• Business

    How mass incarceration became ‘a business opportunity’ in America

    This is part 1 of Yahoo Finance’s Illegal Tender podcast about the for-profit prison industry. Listen to the series here.  Mass incarceration in the U.S. grew over decades as more politicians with tough-on-crime stances became elected to office and laws changed surrounding sentencing.  In that environment, the private prison industry became a place to generate a lot of revenue. “A lot of these criminal laws were changed with the political support of individuals who supported the private prison corporation because they saw a business opportunity,” Amy Fettig, executive director at The Sentencing Project, told Yahoo Finance’s Illegal Tender. “They saw the incarceration, the denial of freedom of our fellow Americans, people…

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  • Business

    Trump is touting Opportunity Zones as a huge success with no proof

    LOUISVILLE — In more than 15 separate public appearances since the protests over George Floyd’s death began, President Donald Trump has touted the success of his administration’s Opportunity Zones program, claiming it has created “tens of thousands of jobs” in poor Black communities across the U.S. But those who track the tax-break program say such claims are impossible to prove, and that the bulk of the investments to date have gone to real estate deals that do not produce long-term jobs. A recent White House report on the program estimates $75 billion has been raised nationwide for Opportunity Zone investments but the White House has been unable to provide a…

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