Privatizing Prisons: Good or bad idea?

[Glockapoppadopolis]

If it were my state, I think I would prefer that the prison industry remains a not-for-profit venture, for freedom's sake. It doesn't seem wise to make it profitable to create a police state... something we are already having enough problems with.

If the prison system is too expensive, they need to reduce the number of laws and release the non-violent prisoners.

Thank you, thank you very much!

 

[beararms1776]

The disadvantage, in my view, is the creation of business incentives for creating crimes & keeping people incarcerated.

If they did this, they would have to increase room for prison population. Prisons are already flowing over without creating crimes.

 

[ATOMonkey]

There is good and bad. Privatizing controls the cost. It also can add incentive to lobby to create more criminals if the prison is paid per prisoner.

As long as the enforcers are not working hand in hand with the incarcerators, then we should be fine.

 

[rambone]

As long as the enforcers are not working hand in hand with the incarcerators, then we should be fine.

...or as long as the incarcerators aren't lobbying the lawmakers...

 

[ATOMonkey]

...or as long as the incarcerators aren't lobbying the lawmakers...

Yeah, but you'll never stop private interests from lobby for their benefit. That's just the way of things.

 

[steve666]

So far most government services that have been privatized have gone to c%@#, ended up costing the taxpayer more in the long run or both. Look at the problems they had with IBM and FSSA. And see how parking meters have gone up here in Indy since they privitized them. Not to mention the water company.

 

[ATOMonkey]

That is because the government was operating at a loss and just making up the difference by issuing municipal debt.

Is that really how you want things to run?

 

[steveh_131]

Here's a question for those more knowledgeable than me on the subject.

How much influence does the prison staff have in determining when a prisoner is released?

I do realize that they do not handle the sentencing, but how difficult would it be for a corporation to falsify behavioral records to keep people there longer than they should be?

As long as there is a profit motive for keeping people imprisoned, privatization is a scary thought.

 

[Bond 281]

Thinking about it, I can't see any net benefit to privatizing. Government contracts with private businesses have often been outrageous, so I don't even think it would be cheaper. Additionally, if the power is (at least ideally) of the people to decide whom to imprison, then there also lies the responsibility to see that it is done in accordance with their wishes. Lobbying is certainly one concern. Another is accountability of private businesses to to people.

If it were privatized, I think in many ways the private businesses could run prisons as they see fit, with no regard for how the people would want things run. I think there's an inherent issue if we decide to punish people and then outsource the task. It reminds me of Congress outsourcing their power to create laws to letter agencies, or outsourcing control over money to the Fed.

In all the cases I can think of where government outsources its power to private entities, absolutely nothing good comes of it. I vote government monopoly.

 

[ATOMonkey]

Here's a question for those more knowledgeable than me on the subject.

How much influence does the prison staff have in determining when a prisoner is released?

I do realize that they do not handle the sentencing, but how difficult would it be for a corporation to falsify behavioral records to keep people there longer than they should be?

As long as there is a profit motive for keeping people imprisoned, privatization is a scary thought.

Good point.

I can't say that I agree with letting people out early though, so I'm good with this. We really don't rehabilitate people anyway, so might as well make them serve the full sentence.

It's still possible to appeal your sentence several times, as long as a judge is willing to hear it. These hearings happen all the time. That would be done outside the authority of prison.

 

[ATOMonkey]

Thinking about it, I can't see any net benefit to privatizing. Government contracts with private businesses have often been outrageous, so I don't even think it would be cheaper. Additionally, if the power is (at least ideally) of the people to decide whom to imprison, then there also lies the responsibility to see that it is done in accordance with their wishes. Lobbying is certainly one concern. Another is accountability of private businesses to to people.

If it were privatized, I think in many ways the private businesses could run prisons as they see fit, with no regard for how the people would want things run. I think there's an inherent issue if we decide to punish people and then outsource the task. It reminds me of Congress outsourcing their power to create laws to letter agencies, or outsourcing control over money to the Fed.

In all the cases I can think of where government outsources its power to private entities, absolutely nothing good comes of it. I vote government monopoly.

If people really disagree with how the prison is being managed, then simply refuse the renew the contract and allow the state to resume management.

This exact thing basically happened in IL, which now has an empty prison, which is why BHO wanted to send GITMO detainees to IL.

There is typically always recourse, even when things go badly.

Being that a private prison KNOWS they may lose their contract, it is in their best interest to run the prison in a way that pleases the state.

 

[RockofStrength]

If the government required that the business agree to operate under all Constitutional restrictions (cruel and unusual punishment etc) and strictly monitored the facility(ies) I think that might help to keep the prison from turning into a private gulag.

I still wonder if it would actually make any money outside of what the government gives the prison: if it doesn't, then there's no point in getting it out of government hands. I want the .gov to lose the cost of maintaining a facility, not give them that cost and separate the facility from direct mandate of the people.

 

[Fletch]

Option 4 - no prisons

My preference. Someone does something bad, they make restitution. If it's the sort of thing where restitution isn't really possible, eventually one of their intended victims will just shoot them.

 

[BigMatt]

The state should run prisons. They should make the prisoners earn their keep though.

Ever see "Cool Hand Luke"?

 

[Prometheus]

Private corporations running jails/prisons have already been caught paying judges to hand down harder sentences in order to fill their private prisons.

This is one of the very few things government should NOT be outsourcing.

The easy solution for this is to stop sending people to prison for non violent drug crimes. You'd cut the prison population by 50% over night.

 

[Fletch]

The state should run prisons. They should make the prisoners earn their keep though.

Ever see "Cool Hand Luke"?

Yes, we should take as a model for our prison system a movie that highlighted the sadism and inhumanity in that same system.

 

[RockofStrength]

Yes. Like a free market, a truly free society would regulate itself.

I'm surprised more gun people arent of this mind - arent most gun people familiar with the phrase "an armed society is a polite society"? To me this phrase is saying that everything can work itself out naturally.

There are also people on this very board who have declared that whoever they believed had brought harm to their loved ones would meet a decidedly terrible death. The last thing I want to deal with is a normally rational person who breaks down because of a terrible event and decides to administrate his own brand of justice on whoever he thinks wronged him.

The point of a justice system is to make justice blind, to use the cliche. That way, every crime is punished the same way every time...the fact that it has been corrupted into oblivion by those who use the government to mold people into the New American Man merely shows why there are boundaries justice systems should not cross.