Should the USA have prisons run by private corporations for profit?

I vote that it should be just like it use to be. Pay for your crime. I do not believe that the inmates have a better life on the inside, then most do on the outside.They should not eat better, have cable or anything that those of us who are not or never will be on the inside, fight and work hard for our own stuff.I do not beleive that Alcatraz was inhumane. The criminals sent there were harsh criminals. Some were not treated very well. But they had to work for their stuff. Not 5 miles from my town there is a state prison. They grow and eat their own food. From cattle to corn. Years ago, when someone went to prison or jail most often then not they realized that prison life wasnt for them and spent their time to change their ways. I feel now that they get a slap on the wrist, thats ok. Or they will claim insanity, get a lesser sentence, get out and do it all over again. There are a lot of nationally known cases. I am going to use the case of the Texas mom whom drowned all 5 kids, 1 by 1 then layed them in bed. She had post partum depression. Her whole family knew. Her mom would come while her husband was at work. To where she would not have someone with her. Well it only took 1 time for the mistake to happen and those children paid for it. My opinion the dad is just as at fault as the mom who actually drowned the kids. He knew she was getting worse, yes he had to support his family. But what is a few few minutes being late to work, Im sure his boss knew what was going on at home. Those few minutes could have saved his kids lives. That mama did not want to be left alone with the kids. In my opinion, he should have gotten in trouble as well.

Dungeons for dollars

The Bureau of Justice Statistics reports that there are more than 98,900 inmates in private prisons in America today. About 5.6 percent of state inmates and 13.7 percent of federal inmates are now making the ‘Dungeons for Dollars’ crowd rich.

Forget about public safety – according to one study, inmates escape ‘secure’ private prisons at a rate that is 41 times higher than public facilities. (one escape per every 310 inmates in private prisons compared to one per every 12,500 inmates in the public sector.) Forget about staff and inmate safety - inmate-on-inmate assaults are 66 percent higher, and assaults on staff are 49 percent higher in private prisons. Forget about the importance of experience and excellence in law enforcement – private ‘guards’ receive 35 percent fewer pre-service training hours and have an astonishing 53 percent annual turnover rate of security staff.

They are also not Peace Officers. They are private ‘guards’ who never swear an oath to protect the public, as their allegiance is to the corporation.

Forget about saving the taxpayers money – nearly every study conducted that was not paid for in part or in whole by the private prison industry itself shows no or little cost savings. Also, every academic study done on economic development shows that rather than private prisons in your community providing an economic boon, the hidden costs and designation as a “prison town” is an economic boondoggle. Private prisons are about one thing and one thing only – making money for the corporation.

Public correction professionals are judged by the safety of their prisons and the impact they have on the community. Private CEOs are judged by one thing - profit. Private prison operators don’t want fewer inmates; they want more.

They do not want alternative sentencing, probation or parole; they want warm bodies in their cells for as long as possible. (Some of them have been caught holding inmates past their release dates to make more per diems.) They do not want recidivism rates to go down; they want them to go up. They don’t care if there is increased violence in their prisons; they don’t live or work there.

More violence can also mean more profit. Violence brings with it new charges against the inmates, additional sentences, and loss of good time, which all result in more time behind the walls and, of course, for the corporations - more profit. Private prisons are notorious for understaffing and under training their employees. That allows them to keep costs down, while at the same time the violence increases.

When a new public facility opens, the majority of officers are seasoned professionals who transfer in. Conversely, private prisons often boast to elected local officials that 95 percent of the employees they hire will be right from their community. That means that 95 percent of the men and women working in those facilities will have NO correctional experience.

The wages they pay generally range from $8.25 to $10.00 an hour. Many times the biggest job responsibility that private prison guards had prior to working in a correctional facility was to be sure to ask, “Do you want fries with that?” The only pros in a private prison are the cons.

The privateers don’t like to offer programs to promote rehabilitation, although they will when pressed. Programs cost money and may increase the likelihood that inmates might actually make it on the outside and not come back, and that’s not good for the bottom line.

They do not want to hire and retain good help. If they did, they wouldn’t pay $8.25 - $10.00 an hour, offer few, if any, benefits, and they wouldn’t have a 53 percent annual turnover rate of security personnel either.

They do not want to be involved with local law enforcement. It costs money in the form of manpower to interact with the police. Indeed when there is an escape or riot, the privateers routinely call the home office and not local law enforcement when it happens. Their first concern is the bad PR they will get, and not the safety of the community.

The three biggest private prison companies, Corrections Corporation of America, Wackenhut/GEO and Cornell operate 207 facilities and have more than 141,500 available beds between them. All three are publicly held corporations. They must answer to their shareholders and not to the citizens of this country, as we in the public sector must do.

Fortunately, the number of state inmates housed in private prisons over the last five years has decreased by 1.3 percent. Unfortunately, however, under President Bush’s administration the number of federal inmates in private prisons has increased by an astonishing 60 percent during that same period.

Much of their growth can be linked to campaign contributions. Once again it’s all about the money.

Should we privatize the police or the military? How about DEA, Immigration officers, the Boarder patrol, the CIA, FBI or the ATF? Of course not, and we shouldn’t privatize corrections either.

Street police may catch the criminals, but it is professional correctional officers who must keep them away from the public. The safety of our communities should never be for sale.

Brian Dawe is co-founder of the American Correctional Officer Intelligence Network. He also is a founding member of Corrections USA and served as their Executive Director until August, 2006. He has been in corrections for more than 24 years, and served as a Massachusetts CO from 1982 to 1998. Dawe co-founded the Massachusetts Correctional Officers Federated Union where he served on the statewide Executive Board for nine years, and served as Grievance Coordinator, Executive Secretary and Vice President. He can be reached at ACOIN1@aol.com