Here's another fascinating podcast I came across about the US criminal justice system,
https://www.npr.org/2021/03/24/980671402/out-of-prison-but-still-trapped-examining-the-afterlife-of-incarceration.
From the blurb: University of Chicago professor Reuben Jonathan Miller estimates that there are 45,000 "laws, policies and administrative sanctions" in the U.S. that target people with criminal records. Some ban the formerly incarcerated from serving on juries. Others prevent people with records from gaining employment.
There were some startling numbers in this podcast. They stated that 80 million Americans have a criminal record. How can almost 1/4 of a country have a criminal record? I hope that's not accurate.
It seems to be normal for criminals to be charged with all kinds of fees and they’re usually not in a position to pay. E.g., in Florida the convicted person has to pay a $60 fee to have their conviction archived in the state records. Numerous other examples are given. Unless the convicted person's family can pay all these fees, the prisoners accrue large debts they can't repay, even after being released since they have difficulty finding jobs.
Nobody really cares about criminals, I guess, but it makes me wonder what the purpose of all that is or what it accomplishes. I also can't help but wonder about the influence of the private prison corporations. It seems like an under-investigated area, or at least I'm not aware of any. It must be in a lot of people's interests to keep as many people in jail for as long as possible. I'm not sad that violent offenders are kept behind bars, but there can't be 80 million of those. There's big money involved so those private prison corporations must have a lot of politicians on their side, one way or another.