Booming Business: PRIVATE PRISONS

PROFITTING from PRIVATE PRISONs

First, let me suggest...
Go to Google Videos to see:
NOW on PBS 419 Prisons for Profit

According to a NY Times article in 1995 private prisons housed 2% of the prison population and business was booming.http://www.nytimes.com/1995/08/12/nyregion/despite-setbacks-a-boom-in-private-prison-business.html

In this article, it was wisely noted that PEOPLE WHO RUN PRISONS SHOULD WANT TO EMPTY THEM, BUT PEOPLE WHO ARE PROFITTING FROM PRISONS NEED TO KEEP THEM FULL.

NOW, according to a 2008 report by the DOJ, an additional 5% of the prison population is housed in private facilities, or 7% of the 1.5 million in prison. http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij/journals/259/prison-privatization.htm





The Forbes website, a magazine about money, has a great article from which I will highlight a few quotes:

"The prison industry has a perverse incentive to keep the inmate population growing...."

"Federal and state governments spend more than $35 billion a year to lock up a greater portion of the population--one out of 138 Americans--than any other country on earth."

"Where are the financial incentives for prisons to properly perform their rehabilitative function?If anything, the captains of the incarceration industry have a perverse incentive to rehabilitate as few people as possible and keep business booming."

"...the system is so broken that the very people we entrust to rehabilitate prisoners actually profit from prolonged prisoner stays and quick prisoner returns."

"...the correctional officers union in California. This union has become one of the state's top political contributors. It has pushed not just for higher wages but for tougher laws and longer sentences."

"We now have a system that is divorced from its original purpose, which is to ensure neighborhood security, not job security."

"California spends $7.4 billion a year on prisons, more than on all its four-year colleges and universities combined. Nearly a dime out of every state dollar goes into California prisons, which house 170,000 inmates."

"How can we justify continuing to spend $40,000 to $100,000 annually per inmate in neighborhoods where we spend less than $9,000 per pupil?"


"If a community-based program can do a better job at keeping people out of prison with dimes than incarcerators have been doing with dollars, let's reallocate those funds."

AMEN to that!!