Private Prisons Demand States Maintain Maximum Capacity Or Pay Fees

[Purveyor]

Falling crime rates are bad for business at privately run prisons, and a new report shows the companies that own them require them to be filled near capacity to maintain their profit margin.

A new report from the advocacy group In the Public Interest shows private prison companies mandate high inmate occupancy rates through their contracts with states – in some cases, up to 100 percent.

The report, “Criminal: How Lockup Quotas and ‘Low-Crime Taxes’ Guarantee Profits for Private Prison Corporations,” finds three Arizona prisons must be filled to capacity under terms of its contract with Management and Training Corporation.

If those beds aren’t filled, the state must compensate the company.
The report found that occupancy requirements were standard language in contracts drawn up by big private prison companies.

One of those, The Corrections Corporation of America, made an offer last year to the governors of 48 states to operate their prisons on 20-year contracts.

MORE...

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/09/20/low-crime-rates-bad-for-business-so-private-prisons-require-maximum-capacity/

[Kber]

1. Absolutely disgraceful

Not to mention immoral, unconscionable, and disgusting.

For profit prisons are an insult to justice.

Kber

[dmr]

8. +1

Shameful.

[denverbill]

18. There is no morality in capitalism. Only money. That's all that matters.

That's why it's perfectly acceptable to fire every employee you have and replace them with Indian outsourced cheap labor. That's why it's ok to cut your employees hours to avoid paying for their health insurance. That's why it ok to slip pink slime into hamburger without telling customers what you are doing.

[kelliekat44]

2. Another subject for Ed to take on. nt

[woo me with science]

3. Attaching a profit motive to human imprisonment

is evil.

[sabrina 1]

9. Yes, it IS evil, pure evil. It totally makes a mockery of our so-called 'judicial system'.

The response to this should be to end the Privatization of the Prison System.

But in a predatory capitalistic society, that is not likely to happen.

[djean111]

4. Yes, this is the kicker in this sort of thing.

Private prisons, TPP, NAFTA, insurance mandate - our government is now guaranteeing profit at the expense of the citizens, no matter what.

[obxhead]

7. If we don't give them the money

they just take it.

Our corporate overlords will never be happy. When they've taken everything they will demand we create more so they can have that too.

[KamaAina]

5. Just like small-town cops with traffic ticket quotas.

Except, y'know, it's prison.

[FairWinds]

6. And the Private Prison Corps . . .

also lobby hard for stiffer sentences for those convicted of crimes.
It's all part of the logic of the Prison-Industrial Complex.
Works about as well as privatized schools & universities, water systems, armies, etc., etc..
Evil is right.

[FiveGoodMen]

10. Whoever elected to privatized prisons should get life without parole

[Spitfire of ATJ]

11. How about we cancel their contract instead?

[malaise]

12. What a racket

[msongs]

13. any democrat who votes for privatized prisons deserves to be booted from the party nt

[No Vested Interest]

14. A pox on those who advocate for privatizing public assets. nt

[Roland99]

15. Screw them and their fees! It's a free market!

if they can't make a profit unless the prison is at maximum capacity, then they shouldn't be in business!


gee..imagine that.

[Fuddnik]

16. Fill them up with CCA executives and shareholders.

[Brigid]

24. You win.

[Jack Rabbit]

17. This is the best reason not to deal with private prisons

This is an industry that needs to be put out of business immediately, along with corporate mercenary firms like Blackwater or whatever they're calling themselves this week and private health insurance companies whose business plan is necessarily denying coverage to members.

The demand by the private prison industry that states fill their prisons to a minimum occupancy will, of course, have an adverse effect on public policy. The war on drugs is a failure and marijuana should be decriminalized if not legalized? If silly laws like that succeed in filling private prison space, then it is not a failure. Maybe we can start incarcerating jay walkers while we're at it. Perhaps Republicans still trying to justify impeaching President Clinton can push to incarcerate adulterers.

We don't need an industry that has a vested interest in armed conflict; we don't need an industry with a vested interest in denying health care to sick people; and we don't need an industry with a vested interest in lower the bar for what society defines as crime.

[DeSwiss]

19. You can't get any more immoral than this.

- The trading and enslavement of human beings for profit. There is a dark stain of inhumanity upon the souls of all who are involved in this.....

K&R

''When I despair, I remember that all through history the ways of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants, and murderers, and for a time they can seem invincible, but in the end they always fall. Think of it--always.'' ~Mahatma Gandhi

[TheKentuckian]

20. Complete evil

[stlsaxman]

21. "Food related crime" will soon fill 'em back up!

The Commercial Prison Industry was really worried for a while there by pot decriminalization but, sure enough thanks to the GOP cutting 40 Billion from the Food Stamp Program, we can expect a lot more "food related crimes" to make up the difference! Now if congress can just pass a law declaring theft of anything over and including a loaf of bread a felony, they'll really be set!!!

[Brigid]

26. I wonder if the Bastille was a private prison.

[TDale313]

27. Oh, debtor's prisons are making a comeback, too.

[jsr]

22. Sheer, unadulterated evil.

[Brigid]

23. Private citizens demand that these hellholes be closed. Immediately.

[Solly Mack]

25. That's sick.

And society is sick for allowing it.

[WillyT]

28. K & R !!!

[Faryn Balyncd]

29. The criminals running these corporate rackets deserve incarceration.

(as well as any politician who enables this mockery of "justice".

[FiveGoodMen]

31. For a moment, I misread that as 'incineration'

Either way...

[gopiscrap]

30. This is bullshit, there should never be privitation of incarcaration

[Enthusiast]

32. OMG! Kicked and recommended.............nt