Private prison company offers to buy 48 states’ prisons

[Arger68]

"In exchange for keeping at least a 90 percent occupancy rate, the private prison company Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) has sent a letter to 48 states offering to manage their prisons for the low price of $250 million per year, according to a letter obtained by the Huffington Post."

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/02/14/private-prison-company-offers-to-buy-48-states-prisons/

I'm almost speechless - a minimum 90% occupancy rate.

[sabrina 1]

1. The new slavery, our Prison Industrial Complex. Free labor of mega corps, what could be

so bad about that?

[russspeakeasy]

2. Wow ! We just took a giant step backwards didn't we ?

[Arger68]

5. I'm still in shock over the 90% occupancy thing,

like they're buying an apartment complex or hotel or something.

[LAGC]

12. It's really no different than a greedy landlord.

Of course, they have the extra financial clout to lobby legislatures for stricter sentences, especially for non-violent offenses, and even bribe judges so that they will send more people to prison for petty offenses.

So in that sense, they are super-landlords, with a steady stream of tenants.

[nanabugg]

20. Folks should really educate themselves about this. Smart-ass comments won't change the facts

cheap labor and the hidden slavery behind this system is profitable for the "masters." Check out where most of the prisons are located. Learn about how the head count figures into congressional redistricting. Learn about what jobs will be performed by the cheap labor. Learn about the demographics. Learn about the number who are really innocent or in prison because 3x drug incidents, the same kind that the Wall Street, crooks who stole your money and retirement, get excused for or not even arrested for. Learn about how much it actually costs, you the citizen, to keep non-dangerous people in jail. Wake up people. When they run out of minorities and poor folks, they will be coming after you for parking tickets.

[CrispyQ]

23. +1

Wake up people. When they run out of minorities and poor folks, they will be coming after you for parking tickets.

It's not going to be easy. We have a punitive culture & too many ignorant people who don't think about the implications of a for-profit prison system. They're just happy someone who they think deserves it, got put in jail. Again, it's a case of "First they came for the pot smokers(whatever), but I didn't say anything..."

[asjr]

3. This sort of reminds me of the PBS

program last night about black prisoners being co-opted to do work.

[malaise]

24. That's the plan

New crimes for slave labor

[think]

4. Someone please tell me this is the Onion /nt

[DocMac]

10. The link is to rawstory.

Actually i'm not surprised. Bill Clinton should have ended this war on marijuana. No Republican will do it.

This country never seems to recognize the failures. Seriously, trickle down economics is still being pushed, even though we have enough data to show it failed.

Sorry, had to vent a little.

[geardaddy]

6. Corporation of America (CCA) is a member of ALEC

http://www.alecmatch.org/

[WCGreen]

7. This means that there will be blood...

This is ridiculous.

Bad idea.

Privitization of prisons just breeds more pressure to keep people in jail.

[Bad_Ronald]

8. I wonder how long it will be before the RIAA grabs a piece of this action?

They can open up their own gulag archipelago for all those felonious 75 year-old great-grandmothers who have wantonly downloaded Eddie Cantor mp3s without their permission....and all for the ridiculously low price of $250 mill per year!

Corporations Uber Alles!

[KansDem]

9. Private prisons should not be permitted to hold citizens against their will.

There's a philosophical dilemma involved.

When the State sends you to prison, it is because you broke a law. Laws are enacted to benefit society and the community. But it is the State and only the State that can deprive you of you rights as punishment for breaking a law.

Therefore, it is the State that can hold you against your will. Not a "corporation;" not a "private concern;" not a "group of investors." Only the State.

When I see Americans stripped of their rights and sent to a private prison, it makes me angry!

[spanone]

11. so we would have to keep feeding them prisoners to keep the 90% rate?

don't common intelligent people see the fucking flaw in this kind of thinking?

when prisons become profitable, crime pays in many ways.

[think]

14. I incorrectly read your title along the lines of Soylent Green. But

you make some good points when kept in the proper context.

[angrychair]

15. I have a great idea

How can you guarantee a occupancy rate? Shouldn't that question be asked? Don't we want crime rates to fall? If we go this far than how far are we from turning over our police force to private companies? A great many cities don't have the money to maintain a police force so why not turn over our police force to a private company? What not turn over city government as well? Cities could save a lot of money...most city services are out-sourced anyway. Why not outsource federal government as well? Most government functions are outsourced already anyway. Why not outsource our military? Our Congress? Our president can be picked by a board of directors? The U.S. can be run by one big megacorp...one big, multinational, religious megacorp. Wars would be planned and coordinated between different multinationals to help increase GDP and balance populations. They would begin and end of specific dates and military service would be a job. They could be Holy warriors for the multicorp. This sounds like a great idea!!!

do I really need a

[Initech]

16. Private prison industry. Only in America.

[Robb]

18. And the UK. And much of Europe.

We're merely innovators.

[MichiganVote]

17. The new and improved slavery of minorities

[sofa king]

19. Superjail!

http://www.adultswim.com/shows/superjail/index.html

[Starry Messenger]

21. recommend.

[duhneece]

22. Consider reading "The New Jim Crow..." by Michelle Alexander

Private prisons are where the war on drugs meets racism...actually, the prisons don't have to be private; even public prisons are full of minority war on drugs victims.

[Blue Owl]

25. Thank you sirs may we have another?

n/t

[rocktivity]

26. And what happens if the occupancy rate falls?

Does it become in the state's best interest to imprison as many people as possible? Does it become in CCA's best interest to prevent as many prisoners as being released as possible? Will CCA call upon the states to bring in more prisoners so when they need labor increases, like Christmastime? How will they cut down on overhead -- by denying food or medical care?

Prisons are supposed to be in business of punishing and correcting people, not making money.


rocktivity

[Citizen Worker]

27. The next step will be to get tough on crime and pass two strikes and you're out.

[Uncle Joe]

28. The immoral for profit prison industry is the 21st version of slavery and it isn't just the inmates

being the slaves, so will be the taxpayers; shelling out their hard earned dollars so that vile corporations with a business plan; anathema to any freedom loving nation can worship the Golden Calf.

This kind of dysfunctional industry will only lobby your representatives to pass ever more draconian laws as more prisoners = more profit, and taxes will need to increase in order to house an ever increasing world record breaking number of prisoners here in the "land of the free," as those laws are passed.

If anything should immediately be outlawed in the U.S. it should be the private for profit prison industry, the state alone should have the martial power and responsibiilty of housing inmates.

If taxes are so exorbitant for the nation or state to keep up with building new public financed prisons and jails for inmates, then perhaps the harsh, multitude of draconian laws are the problem.

There should be no profit motive in this institution, to do otherwise is a surefire road to perdition.

Thanks for the thread, Arger.

[JHB]

29. Isn't the whole point of having states responsible for this...

...is so it is not in the hands of one centralized organization?

Separation of powers, anyone? That means more than "every state free to contract with the same company".

[woo me with science]

30. Occupy.

The future is getting scarier and scarier.

[woo me with science]

31. Kick

[jmowreader]

32. Hmm...

In Idaho, anyone who receives a sentence of 180 days or less goes to county jail, and goes to a state facility with a sentence of 181 days or more. (It's probably that way in most states.) Assuming they can't figure out how to arrest more people, you'd start to see more people being sent up for a year rather than six months--meaning they'd go to the CCA-operated prisons rather than to county jail.

[Bozita]

33. This is exactly why marijuana will never be decriminalized! ... $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

[newspeak]

34. the more they privatize public responsibilities,

the more power these greedheads acquire over the people. The people will pour their taxes into the corporate entity, and trust me, once they have their way, we will be paying more; because after all, they have to make a profit. Shitty working rights, and cutting service quality, just to make an extra buck. But, the scariest thing, is that corruption, especially in the judicial system, will be more prominent. Remember the PA incident where the judge was getting a kickback to fill those beds-causing misery to the families and those he incarcerated for petty things (cussing, skipping school).

Also, I believe our rights will diminish, while their power and influence grows.

[RainDog]

35. Why for-profit prisons like the War On Drugs

arrest non-violent people minding their own business and put them in jail.

this is EXACTLY what was going on in the south prior to the civil war and up until WWII.

watch here:

http://video.pbs.org/video/2176766758

[Uncle Joe]

37. I believe it's another facet of the diamond which is the Economic Policy Institute and Chomsky's

take on "Failure by Design."

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

http://www.democraticunderground.com/101614303

http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175502/tomgram%3A_noam_chomsky%2C_hegemony_and_its_dilemmas/#more


"Despite such victories, American decline continued. By 1970, U.S. share of world wealth had dropped to about 25%, roughly where it remains, still colossal but far below the end of World War II. By then, the industrial world was “tripolar”: US-based North America, German-based Europe, and East Asia, already the most dynamic industrial region, at the time Japan-based, but by now including the former Japanese colonies Taiwan and South Korea, and more recently China.

At about that time, American decline entered a new phase: conscious self-inflicted decline. From the 1970s, there has been a significant change in the U.S. economy, as planners, private and state, shifted it toward financialization and the offshoring of production, driven in part by the declining rate of profit in domestic manufacturing. These decisions initiated a vicious cycle in which wealth became highly concentrated (dramatically so in the top 0.1% of the population), yielding concentration of political power, hence legislation to carry the cycle further: taxation and other fiscal policies, deregulation, changes in the rules of corporate governance allowing huge gains for executives, and so on.

Meanwhile, for the majority, real wages largely stagnated, and people were able to get by only by sharply increased workloads (far beyond Europe), unsustainable debt, and repeated bubbles since the Reagan years, creating paper wealth that inevitably disappeared when they burst (and the perpetrators were bailed out by the taxpayer). In parallel, the political system has been increasingly shredded as both parties are driven deeper into corporate pockets with the escalating cost of elections, the Republicans to the level of farce, the Democrats (now largely the former “moderate Republicans”) not far behind.

A recent study by the Economic Policy Institute, which has been the major source of reputable data on these developments for years, is entitled Failure by Design. The phrase “by design” is accurate. Other choices were certainly possible. And as the study points out, the “failure” is class-based. There is no failure for the designers. Far from it. Rather, the policies are a failure for the large majority, the 99% in the imagery of the Occupy movements -- and for the country, which has declined and will continue to do so under these policies."

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The strategy of "conscious self inflicted decline" involves more than just financialization, taxation, offshoring, deregulation etc. etc. as mentioned in that column.

The criminalizing of the people, disenfranchising them from their representative government weakens both on behalf of the 0.1% and returning a profit motive to involuntary (slave) labor; which competes with the "free" people would certainly serve to drive down wages.

[RainDog]

38. excellent insight

and it is entirely unnecessary to have such economic policies.

[Odin2005]

36. The new corporate SLAVERY.