Once upon a time there was a prison warden who thought up the idea of using prisoners to take jobs from private citizens for less than ten percent of the minimum wage, and sometimes no wage at all.
The prison labor saved the local government money, but taxes for the local community remained the same. The local government officials then voted to increase their own salaries to benefit from the windfall from the prison labor.
The prison labor program was so successful that private prisons were created so the private sector could get in on the action.
One day an accountant for the local government realized the profit potential of creating new laws that made it easier to arrest and convict people. He figured, in addition to the lawyers and judges getting their fees, the police would also get their cut from seized property, called 'Asset forfeiture.'
The proposals for profit motive were widely accepted at national conventions in the law enforcement community. Being tough on crime in such a way would be a good argument for cutting taxes on the wealthy, but hopefully for the sake of huge profits, taxes wouldn't be cut, and from time to time Democrats would win a majority in a state legislature and taxes would be raised, despite the increased profit from asset forfeiture and production by prison slave labor.
One year a "Three-Strikes" law was created that would seal the fate of non-violent drug offenders, to life in prison. Not much later a foreign trade deal was made that cost Americans over eighty million jobs. The crime rate spiked and tens of thousands more slaves were conscripted into prison labor. Public schools instituted a new policy of outsourcing discipline to local police, effectively fast-tracking children into the prison system. Police were trained in the art of inciting peaceful protesters into committing minor infractions. Entrapping people into committing crimes was no longer considered unethical.
Soon the United States prison population became the biggest in the world.
