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[Mumei]

I just saw today that TPM is doing a multi-part series on the privatization movement; for this topic I'm focusing on the second part about the costs of private prisons.

If you find this topic interesting, you should also read the recent undercover investigative report on a CCA-run Louisiana prison by Shane Bauer for Mother Jones.

It's too long to quote more than a few representative or notable snippets:

Actual housing of convicts in prisons and jails is only one part--perhaps the smallest part--of the overall industry revenue stream. Private companies seek to pull profits from the moment someone is suspected of a crime to the final day they meet with a parole officer. Private industry transports prisoners, operates prison bank accounts, sells prescription drugs, prepares inmate food, and manages health care, prison phone and computer time. And that's just the start. The money comes from the taxpayer, in state and federal contracts, and the suspects, inmates, and parolees themselves, in fees and add-ons. Those caught in the web represent what marketers would call the ultimate “captive audience”: there is no way to shop around for a better deal.

Delivering poor services at a premium price is part of the marketing strategy, says Matt Nelson, managing director of the immigration rights group Presente. “They know that cutting costs, services and training for guards increases recidivism,” Nelson said. “They’re familiar that if you have horrible conditions, people stay in the system longer. They know that the younger you incarcerate, it’s more likely they will stay in the system. They keep customers coming back.”

In the 1820s prisons shifted to the Auburn system (named after a small prison in Auburn, New York), where inmates worked 10-hour days as a means to build values. Southern states expanded this into the convict lease system, renting inmates to private companies for hard labor like coal mining or railroad building. This was a way to extend slavery after emancipation: the majority of all convicts leased were African-American. And it was lucrative for the states: In 1898, nearly three-fourths of Alabama’s entire state revenue came from convict leasing.

But mortality rates were shockingly high, with secret graves often kept at workplace sites. Eventually, the dismal conditions, periodic rebellions, habitual violations of the contract terms by the companies, and resulting public discomfort pushed convict leasing out of favor. Alabama was the last state to formally ban the practice, in 1928.

Stories of cost-cutting are legion, starting with corrections staff. Wages for officers in private prisons are over 20 percent lower than in public ones. Pre-service training is significantly reduced as well, and officers are outfitted with insufficient equipment to deal with prison needs. This creates high turnover and increased possibilities for corruption. But most of all, private prisons simply don’t schedule enough guards to handle the job.

Bond amounts have risen 50 percent over the last twenty years; the median rate is now $10,000, roughly eight months' income for the typical defendant. Bail bondsmen, who receive around 10 percent of the bond price as a fee from the defendant, will simply not come out for less. Cherise Fanno Burdeen, executive director of the Pre-Trial Justice Institute, describes a strategic effort from the American Bail Coalition, the industry lobby, to raise bail rates through state legislatures. The lobbying muscle comes from the twelve insurance companies that underwrite all bail bondsmen in the country. “They work hard to get public outrage associated with low bonds for heinous crimes,” Burdeen said.

As a result, over 450,000 people held in local jails in America are awaiting trial, detained for the crime of being too poor. This wastes billions, dislocates families and increases crime overall; a 2013 study of Kentucky prisoners showed that low-risk defendants were 40 percent more likely to violate the law before trial if they spent just a few days in jail.

Kitchens were infested with maggots and rodents; workers covered a rat-eaten cake with frosting to hide the evidence. In Saginaw, workers reheated and served meat that had been thrown in the trash before they realized there were more inmates to feed.

With pay rates for in-prison work as low as 12 cents an hour, getting money from the outside into prisoner accounts is critical. Securus profits from that, too, with JPay’s market-leading electronic money transfers, which serve around 70 percent of U.S. inmates. JPay charges $6.95 for a $50 money transfer, and makes it easy for prisons to take their own cut before the money gets to the inmate. Once a prisoner is released, they get their balance on a release card, on which is charged high swipe fees. “Account maintenance fees” take down balances by $2.50 a week even without usage. Mega-bank JPMorgan Chase is a release card market leader, along with JPay.

The family detention facilities have been given the grim nickname “baby jails.” Satsuki Ina, a family therapist born in a Japanese internment camp during World War II, visited the facilities in Texas earlier this year, and said it “triggered distressing associations of my own experience as a child.”

tl;dr: The American criminal justice system is already a moral abomination, and privatization just makes things worse.

 

[JustenP88]

Not that this comes up in casual conversation often, but support for private prisons is pretty much a deal-breaker for me as far as having cordial relations with another person (not that there aren't other dealbreakers). It's just so morally repugnant it bothers me that it doesn't make someone else's stomach turn the way it does mine.

 

[Mumei]

It has never come up for me, but it is atrocious. Is there any other 'industry' so directly tied to and incentivized to create human misery and suffering?

 

[mf.luder]

This is so barbaric and gross. The younger they plunk you into the system the better chance you have if being in there longer and there profits go up. Gross that we find this acceptable to do to one another.

 

[AaronB]

That's a public-private partnership. Private firms as a general rule attempt to earn profits, and minimize costs in order to do so. The public side of it forces people to use it and blocks competition. The result is a captive audience that gets squeezed. Yet, most people seem to place the bulk of the blame for the situation on the private sector. That's misguided. It's the government that defines crimes (many of them victimless), arrests and tries people, and then forces them into the prisons. It's the government that is doing this to people, even if they are subcontracting to private firms.

 

[Rembrandt]

Not that this comes up in casual conversation often, but support for private prisons is pretty much a deal-breaker for me as far as having cordial relations with another person (not that there aren't other dealbreakers). It's just so morally repugnant it bothers me that it doesn't make someone else's stomach turn the way it does mine.

I can definitely understand. If I knew anyone was in support of this then we definitely couldn't interact at all.

Private prisons are insanely terrible and its mind boggling that these are around in this day and age.

 

[The Silver]

it still fucks my mind that for profit prisons are a thing that exists, its so blatantly evil

 

[CarpeDeezNutz]

That sounds like a fucking nightmare.

 

[4Tran]

It has never come up for me, but it is atrocious. Is there any other 'industry' so directly tied to and incentivized to create human misery and suffering?

The firearms industry and its relationship to the NRA would be a decent contender.

 

[WedgeX]

Organizations actively profiting off the denial of liberty of individuals is so very terrifying.

Its scary enough that there ought to be a Constitutional amendment about it.

 

[timetokill]

It's a shame the government enables this kind of thing. Absolutely horrifying and inhuman.

 

[Future]

So orange is the new black is actually a documentary

 

[Aztechnology]

it still fucks my mind that for profit prisons are a thing that exists, its so blatantly evil

There's far too many things that are handled by the private sector that absolutely need oversight or should be owned and run by the state or municipalities. There's so many hands in so many pockets and a system that enables it. I feel like we're slowly moving in the right direction and things like this will see reforms. But I feel like it's purely a cultural shift that will take many more decades instead of what is needed now and is being held back by older generations. Getting an issue like this on the docket for discussion much less legislation is nearly impossible. So what do we do? How do we make this something the people can vote on. Navigating the political system is so fucking ridiculous and people are so selfish.

 

[Sho_Nuff82]

With pay rates for in-prison work as low as 12 cents an hour, getting money from the outside into prisoner accounts is critical. Securus profits from that, too, with JPay’s market-leading electronic money transfers, which serve around 70 percent of U.S. inmates. JPay charges $6.95 for a $50 money transfer, and makes it easy for prisons to take their own cut before the money gets to the inmate. Once a prisoner is released, they get their balance on a release card, on which is charged high swipe fees. “Account maintenance fees” take down balances by $2.50 a week even without usage. Mega-bank JPMorgan Chase is a release card market leader, along with JPay.

This quote is extremely fucked up, and then I noticed it's still better than having your savings dip below $2500 at BoA.

So orange is the new black is actually a documentary

Well it was largely written from first-hand experience.

 

[Mumei]

Well it was largely written from first-hand experience.

Are you referring to the television show or the memoir?

 

[BladeoftheImmortal]

Sounds like it should be illegal

 

[Marvie_3]

Private prisons are so fucking wrong. They should be illegal.

 

[Boogie9IGN]

I just wrote some papers on private prisons and the effects of mass incarceration on African-American communities and I gotta say some of the stuff I read was pretty nuts. Private prisons are really, really fucked up

 

[GavinGT]

If you guys haven't read that article OP mentioned, you really should. It'll take you a few hours but it's really something. It's like every TV/movie prison drama come to life. Every conceivable corruption angle is represented.

 

[Mumei]

I just wrote some papers on private prisons and the effects of mass incarceration on African-American communities and I gotta say some of the stuff I read was pretty nuts. Private prisons are really, really fucked up

Is there anything you'd recommend people read?

 

[Maximo]

America the land of the free, always amazed me how the country just lets this happen, gun control and the rise of the private prison industry should be on the fucking top of the list of shit to deal with.

 

[Tall4Life]

That's a public-private partnership. Private firms as a general rule attempt to earn profits, and minimize costs in order to do so. The public side of it forces people to use it and blocks competition. The result is a captive audience that gets squeezed. Yet, most people seem to place the bulk of the blame for the situation on the private sector. That's misguided. It's the government that defines crimes (many of them victimless), arrests and tries people, and then forces them into the prisons. It's the government that is doing this to people, even if they are subcontracting to private firms.

I've researched this extensively myself....for one, there is quite a bit of lobbying from private prison corporations to support stricter sentencing laws like three-strikes and to support mass incarceration in general. And with the contracts, contractors intentionally undercut each other (a race to the bottom, so to speak) so they can be partnered with the government. The government's whole purpose for using private prisons was to save money while decreasing overpopulation (neither of which actually happen). In the contracts, they cut as much as possible while trying to guarantee a certain occupancy (oftentimes this is around 95% occupancy, though numerous private prisons are above even 100% capacity).

In short, its a problem inherent with the capitalistic nature of private prisons. The government doesn't have as much to do with this as you think.

 

[Fat4all]

Federal Prisons are by no means perfect or even all that great, but jesus, the more I hear about private prisons the more I can't believe they exist.

 

[Ether_Snake]

You'd think this would be a bigger issue for the Democrats, you rarely hear them say anything about it.

 

[Elaugaufein]

You'd think this would be a bigger issue for the Democrats, you rarely hear them say anything about it.

Don't want to be seen to be soft on crime.

The tough on crime mentality is moronic but it resonates well since it's a fantastic sound bite while the more complex solutions that reduce crime long term aren't (and it usually takes years to see the decrease).

 

[Tall4Life]

Federal Prisons are by no means perfect or even all that great, but jesus, the more I hear about private prisons the more I can't believe they exist.

Federal prisons are actually pretty good. Decent budget, services, well-paid staff, etc. But private prisons are not designed to replace federal prisons. They are designed to replace state and local prisons which are generally far worse than federal prisons, and their quality as compared to private prisons is relatively difficult to determine (studies often use singular prisons as case studies to generalize for all of their type, lack of accountability in private prisons, etc.), but there are some differences as compared to state and local prisons that are consistent among private prisons: lower paid staff, extensive budget cuts of many services, especially medical and food, etc. You can extrapolate further from that.

Sorry to be a stickler for this sort of thing but I was hammered about confounding federal prisons with state and local prisons when I was doing my research on this and I want people to better understand it