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Police agencies have a strong financial incentive to keep the drug war churning.

The war on sex has turned out to be immensely profitable and useful for others—not only for politicians and academics, therapists and police officers, journalists and moralists, but also for a multitude of interested parties. It is not about to end any time soon. And, as in most wars, fog and shadows, propaganda and disinformation conceal the contours of events.

According to the Center for Responsive Politics, political action committee contributions to federal candidates from for-profit private prison companies CoreCivic (formerly CCA), GEO Group, and Management and Training Corp. totaled over $476,000 in the 2016 federal election cycle, with just over $406,000 going to Republican candidates. In addition, the GEO Group’s PAC gave $215,000 to the Trump Victory PAC.

Wikipedia wrote:The "kids for cash" scandal unfolded in 2008 over judicial kickbacks at the Luzerne County Court of Common Pleas in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. Two judges, President Judge Mark Ciavarella (who served as juvenile court judge from 1996 to 2008) and Senior Judge Michael Conahan (who served as President Judge from 2003 to 2007), were convicted of accepting money from Robert Mericle, builder of two private, for-profit youth centers for the detention of juveniles, in return for contracting with the facilities and imposing harsh adjudications on juveniles brought before their courts to increase the number of residents in the centers.

Ciavarella disposed a substantial number of children to extended stays in youth centers for a variety of offenses as trivial as mocking a principal on MySpace, trespassing in a vacant building, and shoplifting DVDs from Wal-Mart. Ciavarella and Conahan pleaded guilty on February 13, 2009, pursuant to a plea agreement, to federal charges of honest services fraud and conspiracy to defraud the United States (failing to report income to the Internal Revenue Service, known as tax evasion) in connection with receiving $2.6 million in payments from managers at PA Child Care in Pittston Township and its sister company Western PA Child Care in Butler County.[4][5] The plea agreement was later voided by a federal judge, who was dissatisfied with the post-plea conduct of the defendants, and the two judges charged subsequently withdrew their guilty pleas, raising the possibility of criminal trials.

Themis wrote:Private for profit prison's is one of the worst ideas.

In September, a Bloomberg poll about the facts behind the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision, found that 80 percent of Republicans and 83 percent of Democrats opposed it.

Gunnar wrote:As long as it remains possible for the wealthiest of the wealthy to buy elected officials and judges, like they are doing now, the legitimate wishes of the general voting public will tend to be ignored in favor of a tiny minority of wealthy, avaricious and unconscionable, wealthy elite.

Themis wrote:I would suggest campaign finance reform is the most important change needed in the US.