LastWeekTonight
5 HN mentions · mentioned in 5 months, 2015–2024
17:43 · 11M views · Jul 21, 2014
John Oliver's Last Week Tonight segment on the American prison system, covering conditions, private prison economics and more, with comedic framing.
Cited as a reference when HN threads discuss US prisons, for-profit incarceration, and obstacles after release.
5 comments from Hacker News
> I do NOT recommend being upfront I re-binged "Last Week Tonight" a month ago. There is an episode on the prison system in the USA and the obstacles people face upon release. I remember one case where the person wrote on his job application as employed by the "State of <insert state>" while he was in prison. (it must be this episode: this video ). I haven't been convicted of any crimes, so I don't have own experience. From people I know, they continued working in tech as contractors/freelancers, but for small fry (as big banks will be very thorough on your background (criminal/credit scoring) checks). Doing small gigs for small companies where you don't handle personal/sensitive data can give you enough time to (as the parent suggests) have this 'forgotten'. Would you consider moving to another country?
The U.S. incarcerates more people than China. Not per capita, mind you. More total people. If ever there's a stellar example of the kind of disaster that can result from privatizing a government function, this is it. Private prisons have a strong profit motive to increase the number of people behind bars until we have the kind of situation we have today in the U.S. These are folks who can afford to pay lobbyists to create the kind of sentencing that leads to 98 years for 2 robberies, and criminalize non-violent or victimless 'crimes.' Here's a Last Week Tonight segment on the broken prison system in the U.S.: this video
>It's kind of brilliant in a sadistic way, as if the prisons, their programs, food, and environment were designed to maximize recidivism. They are. In this Jon Oliver bit they cite a Powerpoint sales pitch from a prison corporation which notes that high recidivism rates are one of many reasons why you should invest. this video
> "given that the US incarcerates 1% of it's population at exhobitant (direct and indirect) cost" Isn't part of the problem there that the US Prison System is a for-profit industry? this video
The Jon Oliver episode on prison: this video See also Shane Bauer's undercover report "My Four Months as a Private Prison Guard": [LINK]