Paul Krugman’s column today focuses on the many problems of prison privatization, highlighting one reason for it that we’re all familiar with:

But the main answer, surely, is to follow the money. Never mind what privatization does or doesn’t do to state budgets; think instead of what it does for both the campaign coffers and the personal finances of politicians and their friends. As more and more government functions get privatized, states become pay-to-play paradises, in which both political contributions and contracts for friends and relatives become a quid pro quo for getting government business. Are the corporations capturing the politicians, or the politicians capturing the corporations? Does it matter?

Public Campaign and PICO National Network looked at this issue in a report a few months ago: “Unholy Alliance: How the private prison industry is corrupting our democracy and promoting mass incarceration.”