http://rollingout.com/2013/09/26/wh...g-states-for-millions-if-they-dont-stay-full/ Apparently private prisons are threatening to sue some states for millions of dollars because they aren't incarcerating enough people. Private prisons have to go. Putting people in cages should not be a business, and people shouldn't be allowed to profit from caging human beings. I really hope the President does something real about this before he leaves and commutes the sentences of thousands of people. But he is a shill so he probably won't. We are going to start seeing new ways to lock people up, hell we already have.
Hilldebeast will probably have her own private prison. If not she will get the Martha Stewart Wing at the Federal Prison in Alderson, WV. Martha will probably send her a Martha Stewart Prison Pancho
Agree with you @LaSalleAve there are a few government functions where privatization works. Prisons aren't one of them. They are a horrible thing to privatize.
The real problem with private prisons is that the taxpayers have to pay for the cost of incarcerating state prisoners, for staff salaries and benefits, and for a corporate profit. And now the corporations want more money. What a shock. Prisons are not jobs where private-sector innovation and competition produce more efficient and cheaper results. It pretty much straightforward guarding and feeding prisoners. Not rocket science. It's hard to save any money without starving the prisoners or reducing guards and letting prisoners escape. There are no incentives for anybody. This is a textbook example of what should be a government agency. Just pay for the people, the supplies, and the facility and not for corporate profits from tax dollars. Privatization should happen when competition and incentives can produce efficiency and cost savings. Like when the state dropped its mowing crews on the highways and starting contracting it out to small private vendors. They could do it cheaper. And if they underperformed they could be replaced quickly. They didn't have civil service laws so the vendors could get rid of lazy employees and reward hard workers. Less paperwork, less chickenshit. They could buy a new tractor whenever they needed one. They had incentives to get the job done quickly and move on to another paying job. A small contractor doesn't have to punch out at 4:30 to avoid paying overtime. he has flexibility. He can mow until dark if he wants to because he knows it is going to rain tomorrow. His profit doesn't really come from tax dollars as much as it comes from tax savings.
I read an article the other day that is supposedly from a music executive that claims the private prison industry was instrumental in the creation and rise of gangsta rap music. Of course no names were named and there is no way to prove this at all, but it does make you wonder. I mean if you make more money on locking more people up doesn't it drive those people who do make more money to come up with new creative ways to lock people up? We saw the ugly side of this with that judge in PA who was sending kids to a private juvenile facility for 2 million dollars in kickbacks, and most of these kids didn't really do anything. How many others are out there like him?
I don't doubt that prison had something to do with gangsta rap but it wouldn't matter whether it was public or private. If you're an inmate prison is prison. That judge probably got sentenced to a cushy white collar prison. They should have sent him someplace like Angola or Parchman
That's the thing though, if you are an inmate sure, prison is prison, but as a civilian knowing that there are people in this country actively seeking ways to lock up as many people as possible to fill their pockets is a scary thought. Once dissent becomes the new terrorism everyone is a target.
