Inmate shortage causing for profit prisons to lose money

[The Straight Story]

Second in a two-part series on private prisons

The country with the highest incarceration rate in the world — the United States — is supporting a $3 billion private prison industry. In Texas, where free enterprise meets law and order, there are more for-profit prisons than any other state. But because of a growing inmate shortage, some private jails cannot fill empty cells, leaving some towns wishing they'd never gotten in the prison business.

It seemed like a good idea at the time when the west Texas farming town of Littlefield borrowed $10 million and built the Bill Clayton Detention Center in a cotton field south of town in 2000. The charmless steel-and-cement-block buildings ringed with razor wire would provide jobs to keep young people from moving to Lubbock or Dallas.

For eight years, the prison was a good employer. Idaho and Wyoming paid for prisoners to serve time there. But two years ago, Idaho pulled out all of its contract inmates because of a budget crunch at home. There was also a scandal surrounding the suicide of an inmate.

Shortly afterward, the for-profit operator, GEO Group, gave notice that it was leaving, too. One hundred prison jobs disappeared. The facility has been empty ever since.

http://www.npr.org/2011/03/28/134855801/private-prison-promises-leave-texas-towns-in-trouble

[xchrom]

1. Recommend

[freshwest]

3. More good news...

[patrick t. cakes]

2. debtor prison...

coming to a small town near you.

[dbackjon]

4. Clearly we need new laws so we can have more law breakers

Or better yet, send Wall street there

[TheDebbieDee]

5. GOOD! I hope all those "bastids" go out of business.

Prison time should be reserved for dangerous and violent offenders........

[Liberal Veteran]

6. Surely Texas, Wyoming, and Idaho have enough republicans to keep it full?

[mindwalker_i]

7. This sounds like a really good time to mention

That there are a whole bunch of wall street CEOs that could fill those jail cells and get the economy going again :evilgrin:

[starroute]

8. One town near us turned an old prison into an art museum

Of course, that was a charming old stone building in the center of town. I don't suppose concrete monstrosities out among the cotton fields would be as suitable. Still, we ought to be able to come up with recycling ideas...