This is a fantastically interesting idea. For me, the idea itself is pleasant enough to make your comment the high point of this thread. :)
I immediately tried to think of how the incentives could be set up this way and unfortunately couldn't come up with anything that didn't seem susceptible to gaming.
Ie, offer prisons a tasty carrot -- if it's tasty enough to be attractive, you get the same link between sentencing-happy judges and prisons. Sentence people who don't deserve it for a couple of months, they get out and don't reoffend.
I haven't given it much thought, just a idle idea really.
In my ideal world the prisons would offer job training/therapy/etc.. and generally just start treating prisons like people, but it probably would be too easy to game. Prisons would probably try to game transfers to move high-risk to re-offend prisoners to other prisons. Sentencing gaming like you mentioned, probably lots of other odd and interesting unethical hacks that I can't even think of.
Just re-enforces my personal belief that for-profit persons are not a good idea at best, and immoral at worst.
I immediately tried to think of how the incentives could be set up this way and unfortunately couldn't come up with anything that didn't seem susceptible to gaming.
Ie, offer prisons a tasty carrot -- if it's tasty enough to be attractive, you get the same link between sentencing-happy judges and prisons. Sentence people who don't deserve it for a couple of months, they get out and don't reoffend.