The whole system is fucked. Wage stagnation, increasing cost of living, lack of affordable housing, dynastical wealth concentrated in the hands of fewer and fewer elite citizens and oligarchies.
Before these issues are improved upon dramatically, there’s simply going to be a growing number of homeless people.
If the solution is to throw homeless individuals in jail, then what? Jails are still funded by tax dollars, so why not be proactive and invest that money in getting people housed by building more affordable housing, providing more jobs with things like infrastructure improvements that are badly needed throughout the country, rather than taking punitive measures? I think this needs to happen at the federal level because it is indeed a broken system of the entire country.
Unfortunately the people who run the private prison systems have lobbyists that try to ensure the system is constantly fed prisoners, so they can make even more profit. If the quarterly earnings aren’t constantly increasing, the board of investors won’t be happy.
Sure, the entire system will crash like every other system that expects infinite growth, like the housing market bubble, but we have to think of the investors! /s
