Tuesday, May 03, 2011
Privatized Prisons: A study of Public Corruption in Florida and Recommended Solutions ... by gimleteye
It is astonishing to read press accounts of the Florida legislature decision to allow large scale privatization of Florida's prisons. I have yet to read one report that notes how the 2011 19th State Grand Jury Report on Public Corruption highlights Florida's privatized prisons. The problem with privatization is that ethical violations are sheltered from already inadequate and dismal protections of the public interest. The preamble to the February 11, 2011 report begins, "We hope our words are heard and our recommendations are followed." The Grand Jury also writes, "The time of this Report is intentional. We recommend the 2011 legislative session address our concerns with urgency..." Based on the refusal of the GOP led legislature to even take up ethics reform while furthering the chances for corruption through privatization, the answer to that hope would be "no".
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6 comments:
This is the industry you go to when you wreck an economy. Isn't Labelle the city that has three prisons in it? Also, figure that once people are starving (no jobs, no welfare) and police jobs are cut we are going to have boatloads of crime. We are going to need condos for those prisoners. The only good thing I can say about this is that private prisons might harness the mounting entitlements problem. The whopping question is, however, will our value per prisoner (if that is a measurable metric) be better or will we get taken to the cleaners?
Sorry, as a continuation of the first comment, yes, you bring up a really interesting point. We should not privatize prisons anymore than we should privatize war. I think history will teach us this, if it has not already done so. In arguing this point, I believe we should draw the parallel.
When all manner of things become capitalistic, social issues take a back seat. Therefore, there should be certain limited functions of government that are preserved as a part of our commons. This is the highest and best argument on this matter. Even if we have to struggle with how we do this in the most economically feasible way, we do not live in an economy. We live in a society and we need to tend to that garden, so to speak.
Yes, I agree we should not privatize prisons in Florida. We should use California as a model where California's prison guards make more than twice their counterparts in Texas - $71,000 a year, compared with $31,000.
California prison guards can bank their vacation time until it is time to retire and they can claim it all at their highest salary.
The prison guard union is the largest political contributor to California Democrats and the California Democrat controlled Senate just voted Prison guards another favorable union contract.
Yes, a private prison system would be a disaster & would only perpetuate the Prison Industrial Complex
I believe the Prison issue is part of a larger social issue. By keeping marijuana illegal, cops stay busy and judges give jail time to people that do not belong there. This allows extra state money into the prison system and, in return, creates a larger amount of mostly minority people (and I don't mean Hispanics!) away from the polls, especially with the new election rules. And, as people in the education system know, when our politicians see a large pile of money, they can't wait to privatize the system so that they can get their hands on that pile of tax dollars. Just ask Jeb!.
And that's why I like Luther Campbell. He would stop this insanity by decriminalizing weed so that the police can spend their time on real crime, including dangerous drugs. Now, I'm not sure he has the power, but if Ric the Prick can try to override Federal mandates for healthcare, certainly a mayor can tell the cops to spend their time busting real criminals.
Timoney also believed that too much time was spent on busting minor criminals.
Campbell for Mayor! (unless, of course, you don't want to waste your vote, so I guess it'll have to be Gimenez).
tom
I believe that privatizing prisons plucks at the very fabric of our society. When society deems an individual unfit to live amongst us and we take away his or her civil liberties and put him or her in jail, this power carries with it the greatest responsibility. To ignore this is to start down a very dark and slippery slope. We do not need to start a prison industry.
How about this;
Prison industry lobbyists
Prison industry PACS
Prison industry Charter Schools.
Yup, nope.
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