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beneficii
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15 Apr 2014, 10:06 am

This disgusts me:

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Arizona is one of four states (along with Virginia, Oklahoma and Louisiana) in which state governments are bound to contracts guaranteeing a 95%-100% occupancy in facilities leased by private prisons.


http://www.salon.com/2014/04/15/america ... newsletter

What if the crime rates in those states dropped to where the minimum occupancy couldn't be reached? Would they start bringing people in on trumped-up charges and convictions in order to fulfill their part of these hideous contracts?


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15 Apr 2014, 5:46 pm

As far as I'm concerned it's a latter day reincarnation of the Convict Lease program started in the late 19th century in that it makes incarceration profitable.. Even as a government hating conservative, I think that incarceration should be one of the functions of government.


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trollcatman
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15 Apr 2014, 5:51 pm

Something went horribly wrong with the US incarceration rate.

Image



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15 Apr 2014, 6:09 pm

trollcatman wrote:
Something went horribly wrong with the US incarceration rate.

I attribute a lot of it to the goddamn war on drugs. Unfortunately, it's become too profitable and too many empires have been built on the war on drugs.


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Kraichgauer
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15 Apr 2014, 7:51 pm

As soon as the rest of the country joins Washington and Colorado in legalizing pot, the number of prison inmates will decrease dramatically.
As for private prisons wrangling in more inmates on trumped up charges, such a thing had happened with a privately run reformatory for teen offenders. A judge got kick backs for sending kids to this institution, often for offenses hardly warranting incarceration. One young man was so deeply traumatized that he later took his own life. Thankfully, the judge and the reformatory's head were convicted and are serving time themselves.


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khaoz
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15 Apr 2014, 10:42 pm

I have a nephew-in-law just released from one of these prisons where he was being held for returning to the US illegally. He was caught crossing the border after being snatched from his wife and 18 month old child in the darkness of night by INS almost a year ago and deported. He has been in the US working hard and providing for his family for over a decade. I figured out that this prison system is also a money pit for lawyers and the legal system. His wife was continuously intimidated into paying a California lawyer she had hired and an Arizona judge various sums of money for various ambiguous reasons until he was finally released. His wife, my niece had to work 10-12 hour 6 day work weeks to maintain the home payment and insurance while trying to get through all of this while supplementing the income of the west coast legal machine. It (private prison system) is nothing but a fleecing operation. This "private prison" held only prisoners of the immigration system, and the majority of those in the facility were having the same financial ordeal as my nephew.



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16 Apr 2014, 12:42 am

khaoz wrote:
I have a nephew-in-law just released from one of these prisons where he was being held for returning to the US illegally. He was caught crossing the border after being snatched from his wife and 18 month old child in the darkness of night by INS almost a year ago and deported. He has been in the US working hard and providing for his family for over a decade. I figured out that this prison system is also a money pit for lawyers and the legal system. His wife was continuously intimidated into paying a California lawyer she had hired and an Arizona judge various sums of money for various ambiguous reasons until he was finally released. His wife, my niece had to work 10-12 hour 6 day work weeks to maintain the home payment and insurance while trying to get through all of this while supplementing the income of the west coast legal machine. It (private prison system) is nothing but a fleecing operation. This "private prison" held only prisoners of the immigration system, and the majority of those in the facility were having the same financial ordeal as my nephew.


That's truly disgusting. My heart goes out to your nephew-in-law, and his family.


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The_Walrus
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16 Apr 2014, 4:29 am

This is clearly a very important issue.

If you are passionate about wanting private prisons to be curtailed, contact Attorney General Eric Holder's office on (202) 514-2001, or one of your representatives.



zer0netgain
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16 Apr 2014, 6:46 am

There are two ways to see this.

Most all states have state-run prisons. If they allow a contractor to start a private-run prison, the contract ensures that occupancy remains at profitable levels...so inmates are sent to the private-run prison whenever there is space available rather than to a state-run prison.

The problem is if you build too many prisons, then there is an incentive to create charges to put people in prison. Virginia (in my opinion) is horrible if you are an accused party because the bias is against you from day one without even considering this fact. You're likely to be convicted because the authorities said you did the crime...regardless of the evidence they can muster against you.



TheGoggles
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16 Apr 2014, 7:49 am

Here's the only argument you need against private prisons: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kids_for_cash_scandal



Kraichgauer
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16 Apr 2014, 12:41 pm

TheGoggles wrote:
Here's the only argument you need against private prisons: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kids_for_cash_scandal


That was actually the case I had mentioned. I had not known there was a Wiki entry on it.


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chris5000
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16 Apr 2014, 3:18 pm

the entire us army uniform is made by prison labor I think the other branches too

under the 13th amendment you are slave to the government if you are in prison
if you refuse to work for 2$ a day they put you in the hole



0_equals_true
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17 Apr 2014, 8:04 am

Raptor wrote:
trollcatman wrote:
Something went horribly wrong with the US incarceration rate.

I attribute a lot of it to the goddamn war on drugs. Unfortunately, it's become too profitable and too many empires have been built on the war on drugs.

Agreed.

Being illegal is profitable most of all for the cartels.

The war on drugs wastes massive amount of public money. If they went to the golden triangle/crescent, Peru, Columbia, etc and paid the farmers top dollar not to produce anything for that year and take the year off, I'd bet it would be cheaper than what is being wasted each year on the war on drugs.

I read a while back, the amount of heroin intercepted coming in the Uk is only about 2% of what is circualtion. It wouldn't surprise me it was similar int he US.



Don_Pedro_Zamacona
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22 Apr 2014, 10:57 am

zer0netgain wrote:
There are two ways to see this.

Most all states have state-run prisons. If they allow a contractor to start a private-run prison, the contract ensures that occupancy remains at profitable levels...so inmates are sent to the private-run prison whenever there is space available rather than to a state-run prison.

The problem is if you build too many prisons, then there is an incentive to create charges to put people in prison. Virginia (in my opinion) is horrible if you are an accused party because the bias is against you from day one without even considering this fact. You're likely to be convicted because the authorities said you did the crime...regardless of the evidence they can muster against you.



Correct. And here's another problem: Privately run prisons find it more profitable to allow inmates to "run the show" instead of spending the money on security equipment and hiring enough guards to maintain order. There was a prison in Mississippi that was recently shut down by the FBP because of excessive violence, poor sanitation, and rampant drug dealing which the guards gave the green light to.