That is, how do we squeeze one more pig per litter out of a sow (gestation stalls and farrowing crates), how do we decrease the amount of grain it takes to put on one pound of flesh (antibiotics and closely tailored feed rations), how do we best distribute fixed costs (close confinement), how do we best decrease labor costs (slatted concrete floors, close confinement, and automation)?
And, because the modest profits in confinement operations require the lowest possible labor costs, including automated feeding, watering and manure-handling systems, these operations have helped empty and impoverish rural America.
Moreover, low labour costs in less industrialized countries could allow labour-intensive, non-confinement systems to flourish, especially if there is an international market for such products.
The confinement structure costs about $1.3 billion, while the larger set up, known as the Shelter Implementation Plan, comes with a price tag of $2.7 billion.
Not only do solitary confinement units cost more to build than the average prison, it also costs significantly more to house someone in isolation than it does to hold someone in the general population.
But in fact, our detention system locks up thousands of immigrants unnecessarily every year, exposing detainees to brutal and inhumane conditions of confinement at massive costs to American taxpayers.
Fortunately, in recent years New York State's juvenile justice system has dramatically reduced its use of confinement, its principal cost-driver.
It became very clear that they were wedded to their nonviolent protest to win improved conditions for all those men in solitary confinement, whatever the personal costs to themselves".
The cost of confinement will be about $80m a year much more than prison.Meanwhile, Ohio lawmakers want to issue bright-green licence plates for sex offenders' cars (a pink proposal, in 2005, was unsuccessful).
