Privately Owned Prisons

[GiantMonkeyMan]

Over 18 months, nation's first privately owned state prison has declined rapidly

In an unprecedented experiment fueled by budget concerns, Ohio sold a state prison to Corrections Corporation of America, one of the largest private prison corporations in the country, in 2011. Within a year, a state audit of Lake Erie Correctional Institute, the nation’s first privately owned state prison, found rampant abuse and abysmal conditions (http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/10/09/971431/nations-first-privately-owned-state-prison-riddled-with-violations-of-state-law/) well below state standards. The CCA prison was given another chance (http://www.businessweek.com/ap/2012-11-08/privatized-prison-in-ohio-gets-2nd-chance-at-audit) to pass, but flunked another inspection (http://www.aclu.org/prisoners-rights/another-bad-inspection-cca-owned-lake-erie-correctional-institution) four months later. Independent reports (http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/lakeeriereport.pdf) continue to illuminate filthy, broken facilities, as well as much higher rates of crime and violence in and around the prison. On Tuesday, the ACLU of Ohio sent Ohio lawmakers (http://www.acluohio.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/LetterToOhioLegislatorsReConneautTimeline2013_0409 .pdf) a comprehensive timeline of the prison’s decline (http://www.acluohio.org/crisis-in-conneaut-timeline) since CCA took over.

The Lake Erie prison is now reportedly overcrowded at 130 percent capacity (http://www.acluohio.org/archives/press-releases/2013-0409-prison-timeline-conneaut?c=18448), with single-person cells holding 3 inmates each, according to internal documents obtained by the ACLU. Assaults on guards and other inmates have skyrocketed by 40 percent.

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/04/10/1843291/over-18-months-nations-first-privately-owned-state-prison-has-declined-rapidly/?mobile=nc

Sickening how private companies take advantage of prisons to make a quick profit whilst the inmates suffer. If it were in the hands of the state then it wouldn't be much better but this is clearly a indication of the kind of society western capitalism is developing (once again, I suppose, considering the conditions in the prisons of early capitalism).

This is the era of the prison industrial complex. The prison has become a black hole into which the detrius of contemporary capitalism is deposited. Mass imprisonment generates profits as it devours social wealth, and thus it tends to reproduce the very conditions that lead people to prison. - Angela Davis

One day, once we've destroyed the last vestiges of class society, we'll live in a world where prisons are an unnecessary and horrific thing of the past.

[Astarte]

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/04/10/1843291/over-18-months-nations-first-privately-owned-state-prison-has-declined-rapidly/?mobile=nc

Sickening how private companies take advantage of prisons to make a quick profit whilst the inmates suffer. If it were in the hands of the state then it wouldn't be much better but this is clearly a indication of the kind of society western capitalism is developing (once again, I suppose, considering the conditions in the prisons of early capitalism).

This is the era of the prison industrial complex. The prison has become a black hole into which the detrius of contemporary capitalism is deposited. Mass imprisonment generates profits as it devours social wealth, and thus it tends to reproduce the very conditions that lead people to prison. - Angela Davis

One day, once we've destroyed the last vestiges of class society, we'll live in a world where prisons are an unnecessary and horrific thing of the past.

The M.O. of the U.S. federal government has always been to contract out particular functions to private entities, whether it be the manufacture of uniforms in the Civil War, the building of the transcontinental railroad, the military-industrial complex, or the prison-industrial complex you should expect the US government's coffers to be essentially one big feeding trough for the capitalist class.

[PC LOAD LETTER]

Privatized prisons have worked well for Louisiana

(sarcasm (http://www.nola.com/crime/index.ssf/2012/05/louisiana_is_the_worlds_prison.html))

[Red Commissar]

CCA also owns some prisons down here in Texas, one of which is down here in Dallas. Really shitty place, even by the standards of Texas. Here's some highlights...

http://www.dallasnews.com/news/community-news/dallas/headlines/20130311-dawson-state-jail-inmate-who-gave-birth-to-baby-in-toilet-files-suit-alleging-cruel-and-unusual-punishment.ece


Just weeks ago the Texas Observer branded the Jesse R. Dawson State Jail on the banks of the Trinity River near downtown Dallas as “Texas’ worst state jail,” citing, among other things, poor conditions and inadequate medical treatment that “in a few cases led to deaths.” Among them: Autumn Miller’s premature baby, a girl named Gracie born after just 26 weeks of gestation.

Autumn told KTVT-Channel 11 in July that guards at the privately operated jail, which is owned by Corrections Corporation of America, refused her cries for medical attention. She says the guards gave her a menstrual pad and locked her in a cell. She says they told her she just had to go to the bathroom.

As a result, Miller says in a lawsuit filed Friday in Dallas federal court, on June 14, 2012, “She looked down and watched, in horror, as she delivered baby Gracie into the toilet.” The infant lived for four days and died in her mother’s arms. “Within an hour of Gracie’s death,” says the suit, “CCA employees took Autumn back to Dawson.”

...

The suit alleges CCA guards did nothing to help Miller, before or after she gave birth to her baby; she claims it took guards 15 minutes just to find the key to get into her cell, and that “several CCA employees came into the holding cell while Gracie lay there helpless next to her bleeding mother.” She alleges one guard videotaped the whole ordeal. Finally at the hospital, says the suit, Autumn — a nonviolent offender — “was still handcuffed and shackled” when allowed to visit with her baby.http://keranews.org/post/calls-close-dawson-state-jail-grow-louder


A coalition of civil rights advocates and inmate support groups are trying to build momentum for the legislature’s closing of the Dawson State Jail in Dallas. Some 15 activists rallied in front of the jail last night blaming its private operator, Corrections Corporation of America, for the deaths of three female inmates and a baby born to an incarcerated mother. http://www.texasobserver.org/death-at-dawson-why-is-texass-worst-state-jail-still-open/


Wendy King never saw a doctor.

“Everybody in my family has some kind of uterine problem,” King told me. “My mom and three sisters have all had hysterectomies.” So when King started bleeding continuously while serving a one-year sentence at Dawson State Jail for a parole violation, she asked to see a doctor.

“I bled for nine months,” she says. “I’m sorry, I know this is gross, but I’d step in those metal showers and you could hear blood clots fall out as big as my hand.”

King says that at Dawson, prisoners must first fill out a form asking for medical care and wait five to eight days for it to be processed. “Then they schedule you for a doctor if they think you actually need to see a doctor,” she said. Getting an appointment can take another week.

The physicians’ assistants who saw King didn’t think she needed to see a doctor. They also didn’t give her an exam. “They gave me antibiotics,” she says, “They said it was something going around, a venereal disease.” With a week’s worth of antibiotics and a menstrual pad, King was sent her back to her cell.

Unfortunately, King’s is among the least disturbing stories of medical horror at Dawson. In 2012, the Dallas news station CBS 11 ran a four-part exposé highlighting alleged medical negligence at the jail and detailing three cases:

• In 2008, a 30-year-old woman named Ashleigh Parks died of pneumonia six weeks before her release date. Her family says she was denied medication until it was too late, a claim supported by letters from other inmates who knew Parks.
Pamela WeatherbyPamela Weatherby

• In 2010, Pamela Weatherby, 45, died while serving a year for drug possession. The lawsuit filed by Weatherby’s family against CCA details how she was taken off her prescribed insulin injections and given cheaper oral insulin, resulting in diabetic comas. Repeatedly, Weatherby was medically stabilized elsewhere and returned to Dawson, where she would again be denied her insulin injections and suffer another coma. Weatherby arrived at Dawson in May. She was dead by July. An autopsy revealed that she died from diabetes complications.

CBS 11 obtained internal documents from CCA showing that the chief of security reported that Dawson staff “didn’t follow proper procedures in that they did not call a medical professional” the night of Weatherby’s death and recommended termination of shift supervisors. But a week later, Senior Warden Raymond Byrd determined, “The actions by employees were consistent with TDCJ policy and procedure. No training needs have been identified at this time.”

• Parks and Weatherby aren’t alive to tell their stories, but Autumn Miller is. Miller didn’t know she was a few weeks pregnant when she arrived at Dawson in January 2012 to serve a year for violating her probation. But by May, she knew something was wrong. She’d been missing periods and felt sick. A mother of three, Miller recognized pregnancy. Miller is still at Dawson, but her mother, Jean Burr, told Miller’s story to CBS 11 after seeing its coverage of Weatherby’s death. Burr says that in May, Autumn Miller requested a pap smear and pregnancy test but never got them. Three weeks later, she started bleeding and cramping, feeling pressure and pain. The staff brought her to the medical unit on a stretcher, and Burr says a doctor was on a video screen—Dawson is one of many facilities that use telemedicine to save money—but that an assistant told the doctor he wasn’t needed and turned off the screen. A guard suggested, “You probably need to go poo,” gave Miller a menstrual pad and locked her in a holding cell. “The pressure was so bad that she went to the toilet,” Burr told CBS 11. Then, “the baby came out and went into the toilet and started screaming.” The baby girl, named Gracie, was just 26 weeks along. She died four days later. Miller had a tubal ligation and was allowed to stay in the hospital until Gracie passed away in her arms. Half an hour later, Miller was shipped back to Dawson, where they placed her in solitary confinement for two days, because, they said, she was on “suicide watch.”

• Shebaa Green, 50, suffered from diarrhea and difficulty breathing for three days before she was allowed to go to the medical unit at Dawson last August, according to records obtained by CBS 11. She lay there unexamined for three hours before anyone arrived to look at her. Seven hours later, a doctor called an ambulance as Green struggled for breath. She died the next day of complications due to pneumonia.

CBS 11 reported that 15 women talked to the station about mistreatment they witnessed or experienced at Dawson; two said they had extremely high fevers and were left in segregation for days or weeks without ever seeing a doctor. Another, Lorraine Brown, said that, like Weatherby, she was diabetic and never received her insulin at set times. She also said she watched a woman have a stroke, become paralyzed, and be left for other inmates to bathe and care for.

But the case against Dawson’s medical care isn’t just anecdotal. A January 2012 audit of Dawson health services by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice found multiple systemic failures: noncompliance more than half the time in areas of preventative, gynecological, dental, HIV and elder care. They even failed the basics: conducting inspections, having enough first aid kits, providing medically appropriate diets to sick prisoners, and keeping adequate records.
They're considering closing it now, but not because of its abuses unfortunately, rather prisons are apparently more empty now with more vacancies than they need, and some of them sit on property that can be developed in other ways. Plus some people can be fucking heartless when it comes to the question of prison conditions, since they have a cold view of prisoners in general.

CCA is really a slimy outfit, they got a surprisingly strong lobbying arm despite being relatively new to the scene. They even play the whole jobs card, saying that their facilities bring jobs to poor communities (and consequently have clout among unions representing prison employees). Yeah, this even got to pathetic levels one time when you get towns competing for a prison just for its supposed economic benefits (look up "prison towns").

[Klaatu]

There are certain things which should not ever be 'privately-owned,' and probably at the top of the list includes prisons and law-enforcement entities. If you think the Rodney King beating was horrible, just think of what would go on in a private facility, minus public scrutiny. Ask yourself this pertinent question: what if you were falsely accused/prosecuted/sentenced to a private prison, where you receive daily beatings/starvation/demoralization? The public institutions (e.g. Guantanamo Bay) prisons abuse their prisoners this way, and they are subject to public scrutiny... imagine what would go on behind closed doors in a private institution? It makes me shutter to even think about it...

[Crixus]

Both private and state prisons get paid money depending on how many inmates they have. This ends up in prison unions having political connections which ends up in Judges handing out longer sentences and now with private prisons the same scenario exists where it is to the financial advantage of both the prison system and the judges to see people sentenced to draconian terms. Judges aren't legally suppose to benefit from the profits of private prisons but my oh my do they. This isn't to mention labor contracts for what is essentially modern day slavery found in prison manufacturing. Which politicians, wardens and judges fill their pockets handing out those insider contracts? To think it's an honest and open bidding process is absurd but even if it were the prison industry would still be slavery.

The solution is to make the penal system a financial burden rather than a profit making machine. If no one made profits from it I'd be willing to bet only extremely anti-socially violent people would be in prison. As it is now it's a way to profit from the domestic reserve army of labor while making the working class pay for it in taxes while corporate loopholes allow the large capitalist to all but skip out on paying taxes. It's disgusting.

Sometimes when I go on political sites I get a tad overwhelmed with anger. This topic is one such topic. Add social/systemic racism into the mix and we see who's ending up in these prisons but all in all it's the extremely poor of all colors. One way they've fought any sort of collective resistance to this (within the prisons) has been to foster an environment of racism which keeps most of the prison population from attaining any sort of political consciousness. When political or class consciousness IS attained it's usually in an isolation scenario and it's usually a person of color.

On the outside within the community determinism is scorned in favor of free will - it is said everyone in there is free and chose to break the law then the worst of teh worst sociopaths are paraded around in the media in order to justify a 'tough on crime' mentality so the economic forces are all but completely ignored. Anyway, this is just another way capital keeps the falling rate of profit from affecting them. In the end it's the working class who will be in the prisons and it's the working class and the petty bourgeois who will pay for it via taxes. The same with the bank bailouts. Everything they do is to keep profits expanding. War, prisons, bail outs, the creation of the Federal Reserve (money creation/interest rate manipulation/debt creation/inflation), colonialism, imperialism everything.

We're truly in the Matrix being used as batteries for a parasite class.

http://paddyk.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/the_matrix.jpg

[Slippers]

Privately owned prisons? The mere concept makes my skin crawl. :(

Ignorant me hadn't even known those existed.

[Comrade #138672]

That is just sickening.

[MP5]

The really sad thing is the prime minister of Canada good old Harper was looking at privatizing certain aspects of the prison system (as in as much as he could get away with) despite everyone telling him that the US prison system is a failure. That could not possibly be the reason for the new "tough on crime" measures now could it? :rolleyes:

Capitalism is such a joke sometimes that i really do wonder why people even pretend that it's a good system when it's so blatantly every man for themselves.

[Vanilla]

I didn't know that privately owned prisons were even a thing. Jeez, prisons are a shitty enough place as it is... they should be the last things that are privatized. It seems like everyday I find out something horrible about prisons.

[MP5]

That is the exact reason we need to spread information about private prisons. In some states it is so blatantly corrupt that the people who are judges and DA's actually have a share in the prison. Even though the prison get's a certain amount of money from the state for each prisoner. That is one incentive to keep the prison population high and to make sure they convict who they can.

It is sickening that the current Canadian prime minister is even considering it.

[Red Commissar]

It is sickening that the current Canadian prime minister is even considering it.

Much like his counterparts here I'm sure he's trying to pitch it as a cost-effective move. That's the same reason Texas went for it too, along with the usual claim that these institutions are more efficient.

Well, they are more efficient, but not in the way most people would think they are. They turn a profit though on the prisoners more than the state-run prisons do. And what capitalist doesn't like squeezing as much value as they can out of people?

[Turinbaar]

I recommend to anyone interested in this subject Jessica Mitford's "Kind and Usual Punishment," which examines the prison industry, especially it's pretentious claims to be centers of "rehabilitation." By redefining themselves "correctional centers" prisons are able to redefine, and depoliticize what is essentially a system of indefinite captivity saturated with torture and slavery redefined as "therapy."

Mitford traces the origins of the modern prison system, whose philosophy originates from early American christian attempts to reform through religion any and all law breakers. The first prisons consisted of solitary confinement with nothing more than a Bible (which resulted often in insanity and/or suicide). "Prison reform" for that reason is just as old as modern prisons. This process included shifting the language, to obscure its fanatical origins, and to replace it with the vocabulary of clinical psychology. An MIT professor, and theoretical architect of the US system flatly states that his methods of behavioral modification are derived from North Korean brainwashing techniques.

In a nutshell, the modern prison system is a mixture of 1984 and "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest." When considered in its aspect of exploitation, there is simply no industry that is more naked and obscene than the prison system. Everything from the rate of profit (three times the average free world equivalent) set against the pittance wages, to the denial of parol to convict workers that are too important for business, medical experimentation that was actually used by Nazi war criminals as evidence in their own defense at Nuremberg ("the US did it too, why are we being punished?"). In the cold war, the system targeted political dissidents, particularly black militants, and presumably still does.

The primary consumers of prison industry products are College Campuses and the Military. Convict labor is just as indispensable, and infinitely cheaper than immigrant labor. Prisons filled with mostly black urban dwellers are often the only means of employment in rural predominantly white areas. Liberal cries for more funding to create cleaner shinier prisons play into the hands of of an industry interested only in expansion.

The prison system also manages to turn out the most disgusting organization designed for the suppression of the working class - the prison guards union. There is no mafia organization in the world that can match the racket they run.

[Klaatu]

Why is there this big push to "privatize" everything? I will tell you why. There is only one reason why: that is to make someone filthy rich.

Private companies are less efficient and more costly. They must pay taxes, make a profit, and pay their CEOs millions of $$$. Public institutions, on the other hand, do not have these costs associated with their operations. Public-sector organizations are, for these reasons, more efficient and less costly to run than their private-sector equivalents. In fact there are ZERO millionaires and billionaires in the public sector. Just think about that for a minute.

Don't privatize, Nationalize --- Nationalize everything!

[Aleksandr Karelin]

Don't private prisons make up for like 1% of prisons? I remember thinking it was most and then being shocked that it was much lower than a bunch of non fact checking liberals had told me.

[Red Commissar]

Don't private prisons make up for like 1% of prisons? I remember thinking it was most and then being shocked that it was much lower than a bunch of non fact checking liberals had told me.

They're a relatively recent trend in the US, so yeah they're total coverage is still small (though I'm pretty sure they've gotten a bit larger than that), but they are continuing to grow.

1% or 90% it doesn't excuse a shitty trend in the prison system.

[Aleksandr Karelin]

They're a relatively recent trend in the US, so yeah they're total coverage is still small (though I'm pretty sure they've gotten a bit larger than that), but they are continuing to grow.

1% or 90% it doesn't excuse a shitty trend in the prison system.

I am against prisons in general so doesn't make a difference to me, insofar as they all need abolishing.

[cyu]

http://i.imgur.com/TnYZC4x.jpg

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cd/United_States_by_Gini_Coefficient.png

[Jimmie Higgins]

^Wow, looks like the old Jim Crow warmed up some states for the new Jim Crow.

I'm actually a little surprised that California has a lower rate than some of the other states.

[Rusakov]

Much like his counterparts here I'm sure he's trying to pitch it as a cost-effective move. That's the same reason Texas went for it too, along with the usual claim that these institutions are more efficient.

Well, they are more efficient, but not in the way most people would think they are. They turn a profit though on the prisoners more than the state-run prisons do. And what capitalist doesn't like squeezing as much value as they can out of people?

Quite right. Of course, the relative lack of knowledge about how these prisons turn out, combined with the effects of the current crisis, ensures we will be sure to see many more attempts at privatization of prisons. That is, unless information about them is made into common knowledge wherever it might be attempted.

[billydan]

Privatized prisons have worked well for Louisiana

(sarcasm (http://www.nola.com/crime/index.ssf/2012/05/louisiana_is_the_worlds_prison.html))

as a person from Louisiana our prisions are complete shit bobby jindal is shit

[Decolonize The Left]

^Wow, looks like the old Jim Crow warmed up some states for the new Jim Crow.

I'm actually a little surprised that California has a lower rate than some of the other states.

The chart was incarceration by population numbers, so CA has a much higher population than, say, Louisiana, leading to its lower rate.