1) People are afraid of crime but don't understand it.

2) Politicians get voted in on the basis of things people are afraid of but don't understand.

3) Everyone votes to be "tough on crime" without having to explain or understand the repercussions of what that means.

4) Sentences increase and prison populations swell and the people cry out about the expense.

5) Politicians demonstrate how cheaply they're solving the problem by putting the task out to the lowest bidder.

6) "the lowest bidder" is usually the guy who knows best how to make money via overruns and cost-plus contracts because the government is stupid. I had a contractor underbid an auditorium install I designed by 50% - they told me later they straight-up forgot the wire. They still made a hell of a profit, though, because their change orders inflated the budget by 300%. Yay open public bids.

I would honestly say that the private prison system has nothing to do with the war on drugs. People don't want to incarcerate friends, loved ones and victims, they want to incarcerate "dangerous criminals." This is why crack was sold to America as crazy rocks that made Darky violent and why the Norman Rockwell portrait of the meth addict is some crazed guy with track marks who will knock your teeth out for a dollar. Remove the "violence" from the portrait of the American drug user and we don't put them in prison. However, the people who care the most about "justice" from an American standpoint tend to see "crime" as a synonym for "sin" and know that the way "sin" is dealt with is through "repentance" and "punishment."