&gt; But ultimately, it&#x27;s about money. Always has been. And this country values profits above all else. And if a few more thousand innocent people need to get imprisoned and have their lives destroyed - well, that&#x27;s a price that we, as a society, are willing to pay.<p>Money didn&#x27;t create the modern incarceration state. Corrections Corporation of America had about $55 million in revenue in 1990 and less than $200,000 in profits: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.referenceforbusiness.com&#x2F;history2&#x2F;76&#x2F;Corrections-Corporation-of-America.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.referenceforbusiness.com&#x2F;history2&#x2F;76&#x2F;Corrections-...</a>: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;notunlikeresearch.typepad.com&#x2F;.a&#x2F;6a0133f1fb8812970b0168e9a56b88970c-pi" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;notunlikeresearch.typepad.com&#x2F;.a&#x2F;6a0133f1fb8812970b01...</a>. The incarceration rate had been exploding for 10-15 years before that: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;United_States_incarceration_rate#&#x2F;media&#x2F;File:U.S._incarceration_rates_1925_onwards.png" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;United_States_incarceration_ra...</a>. The rise of CCA (which was a pioneer in the field), actually coincided with an inflection point where the growth in incarceration rate started <i>slowing down.</i><p>The incarceration craze of the 1980&#x27;s and 1990&#x27;s was a response to a real spike in violent crime that started in the 1960&#x27;s: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.urban.org&#x2F;sites&#x2F;default&#x2F;files&#x2F;wp-content&#x2F;uploads&#x2F;2012&#x2F;01&#x2F;Roman_blog1.pdf" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.urban.org&#x2F;sites&#x2F;default&#x2F;files&#x2F;wp-content&#x2F;uploads&#x2F;...</a> (showing violent crime per capita increasing by more than 4x between 1963 and 1992). And it was fueled by a conservative backlash against the liberalism of the 1960&#x27;s and 1970&#x27;s.<p>We can argue about whether mass incarceration was the correct response to that increase in crime. But it&#x27;s ridiculous to say it arose before of some sort of profit motive. That argument ignores the data right in front of your face.