Private prison offers to buy prison in exchange for fixed occupancy rates

[Questionable]

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/story/2012-03-01/buying-prisons-require-high-occupancy/53402894/1?AID=4992781&PID=4003003&SID=3avsj698wk49#.UDZ1EC-fLQQ.mailto


WASHINGTON – At a time when states are struggling to reduce bloated prison populations and tight budgets, a private prison management company is offering to buy prisons in exchange for various considerations, including a controversial guarantee that the governments maintain a 90% occupancy rate for at least 20 years.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Hoo-boy. Neoliberal logic is like a self-parody sometimes.


At a time when states are struggling to reduce bloated prison populations and tight budgetsHmm, not trying very hard by my count. At least not in California where a budget crisis spurred such action as raising all tuition costs and public transportation costs and massive cuts to schools and services... and gave money to build a brand new death row facility even though the State Supreme Court halted executions because their lethal injection chemicals had gone bad like old milk! Don't want to kill someone with stale death-juice I guess. And Cali tried so hard to reduce bloated prison populations that they ignored a federal judge ruling that populations had to be reduced in prison because of overcrowding!

Anyway, sorry for the digression, but some of the baseless assertions stated as a given in mainstream news stories really piss me off.

[Robocommie]

Anyway, sorry for the digression, but some of the baseless assertions stated as a given in mainstream news stories really piss me off.

Yeah, it's really quite astounding the sheer level of taking things at face value that the mainstream media engages in.

This privatized prison system we've been living with is absolutely monstrous - truth be told, the idea of "prisons for profit" must be one of the sickest ideas ever conceived in human history.

[Quail]

The world is crazy and fucked up. Imagine if every prison made the same demand. What the fuck goes through these people's minds?

[Ocean Seal]

Sometimes I realize that I live in a really awful world. Fuck :(.

[Solidarity]

Corporations buying prisons so they can make prisoners work for a dollar a week.

[Regicollis]

During Stalin's terror there were also quotas for the number of criminals to convict.

Today the real Stalinists are not flying red banners - they're wearing business suits and being paid by the corporations.

[Solidarity]

During Stalin's terror there were also quotas for the number of criminals to convict.

Today the real Stalinists are not flying red banners - they're wearing business suits and being paid by the corporations.

Ironic isn't it?

[Questionable]

During Stalin's terror there were also quotas for the number of criminals to convict.

Those quotas were set by Yezhov though, not Stalin himself.


Today the real Stalinists are not flying red banners - they're wearing business suits and being paid by the corporations.

This doesn't even make sense. A Marxist analysis would show that the policies of neoliberalism are not in any way equatable to that of the Soviets, even if you don't like them. You could say the same thing about Trots or Anarchists or whatever group you hate. It doesn't mean anything.

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

At least the comments on the article seem to be non-fascist, hope? Maybe. I wrote about the American prison system vs. the Gulag here (http://www.revleft.com/vb/prison-population-usa-t174270/index.html?t=174270)

[Камо́ Зэд]

During Stalin's terror there were also quotas for the number of criminals to convict.

Today the real Stalinists are not flying red banners - they're wearing business suits and being paid by the corporations.

It doesn't have to make sense, folks. It just has to be anti-Stalin.

[Comrade #138672]

Wow, this must be extreme neoliberalism. I didn't expect it would go this far so soon. This is really scary.

[Yuppie Grinder]

Holy shit you people turning this into a defense of gulags are unreasonable. Instead of seeing the parallels between the treatment of the impoverished in neoliberal America and Stalinist USSR and recognizing the bourgeois nature of the latter, you say "The US does the same stuff Stalin did but worse!".

[Камо́ Зэд]

Holy shit you people turning this into a defense of gulags are unreasonable. Instead of seeing the parallels between the treatment of the impoverished in neoliberal America and Stalinist USSR and recognizing the bourgeois nature of the latter, you say "The US does the same stuff Stalin did but worse!".

You're the first person to mention the Gulag in this thread.

[Yuppie Grinder]

lol nope

[Камо́ Зэд]

lol nope

CTRL+F "gulag"

[Revoltorb]

CTRL+F "gulag"

reveals


At least the comments on the article seem to be non-fascist, hope? Maybe. I wrote about the American prison system vs. the Gulag here (was a link but I can't post them)

[Questionable]

Holy shit you people turning this into a defense of gulags are unreasonable. Instead of seeing the parallels between the treatment of the impoverished in neoliberal America and Stalinist USSR and recognizing the bourgeois nature of the latter, you say "The US does the same stuff Stalin did but worse!".

You people are so terrible! Instead of taking every bad thing about capitalism and somehow twisting your neck until you find a way to complain about Stalin, you recognize that modern capitalism is the real threat! Focus on the Stalinists, people!

[fug]

Corporations buying private prison and what does Revleft do? Blame Stalin and the Stalinists in business suit. Classy.

[Robocommie]

You people are so terrible! Instead of taking every bad thing about capitalism and somehow twisting your neck until you find a way to complain about Stalin, you recognize that modern capitalism is the real threat! Focus on the Stalinists, people!

The point is, unemployment in the US is higher than it's been in years and shows no sign of getting bettere, the war in Afghanistan has been going on for over a decade, there's increased attacks on the status of immigrants, teacher's unions are being made the scapegoat for the problems with public education, and of course working class people are being herded into a massive and growing prison-industrial complex in order to make certain people rich. What the left really needs to do right now, more than anything - is score points on how terrible other groups of leftists are over a dead foreign leader of a country which doesn't exist anymore.