Privatized Prisons: A Human Marketplace

"Under the fee system local sheriffs charged inmates for their stay in jail. A 1902 report by the Correctional Association of New York harshly criticized this system, warning that judges might be inclined to “sentence a man to jail where he may be a source of revenue to a friendly sheriff.” Whenever the fee system was abolished in a New York county, the inmate population dropped — by as much as half."