Should we pass a Constitutional Amendment outlawing the use

[Uncle Joe]

Poll question: Should we pass a Constitutional Amendment outlawing the use

of a for profit prison industry?

To my way of thinking if a society isn't willing to pay via taxation for adequate facilites to house its' prisoners then perhaps that society either has too many draconian laws on the books, sentencing based on justice have greatly diverged or both.

This column by William Fisher is well worth reading to get a firm grasp of the issue, four paragraphs doesn't allow me to give it justice.

http://www.alternet.org/story/151540/3_months_in_juvie_for_a_myspace_joke_how_the_for-profit_prison_industry_locks_up_more_people_each_year?page=1

(snip)

It wasn't until two years later that she found out why. In Scranton, Pennsylvania, two judges pleaded guilty to operating a kickback scheme involving juvenile offenders. The judges, Mark Ciavarella Jr. and Michael Conahan, took more than $2.6 million in kickbacks from a private prison company to send teenagers to two privately run youth detention centers. Since 2003, Ciaverella had sentenced an estimated 5,000 juveniles. Conahan was accused of setting up the contracts. Many of the youngsters shipped off to the detention centers were first-time offenders.

(snip)

The juvenile detention center Hillary was sent to was a private, for-profit facility run by one of the more than 50 companies operating in the five billion dollar private prison industry.

(snip)

Ironically, it's the federal and state criminal justice systems that produce the private prisons phenomenon and create the opportunity for private operators to capitalize. What they are capitalizing on is America's obsession with handing out long prison sentences out of all proportion to the crimes committed.

(snip)

Judith Greene, a policy analyst with Justice Strategies, a nonprofit sentencing-reform advocacy group in New York, says, "Profits by no means created the machinery of mass incarceration, no more than defense contracts invented war, but the huge profits to be made by incarcerating an ever-growing segment of our population serves the system very well."

"Profits oil the machinery, keep it humming and speed its growth," she adds.

[GodlessBiker]

1. Sure, and right after that we'll pass a Constitutional amendment requiring those cities which have

... mass transit systems to run them between the hours of 12:00-4:00 in the morning.

I mean, do we really have to manage things like this on a constitutional level?

[Uncle Joe]

4. Why not? The existence of such a malignant industry threatens our democratic republic.

If anything requires a Constitutional Amendment to drive a stake through its' heart, the for profit prison industry does or over the long term, it will only grow stronger and as it does, our "representative government" can only grow more estranged from the people and thus become weaker.

The American People will become hostage to their own nation, we already hold the world record for the number of "documented" prisoners at 2.3 million, here in the "land of the free" why on Earth should allow a profit motive!?

That kind of system is totally dysfunctional.

[MineralMan]

2. That's not what Constitutional Amendments are for.

Truly.

[IndyPragmatist]

3. You are exactly right

But the real problem is that there is a demand for these for-profit prisons. We are locking up so many people, states aren't able to keep up with the construction of prisons. We have some in Indiana because our public jails are overcrowded and it's hard to get people to support the construction of prisons.

Let's work on not locking so many people up first, that would likely take care of the problem on its own.

[Uncle Joe]

6. That problem is directly related to the politicization of the justice system, lack of

political courage and poor budgeting/taxation policies.

True justice gets boiled down to the simplistic statement of "who or which party is tougher on crime"?

[Uncle Joe]

5. Not true, Constitutional Amendments are for protecting the people from their government, whether

you count the Bill of Rights, the abolition of slavery, the end of Prohibition or empowering the people as did the XVII Amendment allowing for the direct election of Senators.

[RaleighNCDUer]

7. The 14th amendment abolished the traffic in human beings.

This would do the same.

When the purpose of the prison system is to make a profit, it is no longer concerned with the law. People, even criminals, have a right not to be sentenced into slavery.

[Cleita]

8. Yes, and a for profit military. You could pass one

amendment naming all industries that shouldn't be for profit and that should be run by a state or federal agency. I think it would change the landscape of this country immensely. Okay, lets start with prisons and military, and then add health care access, education, transportation, communications(access to internet, radio, basic TV and basic telephone) and utilities. It works for me.

[RC]

9. The idea behind private prisons is so that

they don't need to depend on tax payers to pay for them, because the plan is to imprison every one that doesn't roll over for our rich overlords.
In other words, there won't be enough tax payers left to support state run prisons, let alone public anything. The prisons will support themselves through prison labor. No workey, no eatie.

[NYC Liberal]

10. No. And we should not have a for-profit prison industry.

We do not need a Constitutional amendment to reform the prison system.

[Uncle Joe]

11. If we shouldn't have a for profit prison industry and you don't pass a Constitutional Amendment

outlawing it, how would you get rid of it or keep it from coming back?

[NYC Liberal]

12. By that logic, all important legislation should be passed as Constitutional amendments,

because they could be repealed otherwise. (Amendments can be repealed too, though.)

[Uncle Joe]

13. Not all legislation, but that which threatens our democratic republic or constitutes a morphing

21st century version of slavery should have a more difficult Constitutional Amendment hurdle to prevent its' resurrection, by your logic perhaps we didn't need a Fourteenth Amendment?

This industry literally threatens the American Peoples' freedom and the stronger/wealthier it grows, so will the threat as its' ability also grows to corrupt the political and judicial systems via lobbying and bribery.

The concept of a for profit prison system is totally dysfunctional and anathema to any nation that claims to value freedom for its' people.

[bemildred]

14. You need to broaden it:

"All functions of government shall be owned and operated by the government." or something along that line, ownership being the key idea.