Crime pays for US prison companies.... CAN WE STOP IT?

[lonestarnot]

http://rawstory.com/news/afp/Crime_pays_for_US_prison_companies_03092008.html

Financiers, real-estate agents and car salesmen might be suffering from America's economic malaise, but bulging jails have triggered a profit boom for corrections companies.

The United States leads the world in the number of people it incarcerates and government figures show the country's prison population grew by three percent to a record 2.3 million inmates in 2006.

Harsher sentencing policies have put more criminals behind bars and prison management firms such as the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) and The GEO Group are racing to build new jails or expand existing facilities to house more convicted felons.

[ixion]

1. if we do not stop it, eventually most of us will be a guest at one of these places

we need to put an end to the privatized prison business. One of the best ways to do that would be to release non-violent offenders, which makes up some 80%.

[lonestarnot]

3. Can we stop an economy in and unto itself?

[ixion]

4. take away 'customers' and you take away the economy

that's all that needs to be done. Of course, that would require the politicians support We, the People, rather than the prison lobby.

[lonestarnot]

6. Customers are the weakest link. The employees are another problem.

[RedCappedBandit]

17. Do you have a link for that 80%?

(Not trying to be confrontational.. really interested)

[Echo In Light]

2. Sick, sad country

[midnight]

5. That explains why this country puts more money into prisons

than into education. It makes coproate america more happy.

[Echo In Light]

8. Ties into the phony "war on terror" too: the illusion of "security" = big $/and thought control

[Beausoleil]

7. I think private prisons should be outlawed

unless the prison corporation is given an incentive for making sure that the crime rate and incarceration rate go down. They should not be allowed to be in a position to encourage more crime or incarceration since they profit from an increase in either.

[tridim]

10. The shareholders wouldn't like that

And of course that's exactly the problem.

[lonestarnot]

11. Until they find their own asses in the pen.

Eating their own faces.

[Beausoleil]

19. I'm thinking that the government who hires these corporations

could stipulate that a 10 million dollar bonus could be paid if the state's crime rate and incarceration rate both go down. Or something along those lines. Make it attractive to the shareholders, too.

[WinkyDink]

9. It's a two-fer: Prisoners lose the right to vote, too.

[lonestarnot]

12. kick

[iamthebandfanman]

13. private jails and prisons

are making a crap load of money off the war on drugs.

all those non-violent offenders.

[spanone]

14. privatization proves that crime certainly pays....a prison society

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/10/opinion/10mon1.html?hp

[lonestarnot]

15. Thanks for the link

And yes it certainly pays, why else would an economy be based on the industrial/private prison industry.

[lonestarnot]

16. looks like they're going to have a few more paying customers before the day is done.

[lonestarnot]

18. kick