and a lot overestimate the percentage private prison systems greatly. However, I think systems like Alabama that abuse prisoners to output widgets for corporations should be dealt with by the Feds as well. It's clearly cruel and unusual punishment. It's a complicated issue but calling prisoners "slaves" is a far left talking point that they continuously use with no nuance allowed.
that labor is not compelled and is in fact a privilege; they are given absurdly low wages, but the jobs are still desirable vs sitting in a cell. misbehavior results in privilege revocation.
The labor is compelled; the statute law, regulations, and executive orders prohibit the incarcerated from refusing the work and authorize punishment for them doing so (including for refusing assignments to unpaid labor), despite Alabama finally abolishing involuntary servitude in its Constitution in 2022.
The main difference I've seen, though, is that private prisons will sell you a lot more stuff for your cell. They generally take a more measured approach to security risks and allow you to buy steel-stringed guitars and PlayStations because there is enormous profit in those. The public jails and prisons won't allow as much stuff like that as it makes their employees' lives a lot harder from a security perspective.
So do public prisons! Their employees — and those employee’s unions — want to make money just as much as anyone.
I don’t think that public vs. private is material here.