Private prisons are a major thing in the US. They are extremely profitable due to the prison industrial complex, and the more people in prison the more profit to be made. Even back in the times of the USSR the "Land of the Free" had a higher prison population per capita. That number has only ever been increasing, the more money you have the more money you make. In this case the more money you have the more prisons you can build and politicians you can bribe.
The only reason we ignore this is we dehumanise prisoners. Right to vote? Nah they are prisoners. Right to decent healthcare? They shouldn't have done something illegal. I hope you see the pattern here. All we need to do is call someone a criminal and then we can force them to do whatever we want because nobody will care about them anymore. Racism is a tool in this, it is used as a tool to make it easier to call someone a criminal and have their way with them.
We will never get rid of prejudices like racism until we get rid of the systematic benefit for using and spreading them. Police don't support the alt-right at rallies for no reason you know.
https://www.nytimes.com/1991/01/07/us/us-has-highest-rate-of-imprisonment-in-world.html