Agree completely. People are very quick to ascribe the problems associated with the prison industrial complex to the privatization of prisons, but that's only a part of it.
Sessions has an ideology (digression: based on his history, I wouldn't be surprised if it was rooted in racism [1]). But politicians, even the most ideological, have been shown to be very easy to sway: be it for money, or power, or something else. In his case, there is absolutely no incentive (financial, political support, or otherwise) to change: his party's base either partially agrees with him, or benefits from the policy stance, exactly like you said. And that is why we get borderline absurd quotes like "good people don't smoke marijuana" (2016) [2].
Sessions has an ideology (digression: based on his history, I wouldn't be surprised if it was rooted in racism [1]). But politicians, even the most ideological, have been shown to be very easy to sway: be it for money, or power, or something else. In his case, there is absolutely no incentive (financial, political support, or otherwise) to change: his party's base either partially agrees with him, or benefits from the policy stance, exactly like you said. And that is why we get borderline absurd quotes like "good people don't smoke marijuana" (2016) [2].
[1] http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/donald-trum...
[2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/11/18/trump...