to the state at next to no cost. Of the prisoners surveyed for the report, about 80% were in those facility-support jobs, with 30% working janitorial positions and 20% in food preparation.
The genuine purpose of all US prisons, private and public, are exploitation not rehabilitation. It’s slave labor either way, not just with private