Very true. Don't forget that they intend to not get caught when doing something illegal. Well at least most of them...

I agree. Don't get me wrong, in no way do I advocate eliminating all laws. But I think we should think long and hard and explore every alternative before we create any new laws. Clearly things such as murder, must be illegal, however many other things (drugs, prostitution, abortion, etceteras), while arguably immoral, should not neccisarily be illegal.

I don't see how the government makes more money by building jails and spending millions of dollars on hundreds of thousands of people in prison than it would by abolishing "laws that strip personal freedom." From an economic standpoint, it would seem that the government has every incentive to keep folks out of jail. How does spending more money on jails fuel the military?

I think Tadpole can field that question better than I can.
Tadpole???

It's simple arithmatic: diverting more money to the prison system will result in less for the rest of the budget.

This is what I always thought too... let's see what Tadpole has to say.

Sorry for the delay in my response... I have been busy and I wanted to be able to give this one some thought.

I wanted to give it some thought, though I feel it is obvious how the government makes money by keeping jails full. First off, it is well known that much of the drugs that are being sold on the street are put there by the DEA. The money made is used to support all sorts of black ops. Furthermore, there is money to be made by bail, and bonds and fines and all the other monies associated with an arrest. Plus once we get a prisoner in jail, it creates jobs for prison guards (mostly white males) and the industry that supports them. And it provides free labor for the government. In fact, most everything used by the military from uniforms to pens and clocks are made by prisoners, some of this stuff is also sold to third parties at a profit. Anything made by Skilcraft is made by a prisoner. I could go on and on...

Sit down and think about it and it all becomes very clear.

Great response. Thanks.

Despite all the products produced by prisoners, doesn't it seem likely that their upkeep is more than the income they provide? First you have the prison buildings themselves which must be costly to build and maintain, then all the employees required to keep the place running, plus food, consumables, etc. The fact that states are contracting private companies to build and run prisons would seem to contradict the idea that the government makes a profit on jails.
An article from http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/te...tory_9-05.html says that the cost of prisons cuts into the areas of the budget that should be used for education and other social services. It also quotes a professor from Indiana University as saying that "States have to balance their budgets, and the relative cost of prisons is quite high."

Are you forgetting federal prisons?