Cut the Budgets for the Prison Industrial Complex?
Where’s the outrage?
Others have written threads on the scandal of state and federal legislature passing laws to privatize our prison system. Taxpayer money is being spent at both the state and federal level to subsidize a very profitable business.
A friend asked me for references to something he had heard. Was it true that corporations who ran prisons were making profits in the billions at taxpayer expense? He said a reporter on RTS covered the topic this week. I do not have a link.
Imho, the problem was created by members of our state and federal legislatures. The only effective action is defeating those who refuse to serve the people’s best interests at the ballot box. Until that happens, all we can do is keep the story front and center, and demand state and federal legislatures remove all taxpayer funding for prison corporations. If they must slash budgets, then this line item should be a priority.
If you are interested in the topic, or wish to write a thread, please do. This is a very important topic as it can be used as a tool against politicians running for office. We can frame those politicians who are for the 2% by their position on this issue. The remaining 98% need to be educated on the facts. The GOP think tanks and lobbyists are using fear, along with their usual propaganda tool bag to promote yet another ALEC priority.
AFSC sent out a notice to their friends recently, they oppose for profit prisons on many levels; values, humanitarian concerns, and the cost to taxpayers.
http://afsc.org/story/reality-profit-prisons
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8 Ways Private Prisons are Destroying Justice in America
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/prisoners-stealing-us-jobs/story?id=17263420
From:GMA
It's hard to compete with workers willing to take pay as low as 23 cents an hour. Do we mean workers in Mexico or China? No. We mean Americans in federal prisons.
An Alabama clothing-maker recently found out just how hard, according to the Myrtle Beach Sun-News: American Apparel of Selma had to lay off 225 workers after it lost a contract for U.S. Army jackets to UNICOR, a $900 million behemoth with 89 factories around the U.S. Its workforce consists entirely of convicts.
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http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2012/02/15/20120215arizona-private-prisons-slammed-by-report.html
Arizona private prisons slammed by report
Group: Facilities hard to oversee, aren't cost-effective
by Bob Ortega - Feb. 15, 2012
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/08/06/641971/private-prisons-cost-arizona-35-million-more-per-year-than-state-run-prisons/?mobile=nc
Private Prisons Cost Arizona $3.5 Million More Per Year Than State-Run Prisons
By Aviva Shen on Aug 6, 2012
Private prisons, touted as a cost-efficient alternative to state-run penitentiaries, are not living up to their promises in at least one state. A new study of Arizona’s private prisons finds that the state is actually losing money — $3.5 million a year — by turning their inmates over to for-profit corporations.
According to the Tucson Citizen’s analysis of Arizona’s three oldest private prison contracts, the rate to hold one prisoner for one night has increased 13.9% since the contracts were awarded. Compared to the cost of state-run prisons, Arizona overpaid for its private prison beds by $10 million between 2008 and 2010.
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/dec/06/us-bureau-prison-lack-compassion
Sadhbh Walshe guardian.co.uk, Thursday 6 December 2012
The US Bureau of Prisons' lack of compassion costs it dear
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Between 1940 and 1980, the inmate population in the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP), which is an agency under the US Department of Justice, averaged approximately 24,000 a year. This all changed after 1984, when Congress passed the Sentencing Reform Act, which eliminated parole in the federal prison system, did away with time-off for good behavior and introduced determinate sentencing.
As a result of this legislation and several subsequent follow-up acts, the number of prisoners in federal custody has increased tenfold, to approximately 218,000 today. Regardless of how excessive these prisoners sentences may have been, or how rehabilitated those inmates are, it is almost impossible for a prisoner to be released early – and the Federal Bureau of Prisons seems to like it that way.
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2010/08/13/4879556-prison-companies-could-profit-from-arizonas-immigration-bill
Prison companies could profit from Arizona's immigration bill
By The Rachel Maddow Show - Fri Aug 13, 2010
http://www.allgov.com/news/controversies/private-prison-company-muscles-into-law-enforcement-creating-occupants-for-its-prisons-121203?news=846368
Private Prison Company Muscles into Law Enforcement, Creating Occupants for Its Prisons
On Halloween morning this year, the 1,776 students at Vista Grande High School in Casa Grande, Arizona, were ordered on “lock down,” at the start of the first “drug sweep” in the school’s four-year history. Although school Principal Tim Hamilton admits the school had no drug problem, drug sniffing dogs were brought in, and lockers, backpacks and the students themselves were searched. In the end, only three students were arrested, two of them for possession of less than half a gram of marijuana (0.017 oz., the equivalent one marijuana cigarette or “joint”).
Fittingly for Halloween, some of the “law enforcement” personnel conducting the searches were neither police officers nor Sheriff’s deputies, but employees of a private prison company dressed up in police-like uniforms. In fact, for several years Arizona law enforcement has been using private prison employees in law enforcement operations, which critics say is not only illegal but creates a disturbing conflict of interest, since for-profit prisons make money when more people are arrested, convicted and sentenced to serve time, regardless of whether they are guilty or not.
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