What is Digg?100 Comments
- PlasticHotDog, on 11/03/2009, -1/+94Private prisons will lobby to have more people put in jail. It's only natural.
- novenator, on 11/03/2009, -3/+66A for-profit prison industry is just insane. Check out these charts (from wikipedia): http://progressivenation.us/wp-content/uploads/200 ...
"The for-profit prison industry boomed, and the incarceration rate climbed to the highest in the world, surpassing China, Russia, South Africa, Iran, North Korea, and every other country that is typically demonized in the American media as a brutal dictatorship that oppresses their people. In fact one out of every thirty two Americans is currently either behind bars or on probation." http://progressivenation.us/2009/09/24/the-progres ...
Can anyone guess when the rate of incarceration began to skyrocket and why? - detcade, on 11/02/2009, -5/+63But anything other than extremist capitalism is surrendering to Nazis and Marxists! /s
- captininsanity, on 11/03/2009, -0/+36There's already been a case of a juvenile court judge giving kids heavier sentences so he could get kickbacks from the privatized programs and homes for troubled kids companies.
- KibibyteBrain, on 11/03/2009, -3/+32It's never really capitalism when the Government is the "customer". Responsibilities that are clearly the Governments' should not be handed off to a middle man who gets to pocket the extra he "saves" by doing a shady job. The whole reason we trust tasks like "holding people against their will" only to a democratic government is exactly so they WON'T cut corners with the process.
- OneRottenTomato, on 11/03/2009, -2/+28Hey. It could be much worse. Imagine if cost-cutting, loophole-seeking corporations entertained the idea to hire these inmates and pay them pennies for their labor.
oh. wait. - Dustin00, on 11/03/2009, -3/+28Same reason for-profit health care is failing.
Corporations are designed to make money.
They don't make money by curing people or training them to function outside the jail.
These are 2 industries where we were all better off when corporations couldn't profit from them. - emailowndme, on 11/03/2009, -4/+27haha, check out California, right now with our "privatized" prisons we are spending statewide, 3x more per prisoner than we are per student, yay, 48th in the country in school spending per capita, woohoo!
- captininsanity, on 11/03/2009, -0/+20Proof this kind of thing happens:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/30/us/30judges.html - ThatNeilDude, on 11/03/2009, -1/+20Legalize drugs. Release inmates incarcerated on non-violent drug crimes. Overcrowding problem = solved.
- kconnors, on 11/03/2009, -0/+19This will cause a demand of the need for convicted criminals so that money can be made and the right judges' pockets filled.
- t1n0m3n, on 11/03/2009, -0/+15The war on drugs
- BuzzFriendly, on 11/03/2009, -0/+14Well you are just flat out WRONG!
Federal prisons were estimated to hold 179,204 sentenced inmates as of Sept. 30, 2007. Of these, 15,647 were incarcerated for violent offenses, including 2,915 for homicide, 8,966 for robbery, and 3,939 for other violent crimes. In addition, 10,345 inmates were serving time for property crimes, including 504 for burglary, 7,834 for fraud, and 2,006 for other property offenses. A total of 95,446 were incarcerated for drug offenses. Also, 56,237 were incarcerated for public-order offenses, including 19,528 for immigration offenses and 24,435 for weapons offenses.
Source:
Sabol, William J., PhD, and West, Heather C., Bureau of Justice Statistics, Prisoners in 2007 (Washington, DC: US Department of Justice, December 2008), NCJ224280, p. 22, Appendix Table 12. - Truedirt, on 11/02/2009, -0/+12This seems like a perfect storm brewing in the middle of the city but yet unbeknown from most of its residents.
- digitalArtform, on 11/03/2009, -0/+10When you are in the prison business you are going to look for ways to increase business, not decrease it.
- jmorganthall, on 11/03/2009, -0/+10Am I the only person who believes that social costs need be measured in something more than just dollars?
- nullcodes, on 11/03/2009, -2/+11Why not privatize the military? We can bring the efficiency of the private sector to the military. After all, corporate sponsored death panels are far more efficient. it's always better to have choice, not everyone may want to pay for certain wars or cewrtain levels of protection. if i don't wanna pay for my neighbour's healthcare, why should i pay for his protection?
- cogitocogito, on 11/03/2009, -0/+9I doubt a society that gets a kick out of rampant prison rape will have a problem with this.
- Homerr, on 11/03/2009, -0/+8The government does pretty good at a bunch of things and prisons is one of them.
- Kungfumantis239, on 11/03/2009, -2/+10You're disgusting. This country is made of immigrants. What makes this country great is that it is the supposed land of the free. It is anything but.
I sincerely hope that you sir, are deported. As a future member of the military, I cringe at the thought that I actually have to protect your sorry ass. - Dugglous, on 11/03/2009, -0/+6Good, but still much room for improvement, along with other bunch of things.
However, if you can't give your government some trust, why the ***** would you give private companies ANY trust?
Government of the people, by the people, for the people
OR
Corporation of the dollar, by the dollar, for the dollar
Your choice. - radix2, on 11/03/2009, -0/+6In most western countries, the prison system is managed largely as an attempt to rehabilitate offenders (obviously not all prisoners can be rehabilitated though). In the US, it seems (at least from the outside looking in) that it is purely punitive with no real effort to reintegrate offenders as productive members of society.
The so-called "war" on drugs is also ridiculously overbearing and contributes to the massive number of people in US prisons per capita. - PlatnumPlatypus, on 11/03/2009, -1/+7This is a confusing issue...
Naturally, money should be made by offering the public a service or product. That is the basics of marketing: market what the consumers need.
Do we need privatized prisons? If the reality of lobbying wasn't actually a reality, then I don't see any real issue. Money breeds competition, breeding better results. How would privatized prisons competing with one another affect competition? I see them focusing on getting prisoners in their prisons rather than being innovative and competing with other prisons. Why fight over a pie when you can just make more pie?
I'm not a fan of privatizing duties left to our government. Our governments priority is the welfare of it's citizens. That means law enforcement. That means enforcing the law. That means locking up law breakers. Thus, prisons are something the government should manage.
I am open to the other side of the coin, however. If anyone wants to present their case...
What needs to happen is the protection against lobbying. Wherever money is made, there will be people who exploit that system. We see that now in healthcare and fake Medicare patients. - Pinkertinkle, on 11/03/2009, -1/+6I nominate OCP, I like their bid.
- digitalArtform, on 11/03/2009, -1/+6Goldman will package a bunch of life insurance policies of individuals with an alphabet soup of diseases: AIDS, leukemia, lung cancer, heart disease, breast cancer, diabetes, and Alzheimer’s. The idea is to diversify across diseases to protect “investors” from the horror that a cure might be found for one or more afflictions--prolonging life and reducing profits.
http://neweconomicperspectives.blogspot.com/2009/0 ... - waspbr, on 11/03/2009, -1/+6still capitalism, there is nothing more capitalist then the privatization of a given sector in order to expose to market pressures and forces in order to "lead to innovation and efficiency through the persue of profit".
The only problem there is that the private sector only seeks one thing, to accumulate profit within the limits of the law,and since laws have loop-holes and the law makers are in rhe pockets of the private sector, then there is no encouragement to change it. Also this is largely due to a great moral deficit that makes the whole system stop on its tracks.
Don't fool yourself thinking that this is a democratic system, at best it is an oligarchy controlled by those who have money, and as it has established money is a for of free speech, and those people have a lot of free speech. - nullcodes, on 11/03/2009, -0/+5Prisons should only be privatized if the government ensures, as required by the constitution, that no cruel and unsual levels of punishment are brought about. But how is that gonna be enforced? Not that the govt. has the ability of running a non-cruel prison either .. but at least u take out the hypocritical layer of a govt. agency to "regulate" the prisons.
Stuff like prison rape, whiuch everyone knows happens .. wiull get even worse .. if that's even piossible. - Jordan117, on 11/03/2009, -0/+5Private prison corporations can be an influential and wealthy lobbying group, and it is in their financial interests to house as many prisoners as possible. What impact might this have on local criminal justice policy?
Show your work. - Jlaugh, on 11/03/2009, -2/+7Capitalism benefits tremendously from illegal drugs. They get to launder the illegal money through the banks, seize property without due process, increase police budgets, use it as an excuse to invade other countries to control the supply , shut down competition from medicinal plants for the pharmaceutical companies drugs ( some of those companies are owned by the families of politicians ie like Dan Quayle's family who make all the components that go into crystal meth ). Also let's not forget how the government imports the drugs to pay for black budget projects such as we found out in the Iran-Contra hearings. It also gives them an excuse to put people in jail, where corporations enslave the prisoners and have them looking into your credit records while they data mine for fortune 500 companies.
Oh and let's not forget DARE the program that teaches kids to do drugs, so they can later be fed into the prison system. - dman24752, on 11/03/2009, -0/+4The problem though is that they aren't then bound by any moral or legal obligation to the inmates. They simply see them as costs to be reduced as much as possible, when prisons are political entities, yes, abuses still occur, but it's easier to fix them and the focus isn't on keeping costs as low as possible. I simply don't see how privatized prisons can be good for reforming prisoners which is why prisons exist in the first place.
- mithrasinvictus, on 11/03/2009, -3/+7Just like people like you claim that regulation was the cause of the bank crisis. Next you'll be telling us that global warming is caused by us not releasing enough carbon into the atmosphere.
- cybrguy, on 11/03/2009, -1/+4Its a conflict of interest. Prison is for rehabilitation, but a private prison has no interest in damaging the prospects of the prisoners returning to make them more money, so why would they want rehabilitation.
If Prisons are NOT for rehabilitation then we need a new method because this madness is not ending. - Peggles, on 11/03/2009, -0/+3what about in 2008, where California was 46th in per pupil spending? that seems to be more 'right now' than '06-'07.
http://www.cft.org/index.php/component/content/art ... - cfuse, on 11/03/2009, -0/+3"Naturally, money should be made by offering the public a service or product." <-- This is the germ idea that causes the greatest amount of suffering in America. Making a private profit shouldn't supersede upholding basic human rights, or any other ethical or responsible behaviour - if you cannot make a buck without being evil, then you shouldn't get to make a buck - not be given a free pass to ignore ethical (and legal) considerations as happens now.
The free market is a good thing, and when it works it works very well indeed. However, it isn't a panacea that is right in every situation. For some reason this statement is treated like heresy in America, even when there are many obvious examples of totally unregulated (By sane standards) industries that are filled with toxic businesses that are happy to throw anyone under the bus for a buck. - shadowq8, on 11/03/2009, -1/+4THEY WANA BUILD A PRISON !!
FOR YOU AND ME TO LIVE IN !!
ANOTHER PRISON SYSTEM!! - blackturtleus, on 11/03/2009, -0/+3I'm thinking that if it's okay to have private (for profit) prisons, then it should be fine to have private (for profit) armies and that it should be perfectly permissible for the private armies to be hired to break individuals out of the private prisons. When corporations become involved in and profit from law enforcement then there is incentive to grow the industry. That turns citizens into potential fodder for their money-making schemes. Bad idea. Very bad idea!
- AntithesisVI, on 11/03/2009, -0/+3Not if you deserve neither.
- copypastry, on 11/03/2009, -0/+3can you provide some numbers to back that up?
- HornyAngel, on 11/03/2009, -0/+2Actually, they could house them in decent facilities if they were using the money earned by the inmates.
Anything else is slavery. It goes against human dignity and the international treaties ratified by the U.S., which, btw, have the power of law. All for the sake of profit and the Almighty Dollar. - HornyAngel, on 11/03/2009, -0/+2Well, what is your estimate? 90%, 89%, 88%? Even one is one too many.
- TyrannousDotNet, on 11/03/2009, -0/+2you dont want to turn out like Christopher Lambert in fortress...
- Peggles, on 11/03/2009, -0/+2what's the difference? that they aren't all behind bars. what about the similarites. Like they were convicted for quote unquote crimes.
- newes, on 11/03/2009, -0/+2Doctors add to peoples well being which increases their productivity. Police enforce unnecessary laws when they could be focusing more effort on real crimes, and prison guards guard people that are jailed because of unnecessary laws.
- Jlaugh, on 11/03/2009, -0/+2@Barackalypse
The Political families which run the government also own the major corporations and banks. One hand washes the other, it's called an oligarchy. Or have ever not noticed the Rockefellers have politicians in their family, the Bush's own a major bank and an oil company, the Qualyes own a pharmaceutical manufacturer, Al Gore is the major stakeholder in an oil company, etc, etc. Also almost all of the politicians are related to each other, John Kerry and G.W Bush are cousins after all. - roddack, on 11/03/2009, -0/+2I wonder what it takes to get 10% off the next incarceration
' - FlyingSquidwolf, on 11/03/2009, -0/+2DEATH RACE FTW!!!!!
- Peggles, on 11/03/2009, -0/+2Not if you can't afford high premiums or have a pre-existing condition.
- njb444, on 11/03/2009, -0/+2Maybe because it is most profitable to incarcerate as many people as possible? This should be blatantly obvious.
- emailowndme, on 11/03/2009, -0/+2Okay, we may have popped up a few places since I last checked the statistics, we were at some point, number 48, it looks like we are 46 now, much better I'm sure, also, you have fun there with your made up statistics bluto.
- datruef, on 11/03/2009, -0/+2selling criminals to out of state prisons to make a profit, the new form of slavery....
60% of people in prison are in for non violent drug offenses..... -
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