Prisons, Profits, Principles
Show #142 | Guests: Dr. Debra Satz, Stanford University, is the Marta Sutton Weeks Professor of Ethics in Society, Professor of Philosophy and Senior Associate Dean for the Humanities and Arts; Corene Kendrick, Staff Attorney, Prison Law Office | Show Summary: The Department of Justice is detaching from contracts with private incarceration companies. Prison activists laud the beginning of the end of prison profitization \u2013 but of course the practice isn\u2019t restricted to the federal government. States and counties guarantee up to 90% capacity in the contracts they sign with private companies. When is a profit-centered model appropriate in a given market \u2013 and who gets to make that call? Is that a strictly philosophical consideration, or should it have real-world impact on market regulation? How do the answers play out in other democracies?