The End is Near....For Privatized Prisons

Privatized Prisons (PPs) make money by locking people up, and the more people they lock up for more time, the more money they make. PPs were once outlawed at the beginning of the 20th Century. But, in the mid-1980s a problem began to emerge.

When the state wanted to build a new prison, it traditionally asked the voters to approve the cost through a bond issue. But this time, voters throughout the country began to say no. So the alternative was to start using PPs.

This has turned out to be a disaster. Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates stated:

The fact of the matter is that private prisons don’t compare favorably to Bureau of Prisons facilities in terms of safety or security or services, and now with the decline in the federal prison population, we have both the opportunity and the responsibility to do something about that.

The Department of Justice has just announced that they will no longer be using PPs and over the next five years they will not be renewing contracts when they expire or substantially reduce the contracts scope. The ultimate goal is it reduce and ultimately end the use of PPs.

Senator Bernie Sanders is very pleased.

We have got to end the private prison racket in America as quickly as possible. Our focus should be on keeping people out of jail and making sure they stay out when they are released. This means funding jobs and education not more jails and incarceration.

http://www.politicususa.com/2016/08/18/bernie-sanders-cheers-dojs-landma...

In the wake of the announcement there has been a steep and sudden decline in the value of PP stocks. I feel so sorry for all those shareholders.....NOT!!!

http://www.cnbc.com/2016/08/18/prison-stocks-plunge-after-report-justice...

This is the best news I've heard in a while.

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WaveyDavey's picture

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The people, united, will never be defeated.

Capitalism is all about "revenue streams". A prison should offer the opportunity to rehabilitate. From a private business model, rehabilitation means an expense outlay that reduces future revenue...so these companies don't do it. We see a similar issue with private healthcare...there's no money in vaccinations, antibiotics or fostering healthy lifestyles...so we don't support them.

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WaveyDavey's picture

privatize water. It's the only thing privatisable that I can think of that would be worse than privatized prisons.

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The people, united, will never be defeated.

tapu dali's picture

The more you are willing to pay, the better the [air] quality.

Works with other commodities, doesn't it?

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There are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns – the ones we don't know we don't know.

tapu dali's picture

The more you are willing to pay, the better the [air] quality.

Works with other commodities, doesn't it?

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There are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns – the ones we don't know we don't know.

detroitmechworks's picture

gonna get their kickbacks to keep the prisons full?

Won't somebody please think of the corrupt?

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I do not pretend I know what I do not know.

Plato2016's picture

We must also think of their yacht builders, and servants, and jet builders! How will they put food on their families?

Thank you so much, dmw, for bringing this unfortunate consequence to our attention.

Wink

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We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when we are afraid of the light.
--Plato

featheredsprite's picture

getting rich off of locking up your fellow humans would have to have a bitch of a payback.

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Life is strong. I'm weak, but Life is strong.

SmartAleq's picture

Turning incarceration into profit is simply obscene. It's telling that when the voters told the legislatures that we don't wanna pay for more prisons they refused to understand that what we want is a better alternative to warehousing people in huge inhumane prisons. We want rehabilitation, we want our criminals to be taught how to do better, because jamming them into a stinky concrete hell asshole to elbow and letting them shank it out is just no way to run a society. Then when you reflect how many of those prisoners are there for fucking stupid victimless pot crimes the true evil of the "solution" makes itself manifest. Ruining people's lives for money--it's what "tough on crime" politicians and profiteering punishers for hire DO.

And to that I say "Fuck that shit!" Then I do a little buck and wing and a shuffle off to Buffalo in my living room. Biggrin

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"Nothing's wrong, son, look at the news!" -- Firesign Theater

Alligator Ed's picture

complex. Oh, say, this will certainly happen under a Clinton administration She will reduce our commitment to operate military bases from 103 countries to 1 or 2. And she will promise not to bomb Iran until at least one hundred days into her presidency

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Thanks for bringing it to our attention, WD.

I haven't been watching as much network news since the convention, but there has been no mention of this that I've heard. (I'm sort of in that limbo between wanting to be informed and not wanting to be disinformed.)

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