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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsApparently privatization has created an increase in incarcerations.
I've been watching Secret Prisons on the History Channel, and they were discussing HOW the privatization of prisons caused the population of incarcerated to increase. They gave one example of judges who were accepting $$$$ from the builder of a detention facility to make his business successful. I looked it up on Wiki, and here's what it said:
Two judges, President Judge Mark Ciavarella and Senior Judge Michael Conahan, were accused of accepting money from Robert Mericle, builder of two private, for-profit juvenile facilities, in return for contracting with the facilities and imposing harsh sentences on juveniles brought before their courts to increase the number of inmates in the detention centers.[1][2]
For example, Ciavarella sentenced children to extended stays in juvenile detention for offenses as minimal as mocking a principal on Myspace, trespassing in a vacant building, or shoplifting DVDs from Wal-mart.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kids_for_cash_scandal
Apparently this is not unusual since privatization.
How come I feel like I'm always the last one to find out these things? Still, it affirms my belief that privatization of government SUCKS.
djean111
(14,255 posts)in the contract with the city or county or whatever. This ensures that the prisons will always make a profit. If occupancy falls below the percentage specified, the government has to pay anyway, instead of only paying an amount per prisoner. So - must keep those jail cells filled!
Isn't privatization awesome!
This is also why some are so against legalizing marijuana - all those lovely profitable prisoners, gone.
Sarah Ibarruri
(21,043 posts)burrowowl
(17,604 posts)to my friends in Europe, they didn't believe me. I had to send articles.
This has been going on for decades
I recommend people subscribe to: The Nation and Mother Jones.
Sarah Ibarruri
(21,043 posts)It's horrific. The for-profit motive has removed all sense of morality from this nation. It's pathologically demented.
IDemo
(16,926 posts)is from private prison companies lobbying state legislatures for tougher laws and longer sentences, along with contracts that require a certain percentage of filled bed spaces.
Sarah Ibarruri
(21,043 posts)neverforget
(9,433 posts)Sick if you ask me.
Sarah Ibarruri
(21,043 posts)Shandris
(3,447 posts)...most evil, greedy, despotic individuals you can possibly imagine will be the ones doing their best to pervert it. Failure to do so is borderline criminal, or should be.
And the people making money off this? Maybe they should get a long introduction to said prison system. Have we started hitting people with sentences above a century yet? It's time to start. ( Obviously, , but hopefully you knew that already!)
Sarah Ibarruri
(21,043 posts)country. Capitalists are committing crimes in places and ways you and I don't even know yet.
Shandris
(3,447 posts)The human tendency towards projecting our values onto other people means that, for me, I am always inclined to assume people mean honest first, and only when I have proof otherwise do I realize that that wasn't so. I've always had to watch out for gullible innocence and even being as vigilant as I know how to be, it -still- bites me a lot. Even knowing the depths that capitalists can and will sink to for money, the fact that you know there is actually -worse- is just...horrifying.
I mean really...how do you prepare yourself for something -worse- that selling people into captivity for a few measly dollars?!? And with the collusion of some people who you know are making really small dollar amounts to do it! And that's the thing, its not even ginormous sums that at least you can see how someone - not me, but someone - could find tempting! It's for a frickin' pittance!!
It just sends a shiver up my spine. But all we can do is keep fighting and make sure that this evil is not allowed to stand. Not in my name, not now, not ever.
hollysmom
(5,946 posts)or will it?
JoeyT
(6,785 posts)They'll just ramp up fear until they can get mandatory minimum laws for something else (JAYWALKERS: The lurking threat to your children!) to make up for it.
Sarah Ibarruri
(21,043 posts)We are living in boom times for the private prison industry. The Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), the nation's largest owner of private prisons, has seen its revenue climb by more than 500 percent in the last two decades. And CCA wants to get much, much bigger: Last year, the company made an offer to 48 governors to buy and operate their state-funded prisons. But what made CCA's pitch to those governors so audacious and shocking was that it included a so-called occupancy requirement, a clause demanding the state keep those newly privatized prisons at least 90 percent full at all times regardless of whether crime was rising or falling.
http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2013/09/private-prisons-occupancy-quota-cca-crime
davidn3600
(6,342 posts)Congress won't budge on the drug laws. The only thing the government is CONSIDERING is the DOJ changing its prosecuting guidelines and Obama granting more clemency. But a new administration can just reverse this.
The laws have to change. But right now there is way too much corruption. Plus this is just the federal government...the states are even more corrupt in this.
blkmusclmachine
(16,149 posts)Sarah Ibarruri
(21,043 posts)Poetic justice.
Maynar
(769 posts)d'ya think?
moondust
(19,917 posts)disenfranchisement.
Is it any surprise that Republicans were responsible for creating the "War on Drugs"? Was it really a voter suppression program? Maybe somebody should ask Katherine Harris or Rick Scott.
Sarah Ibarruri
(21,043 posts)your quote is very apropos to this discussion.
woo me with science
(32,139 posts)This is just one more reason why we can no longer support the lesser of two evils.
Sarah Ibarruri
(21,043 posts)Go Vols
(5,902 posts)that you didn't know this.Raygun started this shit years ago.
Sarah Ibarruri
(21,043 posts)population of incarcerated people? That's so so so sick!!!
Go Vols
(5,902 posts)got to get richer by any means necessary.And so it goes ...
Edit: People used to go to "prison" as punishment,now they go to "correction centers" for ... ?
:/
aggiesal
(8,863 posts)Go Vols
(5,902 posts)Go Vols
(5,902 posts)The United States of America imprisons more of its population per capita than any country on the planet.
Sarah Ibarruri
(21,043 posts)humiliation for the whole country. Only when the whole country is embarrassed and feels inferior to other countries, will something be done.
ohnoyoudidnt
(1,858 posts)They do not give a damn about rehabilitation. Recidivism is in their best interest. They cut costs by lowering maintenance and staff costs., which endangers both corrections officers and the prisoners.
Sarah Ibarruri
(21,043 posts)Blue_In_AK
(46,436 posts)It's shocking that America, with 5% of the world's population, has 25% of the world's prisoners.
Sarah Ibarruri
(21,043 posts)country? I learned in school that this was "the greatest country in the world." That's what right wingers want, for us to be taught that in school. But is it? I say it isn't.