Maine considers private prison bill

[harvey007]

Source: Boston Globe

AUGUSTA, Maine—Prospects of building a privately run prison in the economically depressed town of Milo appear to be gaining momentum with a new administration in the State House and legislation being prepared to pave the way for such a project.

Republican Sen. Douglas Thomas' bill has yet to be fleshed out, but it's clearly aimed at authorizing a prison in the Piscataquis County town of about 2,400, which has a double-digit unemployment rate and has been buffeted by a loss of businesses not to mention devastating fire in 2008 that wiped out a third of its downtown.

"If there's a chance of getting 100 good-paying jobs, I'm interested," said Thomas, of Ripley.

Read more: http://www.boston.com/news/local/new_hampshire/articles/2011/02/06/maine_considers_private_prison_bill/

[Davis_X_Machina]

1. I expect massive tax breaks and subsidies...

...followed by an empty prison, and ultimately a deadweight loss to the Maine taxpayer.

The free market can be expensive.

[Newest Reality]

2. Private prisons REQUIRE prisoners!

Good luck with your inspiration for more Draconian laws, Maine. The people will pay the tab in many ways for the addition of those 100 jobs, since taxes will compensate the profiteers and the effort to keep those cells full will infiltrate your system.

Oh, and be sure to get a corporation to set-up shop in the private prison so that your imprisoned citizens will have jobs that will be pure profit to the company. Profit must be had.

[TheDebbieDee]

3. By all means, give people an incentive to imprison more people!

We are already a prison nation..............

[Skip_In_Boulder]

4. Yeah, let's make locking people up a for profit business

That's a good idea.

[Odin2005]

5. Bad news for Maine.

[Maine-ah]

12. bad news hit Maine last election

with a republican governor that was elected with only 38% of the vote due to a three way race. Mitchell should have dropped out, which would have put Cutler in office instead of LePage.

[jmowreader]

6. I know a quick way to solve THIS bullshit...

Put Republlican Senator Douglas Thomas on a plane for Boise and let him spend the night in the Idaho State Pen, which is run by Corrections Corporation of America, Everyone, from the prisoners to the guards to the family members of the prisoners and the prosecutors who send people there, refer to this institution as the Idaho State Gladiator School.

[JDPriestly]

7. I do not understand the economic basis for privatizing government work

and then counting the jobs that are transferred from the government to private control as "new" private jobs.

This is economic cannibalism. The private sector is simply eating the public sector for profit. This does not create private jobs. Cannibalizing public work does not increase the productive capacity of the country or substitute for real innovation, the real creativity that the private sector has brought to the American economy in the past.

I think that the US is now functioning on autopilot, like a priest repeating the exact same sermon at the same mass for the thousandth time. The economists have been taught that free markets function best, that privatization is somehow the ultimate good. But devotion to that theory does not translate to anything real in the economy if all that is happening is that the work that used to be done quite competently by public servants is now being done either equally competently or in many cases less competently by private employees -- often by temps or poorly trained people at lower pay than the public servants used to get.

It makes no sense in terms of developing a better economy.

[Uncle Joe]

14. But it does create a bribery/lobbying feedback loop either to the Congress or state legislatures.

The publics' tax money pays for these private, for profit enterprises and the politicians can then get stroked for keeping it going.

The politicians create more draconian laws, increasing the number of prisoners, more prisoners = more profit as the private for profit prisons' wealth increases so does their ability to lobby/bribe politicians, the American People are the big losers in this scam.

[indimuse]

8. gee..now there's a way/reason to create jobs...build PRIVATE PRISONS!

HA! makes you wonder.....

[crim son]

9. I'm sure our new governor Le Page will be 100% behind this proposal.

"Maine, the way life should be." Not.

[Maine-ah]

13. gawd...he's a douche.

[groundloop]

10. BAD Idea.

There are certain functions that just don't make any sense for the private sector to operate. First off, the contractor running the (prison/water system/toll road/parking meters/red light camera/park - pick one) will jack up prices and cut wages and benefits to employees in order to increase their profit. Prisons are an especially risky endeavor, there's jut way way too much incentive for abuses (c'mon sheriff, we'll give you $100 for every scofflaw you bring us).

ALSO, each and every time the republicons manage to give public property to their business friends it's gone forever. Little by little they're giving away America.

[lonestarnot]

11. mmmm. Brewer doing business with Maine now egh? We're all prison guards now.