The GOP's Jail Sell (privatizing prisons)

[n2doc]

— By Suzy Khimm

Wed Apr. 27, 2011 12:01 AM PDT
Last August, two prisoners escaped from an Arizona penitentiary and fled to New Mexico, where they ambushed a couple, shot them to death, and lit their bodies on fire inside a trailer.

These fugitives didn't escape from just any facility: They were housed in a privately run prison managed by the Utah-based Management Training Corporation. After the incident, a review by the Arizona Department of Corrections concluded that the prison had poorly trained staff and deficient equipment—including a faulty security system that emitted so many false alarms, the prison staff simply ignored it.

Episodes like this have raised concerns about the privatization of prisons, with critics long arguing that such facilities pose a threat to public safety and don't save states much—if any—money in the long run. They also argue that such facilities pose a perverse incentive to keep people locked up. Still, the nation could soon see a major private-prison boom, as Republican governors and legislators across the country push privatization proposals to address budget shortfalls.

In Ohio, Gov. John Kasich has proposed selling five prisons to private companies—a move that would bring in an estimated $200 million up front—while Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal plans to sell three state prisons to private operators. In Florida, the GOP-controlled Legislature is making an even broader push, hammering out a budget bill that would require the state to privatize the prisons in South Florida, where one-fifth of the state's 100,000-plus inmates reside.

more

http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/04/gop-prison-privatization-ohio-florida-minnesota

[douglas9]

1. About Private Prisons

snip>

Texas became the first state with one of the new wave of private prisons, when Corrections Corporation of American (CCA) opened a for-profit immigrant detention center in Houston in May, 1984. Another CCA for-profit detention center followed in Laredo the following year, and private prisons spread like wildfire across Texas. By 1997, eleven different states were housing more than 5,000 prisoners in 22 private prisons in the state. These prisons generated $1 million per week in revenues for the companies that operated them. The companies collected profits while many states collected reports of abuse, poorly trained staff, poor conditions, escapes and scandals.

http://www.texasprisonbidness.org/about-private-prisons

[SpiralHawk]

2. "There is profit to be made jailing American proles. Smirk." - RepubliCorp, Inc.

[Atman]

3. I don't get how these schemes address "budget shortfalls." Someone still has to pay.

So the state signs a contract with the "private" company. All this means is that the private company now has control, and all the state does is pay the bills -- while the private company cuts corners in order to pay shareholder dividends. Remember, that is ALWAYS #1 for a for-profit corporation: profits. It's in their charter. Make money for the investors. That is their ONLY reason for being. When will the GOP assholes come to understand this? Government is NOT a business, it is government. It is there to provide for the well-being of it's citizens, NOT to turn a quarterly profit. When the victims of these escapees start suing the private prison for billions of dollars, the shareholders will run and the privatization scheme will collapse, as it well should.

[Courtesy Flush]

4. Private prisons lead to more incarceration

If it's profitable to have high prison populations, then guess what? Lobbyists will push for stricter sentencing guidelines, and more people will go to prison. How does this save money?

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130833741

[DrDan]

5. there is not a budget problem that cannot be solved with privatization

profits ALWAYS reduce costs.

(I assume I do not need the sarcasm thingie)

[Poboy]

6. Recommend.

[Shandris]

7. "All children are now property of the Mentel Corporation."

I never figured I'd have to look back on a Christopher Lambert movie as a blueprint for the coming future.

Fortress