Arizona May Put State Prisons in Private Hands (Including Death Row)

[RamboLiberal]

Source: NY Times

FLORENCE, Ariz. — One of the newest residents on Arizona’s death row, a convicted serial killer named Dale Hausner, poked his head up from his television to look at several visitors strolling by, each of whom wore face masks and vests to protect against the sharp homemade objects that often are propelled from the cells of the condemned.

It is a dangerous place to patrol, and Arizona spends $4.7 million each year to house inmates like Mr. Hausner in a super-maximum-security prison. But in a first in the criminal justice world, the state’s death row inmates could become the responsibility of a private company.

State officials will soon seek bids from private companies for 9 of the state’s 10 prison complexes that house roughly 40,000 inmates, including the 127 here on death row. It is the first effort by a state to put its entire prison system under private control.

The privatization effort, both in its breadth and its financial goals, demonstrates what states around the country — broke, desperate and often overburdened with prisoners and their associated costs — are willing to do to balance the books. Arizona officials hope the effort will put a $100 million dent in the state’s roughly $2 billion budget shortfall.

“Let’s not kid ourselves,” said State Representative Andy Biggs, a Republican who supports private prisons. “If we were not in this economic environment, I don’t think we’d be talking about this with the same sense of urgency.”

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/24/us/24prison.html?_r=1&hp

[Flaneur]

1. This will turn out well.

[HowHasItComeToThis]

2. DON'T SHADE YOUR EYES, PRIVATIZE

SAME OLD SAME OLD

[Ruby the Liberal]

3. Ok, how can it even be remotely legal to privatize death row?

Much less putting the penal determination into private hands?

Yes, I know Bush did it in Texas, but this is simply insane.

How many non-violent, victimless criminals will be subject to the whims of the corporation as opposed to the courts?

[Downwinder]

It is murder if a private "person" does it.

[ashling]

12. While executions would still be performed by the state, officials said,

“I would not want to be the warden of death row,” said Todd Thomas, the warden of a prison in Eloy, Ariz., run by the Corrections Corporation of America. The company, the country’s largest private prison operator, has six prisons in Arizona with inmates from other states.

“That’s not to say we couldn’t,” Mr. Thomas said. “But the liability is too great. I don’t think any private entity would ever want to do that.”


----------------------------------------------------

lives always come down to a question of liability, don'tcha know

:puke:

[LiberalFighter]

4. If they can't afford to do it under a state program that is not in the busines of making a profit

How will this work under a for profit?

[kenichol]

13. Cut personnel, maintenance

Just like we did when we privatized Walter Reed with a Halliburton subsidiary. And we will have the same result: more deaths.

[AzNick]

5. They failed to privatize the DMVs

Private DMVs in AZ are a total failure and only survive because they speak Spanish and cater to the local hispanic community.

[Sinti]

6. Yep, and they make the prisoners pay for their incarceration via work

It's the new way of doing things. If they can't work outside the prison, they'll be given work to do to pay for their upkeep (and generate a profit) inside the prison. It CAN be quite profitable, without a dime of your tax dollars going to incarcerate people. Fancy that. How many people are being held n there for non-violent crimes?

[caseymoz]

18. In other words, slavery?

We're letting corporations use slave labor? I've just about had it with this shit.

:banghead:

[nolabear]

7. Oh dear. I immediately go to the sci-fi fantasy.

"Soylent Green is prisoners!!!"

"I know; we'll build a great big thunderdome..."

"One word...Manhatten."

"Prisons are expensive, you know. Costs can be cut. Why mollycoddle them with things like food variation and something to do? This ain't The Green Mile."

[msongs]

8. release the marijuana convictions and there will be plenty of cells and LOWER costs nt

[forum slut]

9. desperate men, desperate times, desperate measures.

[caseymoz]

20. It's more like the stupidity and immorality cascade. nt

[goclark]

10. Like the Charter School concept ?

Or Blackwater?

Not sure.

[radhika]

11. Let the Pro-Death Penalty Lobbying Begin! n/t

[Marl Karx]

14. Capitalist Prison

How fitting that Amerikkka has capitalist, for-profit prisons. What's next? Capitalist, for-profit prosecutions of the innocent to get a "commission" for sending the victims of racism, sexism, homophobia and bigotry to jail?

[AsahinaKimi]

15. Since Blackwater could get away with anything...

Who is to say that a privatized firm would follow any State rules about Humane killing? I am not for the Death Penalty, but could not any private firm do away with someone in any manner they chose?

[eringer]

16. This is plan BS

I am sick of Republicans trying to contract out inherently government responsibilites. We all pay twice as much in the end when they are allowed to get away with it. Here in Virginia, the Republican and PTL Club ALumni Bob McDonnell wants to sell our liquor stores and take the money and build roads with it. What he wont talk about is where the revenue from these stores goes today (the general fund). Why? Because he could give a shit. To him and his minons, public schools, which are one of the benefacors of this fund, are nothing more than a tool for the liberals. With respect to the amount of money lost, here is what it says on the VA ABC website:

As a major source of revenue for the Commonwealth, ABC has contributed more than $1.7 billion to Virginia's General Fund in the last five years, and more than $6 billion to the General Fund since the first ABC stores opened in 1934. Measures of success as ABC completed Fiscal Year 2009 include a record $665.6 million in annual gross sales. ABC remains committed to measuring our success in balancing control, service and revenue, providing excellence and accountability to the citizens of Virginia.

The Republicans are out there to destroy revenue sources that promote the common good (as they believe that this is a way to end socialism). Getting rid of the ABC stores is the perfect example.
It is really scary that McDonnell may win. If you are from VA or know someone that lives in VA, please tell them to vote on Nov 3.

[KamaAina]

17. Surely Napolitano will put a stop to this

:sarcasm:

well, she would have if only she hadn't accepted the Homeland Security post. Now AZ is under the thumb of a fundie nutjob straight out of "The Handmaid's Tale" -- except that she herself is female! :scared:

[hayu_lol]

19. Barbara Bush is heavily invested in 'private' prisons...

probably mostly in Texas, but possibly in Florida as well. Bush family gets a piece of every pie don't ya know.

[caseymoz]

21. Arizona embraced that policy of longer and longer sentences

Any liberal could tell them that prisoners cost money.

So, now they think a business could make money by taking over the prisons, and using the prisoners to make a profit.

First, it's magical thinking. It still isn't economically viable to incarcerate a higher number of prisoners than the taxpayers could pay for. It's not viable for a private company to do that either.

So, either 1) the State of Arizona will pay more to cover the prison company's profits first, and then keep the prisoners securely locked up, or 2) the private companies will save the state money and will be given a long leash about how they make a profit on their prisoners.

The first is smoke and mirrors. The second leads to absolutely nothing good. Hell, it gets my mind going on a plot where a super-villain starts out his career owning a private prison. I mean, it's a great way to get convicts working for you. I could think of where this could go: slavery, organized crime, human rights violations.

If I lived in Arizona, I'd be driving out of there as fast as I could go. Grant the state its independence, it's lost.

[bongbong]

22. Vonnegut

Once again Kurt showed his prophesy skills.

[lonestarnot]

23. And torture too!

[Jeep789]

24. WTF happened to AZ? First cameras everywhere

and now this? What happened to their independence, their sense of "freedom first"?

[No Elephants]

25. Oh, I'm sure nothing could possibly go wrong.

http://www.democracynow.org/2009/2/17/penn_judges_plead_guilty_to_taking#