I bought a prison in the United States.

Standing in his office, Lin Ge watched through the window as the three cars drove out of the prison gate one after another, his previously enthusiastic expression completely gone.

Standing behind him, Hamon looked at his boss's face, which looked as if he had stepped in dog poop, and immediately understood what had happened.

"He asked you how much he wanted?"

"20%." Lingo's expression was as hard as a statue.

Hamon shook his head:

"That's outrageous! I thought he'd only ask for 10 at most. You refused?"

"Of course I refused."

"Do you know what this means?"

Ringo turned around and looked at Hamon:

"That means the audit report will be excellent."

……

Three days later, the first draft of the audit report was sent to McLean County Correctional Center.

The report was forty pages long and typed neatly.

The signature of the county finance bureau chief is on the last page, next to the seal of the county court.

The report gave some credit to the prison's management, but focused entirely on the problems.

Facility conditions: Level C.

The window bars in the prison area had multiple cracks in the welds, the door locks were rusty, and the wall plaster was peeling off.

These were all documented in detail and accompanied by photos, but they were not as serious as described in the report; clearly, the author exaggerated the facts.

Security level: Level D.

The surveillance system is not yet fully installed, the number of prison guards is only 30% of the standard configuration, they are not armed, and there is no electronic alarm system on the isolation wall.

Medical resources: Level D.

There were no full-time doctors, the first-aid kits were incomplete, and there were no dedicated isolation wards.

The report concluded by recommending that the bed subsidy be reduced from $32 per day to $24 per day, a reduction of 25%.

At the same time, the special subsidies originally intended for facility upgrades were frozen, pending further review.

The report's conclusion is clear.

If this report is submitted to the state corrections department, Ringo's prison will lose at least $200,000 in bed subsidies annually, in addition to frozen special grants.

More importantly, no judge would be willing to send a prisoner to a private prison that is rated D.

All of this was because Ringo rejected Judge Hammond's offer.

"This is shameless! Hammond has gone completely mad!"

Harmon slammed the report on the table and cursed.

Lin Ge sat behind his desk, holding a cup of coffee.

He didn't look at the report, because he had already read it three times. His angry expression gradually dissipated, and he was now focusing on the factory's output data for the past two weeks.

The orders from General Motors, the prototypes from General Electric, and the cleanup and packaging of Paul's batch of valves have all been successfully delivered.

The factory's net profit for the past two weeks is approximately $26,000.

This was even though the new equipment had just arrived and the prisoners were not yet familiar with operating it.

He needs a new source of income, and he already has an idea.

"He thinks our facilities are outdated, right?"

Lingo put down his coffee cup, picked up the report from the table, and turned to the page on facilities conditions:

"The window bars in the cell block have multiple cracks in the welds, the door locks are rusty, the paint is peeling off... everything you said is true, not a single thing is false."

"Then how can you still laugh?"

Hamon stared at him, somewhat incredulous.

Lin Ge did indeed laugh out loud without realizing it, but it wasn't because he was provoked.

In his previous life, when he ran a factory, he learned something: there are two ways to deal with customer complaints about product problems.

Repair that product, or redefine the standards for that product.

In the private prison industry, "standards" are a business.

"Hamon."

Lingo turned to the page on security levels in the report:

"Do you know what prisons across the United States are most lacking right now?"

"A prison guard?"

"No, prison guards are a continuous expense. Hiring one more person costs an extra 15,000 yuan per year."

"What prisons lack are prison guards who don't cost money."

Hamon frowned:

"Free prison guards? What are you talking about? Don't tell me you just gave us a raise and are now taking it back?"

"How could that be? I'm talking about something that can work 24 hours a day without blinking, doesn't accept bribes, and doesn't require overtime pay."

Lin Ge stood up, walked to the window, and gazed into the distance, his thoughts racing.

In another time and space, there was a man named Robert W. Klein.

In 1992, he founded the first company in the United States specializing in the production of prison surveillance systems, called Cecurus Technologies.

By 2020, the U.S. prison security market was worth nearly $10 billion, with surveillance systems accounting for about one-third of that.

Facial recognition, behavior analysis, electronic fences, drone detection...

Every aspect is replacing human labor with technology.

However, it was 1984, and most of these technologies were not yet mature.

However, the core monitoring system, which combines closed-circuit television with video recording and storage and centralized control, can be implemented under current technological conditions.

And his prison has no shortage of people capable of making these things!

Craig Miller, the former draftsman at Lockheed, trained ten skilled operators in just one week.

His mind was far more sensitive to engineering problems than anyone else in the prison could have imagined.

Besides him, there were other people.

Among the new inmates was a black man named Omar Hashim, who had been involved in wire fraud, worked for a telecommunications company for twelve years, and was sentenced to four years.

His knowledge of closed-circuit television systems may be even deeper than that of the installers at Honeywell's local dealership.

There was also a white man named Maurice Boone, whose file stated that he had worked as a hardware engineer at IBM and was sentenced to five years in prison for insider trading.

These people were in his prison, wearing orange prison uniforms, and earning less than thirty cents an hour for their labor.

But the knowledge in their heads, if converted to market value, would be worth at least a hundred or ten thousand times their wages.

Lin Ge brought his thoughts back to the direction he had initially taken.

"If Hammond thinks our facilities are outdated, then we'll make them so advanced he has nothing to say!"

Harmon was somewhat puzzled. "How is it advanced?"

Ringo turned around and picked up his coffee cup again:

"We develop our own prison security system, apply for patents, and then license those patents to other correctional centers in the state that need to upgrade their security!"

Harmon was silent for a moment, looking at Ringo as if he were looking at someone standing on the edge of a cliff saying, "I think I can fly."

"Chen, you're running a prison, not a tech company."

"You're right. Running a tech company requires hiring engineers, paying them market wages, and bearing the risks of research and development."

"But running a prison doesn't require these, because prisons have readily available, cheap engineers."

Lin Ge took out a roster from the drawer:

"Omar Hashim, former senior technician."

"Maurice Boone, former IBM hardware engineer."

"And Craig Miller, you know him."