Prisons, Post Offices and Public Schools: Some Things Should Not Be For Profit
Here are some things that should not be turned over to profit-seeking corporations.
Prisons. Postal services. Public Schools.
Here are the problems with prisons for profit: The first is that prisoners are the ultimate disenfranchised citizens, with very little power over their conditions. Corporations that run prisons literally have a captive audience. There is growing evidence that prisons run for profit are even more dangerous for inmates than those run by state agencies.
This article explains that:
Like pretty much all other for-profit enterprises, private prisons make money in part by cutting operating costs wherever possible. In most industries, this can be done by reducing employee hours or buying goods wholesale or any number of other strategies. But when it comes to housing inmates, cutting costs is done in a variety of troubling ways. In the case of the EMCF [East Mississippi Correctional Facility], the lawsuit alleges the facility offered inmates a Spartan diet, grossly reduced access to health care, and essentially eliminated mental health services -- in a facility specifically for patients with mental illness.
Other ways private prisons cut costs are by understaffing guards and other prison employees, leading to increasingly dangerous conditions for both guards and inmates.
The other major problem with private prisons is this. Since taxpayers are now paying more than $2 billion a year to prison corporations, these corporations have the wherewithal to buy influence with politicians. The three largest corporations, Corrections Corporations of America, The GEO Group and Management and Training Corp, have reportedly spent more than $45 million on lobbying over the past decade.
And it was at an ALEC meeting in 2010, attended by a representative of the CCA, thatArizona's harsh immigration law, SB 1070, took shape. This law dramatically increased the role of local law enforcement in apprehending undocumented immigrants, many of whom are