PRI Chapter 54: ACA Convention

Lind had thought that advanced production lines should be more profitable than current ones but he hadn't expected the high-tech police baton to have such high profits!

Currently on the market, a high-tech police baton integrated with GPS, alarm functions, high-voltage electric shock, strong light dazzle, and anti-theft design sold for $300.

One high-tech police baton production line could ideally produce 50,000 units annually.

This meant one production line could generate approximately $15 million in value but the costs required for the production line were far lower than the selling price.

Equipment-wise, injection molding machines plus circuit board placement machines plus battery assembly equipment, plus high-voltage module testing equipment would cost $700,000.

For manpower, they would need to employ multiple professional engineers to design architecture and do software programming, costing $50,000 per month in wages.

Regarding patents, some of the patents needed for this blueprint overlapped with electronic ankle monitors, while others hadn't been registered as patents yet.

Lind could completely register them himself and make continuous money from patent fees once the related industry matured in the future.

Adding bulk procurement costs for raw materials, Lind estimated he could control the cost to around $100 per baton produced.

The overall profit reached as high as ten million dollars!

This was more profitable than headphones and electronic ankle monitors combined.

The only two problems were lack of personnel and prisoners' inadequate technical skills.

Border Prison's prisoner count couldn't even fill two production lines, so to open another line would require Avery to speed up prisoner transport.

Moreover, while prisoners' current welding skills were adequate for headphone production, they struggled somewhat with electronic ankle monitors production.

Fortunately, the electronic ankle monitors production line didn't require many people. If Lind transferred those prisoners with solid technical skills, it could barely sustain operations but producing police batons required even more difficult techniques and more personnel.

To achieve ideal production volume, prisoners would have to learn more and harder techniques.

However, prisoners were all a bunch of idiots. Few had even attended high school, and 80% had learning abilities at a low level.

Having them learn simple welding was already quite demanding. Having them learn high-difficulty techniques would probably cause an immediate riot.

So Lind now desperately wanted the Quick Learning Room from the upgrade mission rewards.

If expectations were correct, this special facility should help the prison solve its illiteracy problem.

It was just unfortunate there was no way to build it immediately.

Lind smacked his lips and put the blueprint in the small safe hidden behind the sofa back.

This was a good location he had specifically found, used to store system-drawn rewards and some relatively sensitive items.

Under his office desk was another large safe containing contracts and money.

After putting everything away, Lind took his luggage and got in his car.

Angelina was already waiting in the driver's seat.

They were heading to the airport to take a red-eye flight directly to New York.

...

At six in the morning, Lind and Angelina arrived at their booked hotel.

The ACA convention would be held tomorrow for three days.

It was called a convention, but was actually a prison products expo.

CCA had rented a large hall for exhibitions where major prison companies would display their products to attract law enforcement leaders and government orders.

Meanwhile, prison officials would jointly discuss various problems facing private prisons this year in the main conference room.

Lind had never attended such a conference before, nor had Old Edward.

However, he had seen plenty of similar military exhibitions before, so he didn't find it particularly novel.

After resting all day at the hotel, at eight the next morning, Lind in a striped suit brought Angelina in a black business outfit to the expo venue.

"Good morning, sir," The guard greeted politely after checking Lind's invitation, then let both pass through security into the hall.

The hall didn't have many people, but products were abundant.

Self-defense batons, metal detection equipment, electronic handcuffs, electronic prisoner uniforms and other things that looked impressive but were actually not very useful were displayed before Lind.

Take electronic prisoner uniforms, for example. The description claimed they could track prisoner locations in real time and monitor prisoners' vital signs to determine their condition.

For instance, when prisoners were angry, their heart rate would increase and blood pressure would rise. After detecting this data, the uniform would send warnings to the backend, allowing guards to stop prisoners before they fought.

But the description omitted the most important point.

If this uniform wanted to monitor prisoners' physical conditions in real time, it needed various devices integrated into the clothing, and these devices together weighed a full 15 kilograms.

Working in this uniform would be as ridiculous as wearing 10 layers of condoms during intimate moments.

So Lind took one look and continued browsing with Angelina.

After browsing for a while, it was 9 o'clock.

The two entered the inner venue, passed the guard with their invitations, and sat in the conference room.

This was a circular conference room with somewhat cramped seating and tables.

Lind looked at his seat number and found Border Prison had been arranged in the outermost circle.

This wasn't surprising, since it was an unknown small private prison with 300 prisoners, not even as large as any random CCA prison.

Although they certainly didn't make money as well as Lind.

Lind sat in his chair, drinking the free beverages provided by the prison company while chatting with Angelina, waiting for the meeting to begin.

Soon, participants gradually entered the conference room.

Among them, a brown-haired curly man quickly walked into the conference room, scanned around, and finally stopped at the seat next to Lind.

Then he walked over with a confident smile, extending his hand in greeting, "Hey, hello, I'm Austin, warden of Ollu Prison."

"Hello, Border Prison, I'm Edward," Lind looked up at him without getting up, reaching out to shake hands.

Austin didn't mind and sat directly beside him, smiling at Angelina.

"And this beautiful lady is?"

"I'm the boss's secretary, Angelina Castro," Out of politeness, Angelina briefly introduced herself.

"Wow, what a lovely name."

Austin seemed quite familiar and began actively chatting with Lind after sitting down.

"Edward, what's your prison called?"

"Border Prison."

"Sounds like a simple name. You must be a practical person," Austin joked, then started talking about his own prison's success story.

Although it felt a bit noisy, Lind also learned about this Ollu Prison warden's situation.

Similar to Border Prison, Ollu Prison was also a newly established private prison, just slightly larger than Border Prison, currently holding 400 prisoners.

The prison had no serious criminals, all were minor offenders.

In fact, private prisons generally wouldn't hold serious criminals because their development model referenced CCA.

Focusing mainly on minor offenders, reducing expenses, expanding prison scale, and frantically opening branch prisons in various states.

While this approach was quite profitable, the consequences were also serious.

The prison would become a mess, with guards colluding with prisoners, sometimes even less influential than prisoners but capitalists never cared about this.

As long as it made money, that was enough.

What did private prisons need reputation for?

"I can now make $3 million profit annually, and this is just my first prison. I plan to open a second prison in Texas and open 5 prisons within 3 years, then seek to go public. How's that? Isn't this decision quite bold?"

Angelina listened to Austin bragging and couldn't help but curl her lips.

Although she didn't know Border Prison's specific profit figures, she had calculated and found that Border Prison could earn at least $6 million annually.

This was still based on just over 100 prisoners!

Once prisoners filled the prison, Border Prison would earn at least tens of millions annually.

So in terms of business management, Lind could rub Austin into the ground.

And if it came to physical combat, having secretly watched Lind spar with James, Angelina had no doubt this pretty boy Austin would also be rubbed into the ground but the meaning of a clown was that he didn't know he was a clown.

Therefore, Lind and his companion listened like they were hearing jokes, listening to Austin talk about his business plans while encouraging him to say more.

After all, although Austin loved bragging, the industry news and anecdotes he mentioned were quite fresh to hear.

Lind hadn't contacted other industry bosses before, so this was a good opportunity to learn from Austin.

Just as Austin was boasting eloquently, footsteps suddenly came from the entrance.

Then executives from major private prisons like CCA and GEO walked in from outside.

The conference room immediately became quiet.

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