{"id":440546,"date":"2010-03-17T12:33:00","date_gmt":"2010-03-17T16:33:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/bill-ackmans-worst-nightmare-us-prison-numbers-actually-falling-2010-3"},"modified":"2010-03-17T12:33:00","modified_gmt":"2010-03-17T16:33:00","slug":"bill-ackmans-worst-nightmare-us-prison-numbers-actually-falling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/440546","title":{"rendered":"Bill Ackman’s Worst Nightmare: US Prison Numbers Actually Falling"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"bill-ackman\"<\/p>\n

Believe it or not, for the first time 1972, the US prison population is actually getting lower.<\/p>\n

According to the New York Times<\/a>, state prisons held 1.4 million people as of January 1st, almost 6% lower than the year before.<\/p>\n

Chalk it up to marijuana reform laws or a massive budget crisis, no one knows if this is a temporary dip or a permanent sea change for a country that’ll throw you in jail for just about anything.<\/p>\n

Interestingly, hedge funders like Bill Ackman and Whitney Tilson are probably grunting at these new numbers as both bet on continued prisons<\/a> growth. More specifically, they’ve bet on a growing private prison industy, so they could be fine, so long as private prisons continue to gain market share.<\/p>\n

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