If Arizona's experience with CCA is any guide, the contract will be cheaper than the cost of running prisons...so long as you don't count the costs of lost jobs, lowered wages and increased crime. (because to keep the Prison-Industrial Complex fed, you gotta keep shoveling human beings into the maw)
They do this by cheaping out on maintenance, paying considerably lower wages to non-unionized corrections officers (which means good ones leave, and the only ones left can't get better jobs elsewhere...can you say "Cheap to bribe"? I knew you could!), and keeping the profits from their slave labor to themselves (One of CCA's primary revenue streams is the sale of goods made with prison labor and services, like call centers, done with prison labor. Yep, next time you give your credit card number to some voice on the end of that telephone, they MIGHT be some guy serving 8-10 for robbery.) So not only does CCA profit by throwing more people into prison, they take good jobs from law-abiding citizens. Remember that prison break a couple years ago where some murderers escaped and killed people in New Mexico while on the lam? That was a CCA prison. Finally CCA was a major party behind SB1070 here in Arizona, because it makes being an undocumented immigrant a state crime requiring incarceration, they were planning to fill their new prisons with large numbers of people on the state dime, serving their time under SB1070. Once that was done they'd be transferred to ICE control, conveniently, in the same prison that CCA has contracted with Homeland Security to run, until deported. Amazing what happens when the Governor's chief of staff is a former lobbyist for CCA, and his wife is a *current* lobbyist for CCA. Note to Francis: This is what "crony capitalism" looks like. It is not appointing the CEO of a major corporation to your board of economic advisers, or the DOE giving a loan vetted through TWO different Administrations through the bureaucracy to a company that failed because the Chinese undercut them in a trade war, or lending GM and Chrysler the money to get through a structured bankruptcy, by taking shares in the company in return for the money. Which was paid back. With interest. On Feb 16, 2012, at 1:28 PM, Brian Lawson wrote: > You have to wonder, how much will be paid for the purchase of an individual > prison vs how much is the 20 year contract going to cost? Obviously the only > way to make a profit from that is by collecting more over the 20 years than > you pay up front. Isn't that adding to the long term debt for the state? And > the taxpayers get screwed again. > -- > Brian > > On Feb 16, 2012, at 1:08 PM, Bruce Johnson wrote: > >> <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/14/private-prisons-buying-state-prisons_n_1272143.html?page=1> >> >> "Corrections Corporation of America, the nation's largest operator of >> for-profit prisons, has sent letters recently to 48 states offering to buy >> up their prisons as a remedy for "challenging corrections budgets." In >> exchange, the company is asking for a 20-year management contract, plus an >> assurance that the prison would remain at least 90 percent full..." >> >> Hysterical fearmongering of the reich-wing notwithstanding, crime rates have >> been on a steady decline: >> >> <http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2c/Violent_Crime_Rates_in_the_United_States.svg> >> >> The only way to assure that the prisons remain 90% full is to create new >> crimes, or send more people to prison for existing crimes that now get >> probation or other sentences. >> >> This is kind of the essence of Free Market sociopathy that characterizes >> modern conservatism. Ayn would love this. Better prepare for prison terms >> for jaywalking and inadequately funding your first amendment rights, folks! > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "StrataList-OT" group. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > [email protected]. > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/stratalist-ot?hl=en. -- Bruce Johnson University of Arizona College of Pharmacy Information Technology Group Institutions do not have opinions, merely customs -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "StrataList-OT" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/stratalist-ot?hl=en.
