Jim Crow and the penal system

Kieron's documentary on private prisons was very enlightening. Private prisons and how they operate is dubious and scary in how it is essentially slave labor, this is even more interesting when you consider the amount of African-American inmates in the prison system being larger than the slave population in the 1860's. This has similarities to the Jim Crow laws in that it perpetuates the racism of slavery in all but name. The original intention of prisons to reform prisoners has been perverted to serve the social pecking order.