Privatization of Prisons

[quote]Pretzel Logic wrote:
Trying to increase profit leads to worse conditions for prisoners… [/quote]

Aaah. Mr. Rapist doesn’t like it in prison.

Sounds like a good plan to me.

Boo hoo.

I don’t know what harline means. I CAN imagine what it is like to be locked up. I imagine getting my ass beat and gangraped in a shower. I imagine being locked in a little room 23 hours a day, eating shitty food. That is why I don’t buy steroids or get in fights and beat someone up. See, that is how it’s supposed to work. Prison is supposed to suck, so that you don’t want to go there. It isn’t supposed to be a nice pleasant place that you wouldn’t mind spending time in.

We do a lot of things better than Canada and most European democracies.

I don’t empathize with prisoners, I empathize with their victims. I think prisons MUST punish if there is going to be justice. If prisons don’t punish, victims and their families should be free to punish.

If private prisons can make life shitty for criminals at a savings to tax payers, I’m all for it.

The war on drugs is a whole different topic, but no one forces people to buy drugs. If you make poor choices in life, there are always consequences. Prisons should be scary enough to serve as a deterent.

And I do have an uncle who was in prison in Joliet. He was a stupid, racist moron when he went in. He was still a stupid, racist moron when he got out. He had 6 years of rotting to decide he should make better choices in life, but he was too stupid to make changes. Tough. I don’t feel sorry for him. I do feel sorry for the family of the guy he crippled, though.

.

[quote]doogie wrote:
If private prisons can make life shitty for criminals at a savings to tax payers, I’m all for it.[/quote]

You have a terrible attitude.

What the educated and personally experienced people on this thread have been saying is that privately held prisons are unsafe and cultivate corruption. Not that they “make life shitty for criminals”.

I am a big proponent of capitalism. I don’t think prisons should be run by private corporations however.

Somebody mentioned training. That’s a good point. I think the CO’s should get the maximum amount they can handle. That may be a conflict if you are trying to show a profit. Either way the prisoner and the guard are going to be at more risk. I don’t know what guards get paid but I am sure they earn it. I couldn’t go to a jail or prison everyday just due to the mental fatigue. I am glad they do. It’s a thin line keeping the predators from the prey.

I think the risk of government filling private prisons to turn a profit is not realistic or plausible. Too much seperation between the coursts, LE and the prisons themselves.

Doogie has it right. Prisons are not supposed to be fun. Telling him he does not have the right to an opinion because he has never been in jail is ignorant. Perhaps only convicted felons should have a say in how we run our prisons.

The only prisoners I have sympathy for are the very small percentage that are actually innocent.

I do not believe we should tolerate abuse of prisoners, nor should we coddle them.

I don’t know if privatization is the right idea or not. I think it can be made to work if there is sufficient independant oversight.

[quote]RIT Jared wrote:

You have a terrible attitude.

What the educated and personally experienced people on this thread have been saying is that privately held prisons are unsafe and cultivate corruption. Not that they “make life shitty for criminals”.
[/quote]

I’m uneducated? Wow. That stings coming from a student.

Corruption exists in state run prisons. Funding (or the lack of) isn’t the cause. Individual greed is. If I’m making $9/hr in a private prison or $36,000 a year state prison, I’m still at risk of being corrupted.

As far as safety goes, at least private prisons are at risk of losing their contracts. They have an actual motive to keep things safe. State prisons, staffed by unions, don’t. If a private prison has problems, they have to find a solution. If a state prison has problems, they whine to the state and get more tax money.

Doogie does indeed have a right to an opinion. No, he certainly does not need to be an ex-con or even know anybody who has served time to have a valid opinion. As you both stated correctly, prison is NOT supposed to be “fun”. It is punishment.

Another thread about prisons was on the board a while back and people were making comments that they wish they had time to just lay around, lift weights, and watch tv like prisoners do. It is this kind of dumbassitude(webster’s can we get this in the new edition) that is creeping up in doogie’s post and that’s what myself and a few others are objecting to. A stick your head in the sand and pretend that an issue is one dimensional attitude is our problem.

This thread was started to debate whether or not privatization of prisons is a good idea. We have been getting away from that a little, which is fine. We wouldn’t have to worry about privatization, etc. if we asked ourselves as a nation why we are incarcerating so much of our population, specifically why are we locking up so many of our men, perpetuating the societal problems that form criminals. And that’s not even getting into the race issue…

[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
Doogie has it right. Prisons are not supposed to be fun. Telling him he does not have the right to an opinion because he has never been in jail is ignorant. Perhaps only convicted felons should have a say in how we run our prisons.[/quote]

The “people with personal experience” that I was referencing in my previous post were not criminals, they were correctional officers.

[quote]doogie wrote:

I’m uneducated? Wow. That stings coming from a student.

Corruption exists in state run prisons. Funding (or the lack of) isn’t the cause. Individual greed is. If I’m making $9/hr in a private prison or $36,000 a year state prison, I’m still at risk of being corrupted.

As far as safety goes, at least private prisons are at risk of losing their contracts. They have an actual motive to keep things safe. State prisons, staffed by unions, don’t. If a private prison has problems, they have to find a solution. If a state prison has problems, they whine to the state and get more tax money.

[/quote]

I never said you were uneducated. I said that you had a terrible attitude.

You are correct about the corruption, it is an issue of individual greed. However you are more likely to have individual greed and more easily bribed if you are making less money. Want to test the theory? Drop your keys in the urinal at a public restroom. Offer a bum $10 to fish them out. Drop your keys in another urinal. Offer a lawyer $10 to fish them out.

You say that private prisons are at risk of losing their contracts. Think of the implications of this-- the prison system is overcrowded already (as I’m sure you know), and so any loss of contract would necessitate a new contract or new location to house prisoners. There aren’t any corporations with fully built prisons waiting with baited breath to get a government contract to fill their cells.

I think that the private prisons are wedged more securely in their niche than you’d like to think, and we are definitely not dealing with a situation of pure competition.

[quote]doogie wrote:
RIT Jared wrote:

You have a terrible attitude.

What the educated and personally experienced people on this thread have been saying is that privately held prisons are unsafe and cultivate corruption. Not that they “make life shitty for criminals”.

I’m uneducated? Wow. That stings coming from a student.

Corruption exists in state run prisons. Funding (or the lack of) isn’t the cause. Individual greed is. If I’m making $9/hr in a private prison or $36,000 a year state prison, I’m still at risk of being corrupted.

As far as safety goes, at least private prisons are at risk of losing their contracts. They have an actual motive to keep things safe. State prisons, staffed by unions, don’t. If a private prison has problems, they have to find a solution. If a state prison has problems, they whine to the state and get more tax money.

[/quote]

Private prisons may be at risk of losing contracts, but here in Colo the State has much higher standards and training. As the CO from NJ mentioned, I know people who have been hired at these private prisons who wouldn’t even be considered by the State. Much higher hiring standards.

At the private prisons, I know of people who left because they were so undermanned the forced overtime was unbearable. You want it to be your job not your life 24hrs a day.

There was also a huge riot at the private prison in Crowley county Colo. last year due to poor conditions caused by under-manning and poor food services where they had to call in the State SORT team to come in and restore order.

My good friend who is on that SORT team said it was a very scary situation and he was actually taking out prisoners with rubber bullets who were rushing at him and another guy on his team.

Just from the reports over the last five to eight years on the private prisons in Colo. since the emergence of said private prisons it seems like there is more negative then positive info.

And, as far as doogie, he seems to me to be very intelligent, but also very rigid and harsh and not very prone to see another point of view if it clashes with his own set beliefs. Just an observation.

Apayne, I like the points you have brought up and pretty much agree with them.

[quote]apayne wrote:

This thread was started to debate whether or not privatization of prisons is a good idea. We have been getting away from that a little, which is fine. We wouldn’t have to worry about privatization, etc. if we asked ourselves as a nation why we are incarcerating so much of our population, specifically why are we locking up so many of our men, perpetuating the societal problems that form criminals. And that’s not even getting into the race issue…[/quote]

Perpetuating the myth that this is a societal problem deosn’t help. There isn’t some kind of collective concience that tells certain individuals that criminal behavior is the way to go. It usualy comes down to learned behavior, faulty conclusion, and serious personality disorder. Citing “Society” as a problem makes it an abstract, nebulous problem that people can say is not directly their problem. It’s society’s problem. It’s not a mater of race. It is what the individuals of these races are thinking, learning and doing. They are picking this up from their role models. Not necessarily good role models, either. They are coming to faulty conclusions on their own, instead of being taught to use a good moral compass. The content of their character is being allowed to develope unhindered into full adulthood without anybody batting an eye as they develope serious personality disorders.

This stuff isn’t happening because of society. It is happening to individuals, because other individuals want to say it’s a problem with “society”. When you take into consideration that in some subsets of our culture, you haven’t earned your stripes until you have done some time, the picture gets worse.

Just to stay on topic, The privately run institutions are supposed to be experimental. I don’t know that they have been around long enough to develope a trackable statistic on a reduction in crime or recidivism, but I hope they are successfull. If they are, then maybe the state and federal institutions can learn a thing or two from them. If they turn out badly, screw em.

[quote]mindeffer01 wrote:
apayne wrote:

This thread was started to debate whether or not privatization of prisons is a good idea. We have been getting away from that a little, which is fine. We wouldn’t have to worry about privatization, etc. if we asked ourselves as a nation why we are incarcerating so much of our population, specifically why are we locking up so many of our men, perpetuating the societal problems that form criminals. And that’s not even getting into the race issue…

Perpetuating the myth that this is a societal problem deosn’t help. There isn’t some kind of collective concience that tells certain individuals that criminal behavior is the way to go. It usualy comes down to learned behavior, faulty conclusion, and serious personality disorder. Citing “Society” as a problem makes it an abstract, nebulous problem that people can say is not directly their problem. It’s society’s problem. It’s not a mater of race. It is what the individuals of these races are thinking, learning and doing. They are picking this up from their role models. Not necessarily good role models, either. They are coming to faulty conclusions on their own, instead of being taught to use a good moral compass. The content of their character is being allowed to develope unhindered into full adulthood without anybody batting an eye as they develope serious personality disorders.

This stuff isn’t happening because of society. It is happening to individuals, because other individuals want to say it’s a problem with “society”. When you take into consideration that in some subsets of our culture, you haven’t earned your stripes until you have done some time, the picture gets worse.

Just to stay on topic, The privately run institutions are supposed to be experimental. I don’t know that they have been around long enough to develope a trackable statistic on a reduction in crime or recidivism, but I hope they are successfull. If they are, then maybe the state and federal institutions can learn a thing or two from them. If they turn out badly, screw em.

[/quote]

You talk about learned behaviors and role models. I agree 100%. That is why I raised the issue of jailing so many of our men. I don’t have a study to quote but I would bet that the majority of people in the penal system grew up without a father or strong male figure in their life.
I’m not trying to have some sort of vague sociology discussion, I’ll leave that to the psuedo-intellectual douchebags at a cocktail party. I’m talking specifically about the effects on the next generation of jailing so many men. And race does come into it when you consider the high percentage of the black community as a whole that are black men in jail or who have been in jail.

I’m not a hippie or democrat, I swear!

[quote]RIT Jared wrote:
Zap Branigan wrote:
Doogie has it right. Prisons are not supposed to be fun. Telling him he does not have the right to an opinion because he has never been in jail is ignorant. Perhaps only convicted felons should have a say in how we run our prisons.

The “people with personal experience” that I was referencing in my previous post were not criminals, they were correctional officers.[/quote]

What they say is probably true, but they are also protecting their jobs.

[quote]RIT Jared wrote:

I never said you were uneducated. I said that you had a terrible attitude.
[/quote]

"You have a terrible attitude.

What the educated and personally experienced people on this thread have been saying is that privately held prisons are unsafe and cultivate corruption."

[quote]Elkhntr1 wrote:

And, as far as doogie, he seems to me to be very intelligent, but also very rigid and harsh and not very prone to see another point of view if it clashes with his own set beliefs. Just an observation.

[/quote]

I just don’t take a lot of time to flush out my thoughts on the internet. I got irritated when the main complaints against the private prisons were about the poor prisoners not getting good service.

I am finishing my MPA now (with a healthcare emphasis), and it disgusts me. 75% of my classes could have been titled “Defending Your Inefficiency: How to take more and do less”.

I’m all for privatizing anything and everything except the military.

Let’s try to run this conversation in 2 directions, first the privatization issue and then what type of offender we have and who should or shouldn’t be in jail or prison.

Privatization has been argued and on a whole it seems logic prevails and the 10 dollar an hour guard can not compare to the 80,000 dollar a year officer(at least thats our max base pay, no OT or holidays included). I have the potential to make about 115 thou with minimal overtime and about 10 of 15 holidays worked in a year. We receive an annual 4% cost of living increase plus another 4-6.5% longevity increase for every year we are there over 6 years. I have excellent benefits 5 dollar co-pays and 1 dollar prescription. with buying my military time back i can retire in another 17 years at 70% of my pay until the day I die plus lifetime benefits.

Keep in mind as a whole in NJ, state and county CO’s are very close in pay and have the same benefits. Now I ask you, Do you think I’m going to be corrupted by any one of these convicts when I’m making six figures with no college education and minimal actual work(although we do have our occassional semi-riots and fights and officer assaults), I don’t break rocks, I don’t build houses and I don’t have to take my work home or worry about what didn’t get done while on a vacation day(15 paid of those a year) or on a sick day(also 15 paid a year).

Now lets look at the private side, no benefits, shit pay and no fbi background check. Oh did I forget if we attempt a work stoppage as a whole, we are terminated on the spot and the state sends people(actual CO’s not private security)to fill the void. nothing stopping private guards they have nothing to lose in a strike. You can make your decision based on what I listed above.

I also recall someone saying our prisons are filled with drug offenders and it shouldn’t be. Ok I agree to a certain extent but remember drugs breed violence maybe not directly such as light up get high and beat someones ass. How about the drug dealer who didn’t get paid and then took it out on the guy and his innocent family.

Now you ask why not call the police? “ring ring” Hello mr police officer yeah this guy I owe for the crack I smoked last night, yeah he smacked my wife around last night when I could only give him 10 dollars.

Now the countless kids hooked by a few free bags of heroin. We as a whole have to get off this thought that drugs only hurt those who take them. Think about that the next time you put your child on a bus and where that bus driver was last night and what he or she was doing. How about the next time your at an amusement park and that 19 year old burn out kid is running your ride, is his harmless weed smoking no big deal now?

Until you have been exposed to the dark side of life and see how these people view prison and jail as basically their job and just an expected part of life you will never understand. I see the same people year after year month after month who keep coming back always with more serious charges until it ends up with one of the big ones, and you can guess 90% of their first offenses was a measely drug possession.

To address the who or who shouldn’t be in jail question - People love to compare US and Canadian incarceration rates as though you guys somehow have it wrong. I disagree.

Not only do we not lock people up for drug crime, but we also don’t lock people up for property crime, and rarely for violent crime. Nearly all murder cases in Canada are plea bargained down to manslaughter, or end up in a manslaughter conviction - no matter how gruesome the murder. In most cases any sentence over five years for a homicide is appealed on the grounds of being “too harsh”.

Think about the following stats:

Adult prosecutions as a percentage of crimes reported in the US stands at nearly 60%

Adult prosecutions as a percentage of crimes reported in Canada is 15%. (Before anyone jumps in and claims Canadian crime rates are lower than US crime rates think about these numbers first. Crime rates are based on convicted crime, not reported crime. These numbers are from a UN survey both countries reported to.)

In 2003 there were 57,562 violent crime convictions in Canadian adult court. Of those convictions, ONLY 35% RESULTED IN A PRISION SENTENCE. Of those prison sentences, the median sentence was 60 days.

13% of those convicted of homicide in 2003 were not sentenced to any jail time. Of those who received a jail sentence the median was just 7 years. Statutory (automatic) release kicks in 2/3rds of the way into a sentence, so assuming these people are not let out on parole much sooner than this, you can automatically reduce this median down to just over 4 and a half years.

In Canada the only crime you can get a life sentence for is first or second degree murder. In 2003, of those serving a “life sentence”, only 60% were actually incarcerated. The rest were serving our their “life sentences” in the community.

For most sentences, parole eligibility kicks in 1/6 of the way into a sentence.

Found with 50,000 child pornography images? Don’t worry about it, your not going to jail, even if the prosecution can prove intent to distribute.

Molest children? Don’t worry, if it was really bad, say you drugged and sodomized a dozen sick children at the hospital you worked at, the very most you’ll get is two years, and if you’re good in jail you’ll be on parole in 4 months.

Kill someone? Here are some popular foolproof ways to get your sentence down to a couple of years tops:

Intent:

“sure I stabbed her 17 times but I didn’t mean to kill her.”

“Sure I plunged a butcher knife six inches into his groin and watched him bleed to death on the floor, but I thought he was faking the whole dying thing.”

“I didn’t realize cutting off the oxygen supply to her brain for two minutes would actually end her life.”

“I just wanted to smash his head in 30 times with my steel toed boots, not actually kill him.”

Or try provocation:

“I strangled her but it was because she made a wisecrack about my sperm count. I couldn’t help it”

Or try the homosexual defense:

“I did stab him 63 times with 6 different knives, but it was because he was hitting on me.”

Or try automatism:

“It was like a big whoosh came over me and I was suddenly watching myself kill her”

Or try a combination (I’m serious):

“I’m totally innocent. Also, I did not mean to kill him, but if I did, it was because I was provoked, but I am not responsible because I was insane at the time.”

Remember, it is up to the prosecution to prove these things are not true.

[quote]snipeout wrote:

Privatization has been argued and on a whole it seems logic prevails and the 10 dollar an hour guard can not compare to the 80,000 dollar a year officer(at least thats our max base pay, no OT or holidays included). I have the potential to make about 115 thou with minimal overtime and about 10 of 15 holidays worked in a year. We receive an annual 4% cost of living increase plus another 4-6.5% longevity increase for every year we are there over 6 years. I have excellent benefits 5 dollar co-pays and 1 dollar prescription. with buying my military time back i can retire in another 17 years at 70% of my pay until the day I die plus lifetime benefits.

[/quote]

Possibility of corruption aside, that entire paragraph is one long argument for privitization. Good lord.

[quote]doogie wrote:
snipeout wrote:

Privatization has been argued and on a whole it seems logic prevails and the 10 dollar an hour guard can not compare to the 80,000 dollar a year officer(at least thats our max base pay, no OT or holidays included). I have the potential to make about 115 thou with minimal overtime and about 10 of 15 holidays worked in a year. We receive an annual 4% cost of living increase plus another 4-6.5% longevity increase for every year we are there over 6 years. I have excellent benefits 5 dollar co-pays and 1 dollar prescription. with buying my military time back i can retire in another 17 years at 70% of my pay until the day I die plus lifetime benefits.

Possibility of corruption aside, that entire paragraph is one long argument for privitization. Good lord.[/quote]

That they get paid well and have good benefits? You think their standard of living should be lowered why?

Doogie, What do you do for a living? Just curious. I think anybody who puts their lives on the line on a daily basis i.e. police officers, corrections officers, firefighters and military personnel to name a few deserve to be well compensated for. Would you or a large majority of the population step into an area of 130 people who have bail to high to bail out due to their crimes to include, murder, aggravated assault, assault on a police officer, rape, armed robbery or assault with a deadly weapon? If I am not fairly well compensated for what is my incentive to take such a job? Civil service to serve someone like you who thinks I make to much money. As an example, a divorce lawyer who makes 70,000 on a divorce of assests of around 2 million deserves in one lump what takes me about 9 1/2 months to earn? You sound fairly ignorant to attempt to tell me in not so many words that I make to much money and for that reason we should privatize. I again ask you, what do you do for a living? How would you justify to me why you deserve what you make? I gave six years of my life to the US Army, earned my veterans status by deploying to a war zone where I and everyone there were grossly underpaid, I did it becasue I love my country. Now I need to make a living, the pay is good and the stress I deal with on a daily basis compounded by the deadly diseases I am exposed to daily(HIV HEP b&c Methicillin resistant staph infections) are why I am paid fairly well and why I am allowed to retire in 25 years at 70%(8.5% of my bi-weekly salary is paid into my pension fund). I await your reply…