Idaho to take back control of privately run state prison

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/03/idaho-take-control-privately-run-state-prison

by mschuster91 • 13 years ago

87 31 13 years ago

vaadu• 13 years ago

Good. The private prison industry has a financial interest in putting more and more people behind bars. To that end it lobbies legislatures to make more things a criminal offense and to have longer prison sentences.

This is counter-productive in a free and open society, which should have the goal of zero inmates. To THIS end prison management needs to be in the hands of those with no profit motive.

This along with for profit law enforcement activities(red light and speed cameras) should be abolished.

mschuster91• 13 years ago

The red light/speed camera issue is not that one-sided. While there are a lot of those with questionable motives behind their setup, a couple of them actually are needed to reduce accidents.

lostlogin• 13 years ago

I agree. However I wonder if they mask the real issue of bad design. Median barriers on busy roads, bike lanes that are separate, good pedestrian walkways and streets that make speeding hard and wrong feeling. Changing what is already built is hard, but once it is done it presumably not too different to maintaining normal infrastructure.

jw_2• 13 years ago

It seems like you could keep financial penalties for traffic violations and avoid the corruption that seems to go with them by simply forwarding the revenue on elsewhere - infrastructure, health care, what-have-you. I suppose there may be jurisdictional issues there that I'm not familiar with though.

Separate subject though I suppose.

shill• 13 years ago

"The demand for our facilities and services could be adversely affected by the relaxation of enforcement efforts, leniency in conviction or parole standards and sentencing practices or through the decriminalization of certain activities that are currently proscribed by our criminal laws. For instance, any changes with respect to drugs and controlled substances or illegal immigration could affect the number of persons arrested, convicted, and sentenced, thereby potentially reducing demand for correctional facilities to house them."

-- Corrections Corporation of America SEC filing.

roma1n• 13 years ago

Who says crime doesn't pay? Sad...

salient• 13 years ago

This is why I very much expect a "War on Piracy" or some other war to ignite domestically, if the war on drugs is ended. There are too many people profiting from arresting and putting others in prison, and they will fight to keep that status quo, one way or another. That, combined with NSA, and other agencies increasing desire for collecting all sorts of data domestically, on everyone, could make for a pretty terrifying future. Then they could just fish for crimes through spying, and then send the SWAT teams to people's homes.

alexqgb2• 13 years ago

In other words "Our customers may conclude that we offer a poor value for money and decide to stop buying our product."

alexqgb2• 13 years ago

As it turns out, the very LAST thing you want is "a government that's run like a business".

Running a city or state for (ever growing) profit is a fast trail to hell.

jw_2• 13 years ago

Good. The incentives involved with private prisons are so obviously counter to the public good that it beggars belief that anyone would support them. Private prisons do not bear any costs of recidivism - they profit from it.

protomyth3• 13 years ago

Yep, if we are going to have private prisons, they really need to pay on the basis of capacity and not actual inmate counts. That provides a direct incentive to keep inmate count down.

The second part of this is that public prisons suffer from the same problem as private prisons. Look at the prison worker's union and what money it spends on politics in California. It basically backs every legislation that will increase prisoner counts.

Its not a public or private issue, it is, as you pointed out, an incentive issue. Sadly, the public sector incentives are just as bad.

hansjorg• 13 years ago

public sector incentives are just as bad

That's not true. The amount of funds which goes in to this kind of lobbying matters.

With a private prison system you get not just the funds from prison worker's unions, but also those from the owners.

boie0025• 13 years ago

Yep, if we are going to have private prisons, they really need to pay on the basis of capacity and not actual inmate counts. That provides a direct incentive to keep inmate count down.

Woah, interesting concept, I had never even thought of that. That in mind, I am very opposed to private prisons for reasons found scattered throughout this thread.

bcl• 13 years ago

Interesting, but not really HN material.

corin_2• 13 years ago

I hate to be the guy that copies the HN guidelines (just because it seems to get done so often), but it feels especially appropriate given your choice of the word "interesting".

On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find INTERESTING. That includes more than hacking and startups.

(Capitalised emphasis added by me.)

jerf• 13 years ago

This isn't very interesting though; one relatively minor state is closing a prison few of us have ever heard of because one bad actor screwed up. It's not even a useful political story, because such a minor detail is hardly even evidence of anything, let alone proof. The same story as a statistical analysis of nationwide trends would at least be somewhat interesting, this is just an invitation to vent political opinions.

For those excitedly piling on about how this proves how awful private prisons are, well, doesn't Abu Ghraib prove even moreso how awful government imprisonment can be? No, no it doesn't.

wwweston• 13 years ago

It appears there's recent decision to go this direction for this specific prison/company but keep in mind this is probably not a sign of a sea change:

"Recently, board chairwoman Robin Sandy said she opposed the idea because she didn't want to grow state government."

If she's being quoted correctly, that means the chair of the state prison board has a rather, shall we say, flat idea of good policy, and would still put prisoner safety (and therefore several important constitutional principles), recidivism, respect for law and order, and possibly even cost effectiveness all below the idea that the state shouldn't do any more things itself instead of paying private parties to fulfill its obligations poorly.

Theodores• 13 years ago

Compare and contrast with Norway. Also from the Grauniad:

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/feb/25/norwegian-pri...

Includes this idea that has not been thought of in U.S. prison policy:

"...justice for society demands that people we release from prison should be less likely to cause further harm or distress to others, and better equipped to live as law-abiding citizens."

Note how the Norwegian system treated the Oslo bomber, by giving him a decent prison existence rather than treating him as the worst of the worst. This has denied him notoriety. He can't 'pay' for his crimes by being cruelly treated.

In Norway the re-offending rate is a fraction of anywhere else. So, for the Norwegian taxpayer, the deluxe facilities make financial sense.

It would take strong leadership and a generation to move the U.S. 'let them die by lethal injection' to something more like what there is in Norway, however, as Idaho illustrates, moves in the right direction can be made by individual states.

coolsunglasses2• 13 years ago

Those approaches have worked better in highly homogenous and culturally integrated societies.

I'm not saying the US shouldn't experiment with such approaches, it's my dearest wish that my country take advantage of Federalism and experiment at the state level more.

We shouldn't pretend we can appropriate every policy or approach every other country uses in a totally different context.

krakensden• 13 years ago

Those approaches have worked better in highly homogenous and culturally integrated societies.

Translated into from dog-whistle into English, this means "a strong bloc of white Americans will not pay for social services, safety nets, or anything else if there is a risk that black people could benefit."

Just so we're entirely clear on the dynamic we're talking about.

zackmorris• 13 years ago

I live in Idaho and I'm glad this is happening. I've noticed an interesting trend lately where libertarians are starting to take non-conservative and non-republican stances that are more in line with what progressives like me might align with.

Those living in the coastal blue states may not realize how conservative Idaho is. We have similar politics to Wyoming (Dick Cheney was elected to the US House of Reps there) but with more emphasis on ranching, timber and mining. There are small pockets of liberalism in Boise and Hailey. But for the most part there are no progressive politics here. Nearly all state votes toe the republican party line. So when a controversial topic comes up (global warming, alternative energy, healthcare, endangered species, conservation, sustainability, etc) we already know how the vote will fall and it can be disheartening.

For example I have never been able to participate in a presidential election (I still go to the polls for the popular vote though). I think people living in Austin, TX or Boulder, CO know what this is like. It's like South Park. But sometimes it becomes so obvious that a policy is failing that it crosses party lines and gets reformed.

Idaho to take back control of privately run state prison

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