Heh.

"Live free or die."

- License plates made by prisoners

"Get busy livin' or get busy dyin'" - Best prison quote *ever*.

@octavious - I think in prison it's other men who might like a bit of rough, or smooth, I hear they're not fussed.

I visited a friend in prison only yesterday and was reading their in-house paper while I waited. I was really surprised that HIV inmates are denied condoms. Sex in prison happens and in the UK there is no specific law against consensual sex, so denying condoms seems odd. I wondered if it was a safety risk, can you kill someone / yourself with a condom?

It's a source of labor even cheaper than immigrants. Just ask China...

But really...it has become a privatized industry that used to be run by the government. As a private industry it needs a source of goods to make money...hence they help (or buy off) legal officials who will help increase the prison population...even for the most minor offenses.

Free availability of condoms makes life hard for the guards. You can hide small things where the sun don't shine without damaging them (mobile phone components, drugs, cash) if you put them in a condom first.

Well Maniac you certainly couldn't stuff it over someone's head like a plastic bag. I don't know what else you could do with them.

Even so, StA, you'd think HIV patients would be allowed to have them.

"My boy says he can eat fifty eggs, he can eat fifty eggs!"

Best prison movie ever. Shawshank is great, but it doesn't touch Cool Hand Luke.

"What we've got here is (a) failure to communicate"

Nah, *this* is the best prison quote ever^
_____

As for the topic at hand, I've never really though specifically about the economics of the prison industry, but I'm not surprised. No wonder marijuana is still a Schedule I drug. A lot of rich people lose a lot of money if all the stoners get cut loose.

Exactly my issue, Gun. Though it has more to do with the range of punishments for crimes like DUI or other things that endanger lives that are just blown off while a recreational drug that does nothing to anyone else gets hit so hard. If marijuana were punished so harshly *but* DUI was given an accordingly harsh punishment, I'd accept it all the same.

False, crappy argument. When industries/prisons are Government run, you think nobody has a financial interest in keeping them open and thriving? Uhhh...sorry, the prison industrial complex exists whether or not it is privately run or government run. When private, an operator has a financial motivation to keep costs down, and run them well so they can keep their contracts.

When government union run, there are *zero* incentives for low cost operation, as long as you can threaten the public with the release of violent inmates and squeeze more money out of the frightened public...just like schools do with millage increases (or else we can't educate your kids...blah blah blah...) Liberal Unions - the Bastions of Fear Mongering...

I don't know what post you're responding to, krellin. The government doesn't threaten to release top-security inmates if prison funding isn't high enough. I haven't ever heard of anything like that in this country at least.

Here's what I've heard plenty of:

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/05/30/mississippi-sued-over-for-profit-prisons-that-risk-imates-death-and-loss-of-limbs/

For-profit prisons are just plain wrong. The prison system is a pillar of our justice system, and as such needs to remain in government hands. Personally, I would like to see more state control in the justice system as a whole, but frankly it's not a hot button issue for me. I'd also look to make prisoners more productive. Why the hell did we get rid of chain gangs? Prisoners should not get A/C and cable TV. Hard time means hard time.

That's a schizophrenic position, Gunfighter06. Either you want prisoners to work and tacitly support the current system, or you don't want then to work and would oppose things like chain gangs and even the very criteria that they should be "productive." You can't have it both ways.

I honestly don't know enough to make an intelligent decision either way. On the one hand, making prisoners work must be beneficial to morale and ideally teaches them a trade they may be able to use on the outside. Also less time for them to be selling drugs and fighting each other. On the other hand, is that what prison is for? Do we want near-slave labor in our prisons, even if the intention is good? Does this system then create an incentive for more prisoners to keep up with the demand for whatever product is produced or service performed?

It's a tough issue, and unfortunately one that's been captured by ideology.

@ Maniac

Condoms are only an effective prevention of STDs when used correctly and responsibly. I cannot think of a single group less likely to use condoms properly than the prison population. I strongly suspect that offering condoms will simply make matters worse by encouraging relations between the clean and the infected that are just one slip up from disaster.

A better option may be to have the prison doctor offer a confidential service in which he can certify the STD status of two consenting inmates, allowing clean couples to get up to what they wish... or indeed infected couples for that matter.

Still, for all the jokes about showers, I don't think sex in UK prisons is all that common. Not with other people, anyway.

Bo-Sox...the government ABSOLUTELY DOES threaten to release inmates. No...strike that...in Michigan, we *frequently* have early inmate releases because of budget issues.

Once again, you just have *no* fucking clue what you are talking about.

Gun-Fighter...the notion that "government" prison are *not* for profit is just a lie. Uhhhh...the government profits from prisons, actually...they squueze money out of the tax-payers, and pump it in to their prisons, which are full of government union employees....totally incestuous relationship. Michigan in past years has *requested* inmates from other states to keep our government prisons open and full.

YOu - as so many around here - have no fucking clue what you are talking about.

This notion that government = non profit, while "strictly" speaking is a true statement in that they are not "a business", is 100% false in the reality of the fact the governments grow to a size...and never want to shrink, regardless of actual need...and in fact always seek to grow. Further, the governments never seek to cut costs, and always make all sorts of threats about how the people will be harmed if budgets are ever cut.

So..."for profit" in that they seek to make a profit to return to investors? No...government are not for profit. For profit in that they seek to enrich the unions that run them, and/or enrich the politicians intricately wrapped up in their existence (you know, the politicians that profit from the campaign donations and kick-backs from those profitting from the government organization)

So....as any ood liberal does, I am **changing** the definition of "for profit" to include government entities, that *absolutely* seek to profit and enrich the government workers, regardless of the value those workers provide to the tax payers.

And...prisons provide little to zero value to tax payers....they *house* convicts until such time that they are released back to society, worse for the wear, unable to participate in society, and the doors will be wide open to accept them back in. Prison do **nothing** to rehab prisoners, or prepare them to reenter society. So...as a revolving door that turns people out WORSE than they were admitted, prisons *damage* society more often than help...and they do this at an exorbitant cost to society/tax payers.

So....I'd rather someone openly admits they are a business seeking profit, instead of pretending they are someone different, and seek to minimize costs, instead of always increasing costs....especially since the end result....prisoners coming out to society worse than they enetered...will be no different in either case.

What is the case FOR governments running prisons? What good does the government do as the owner of the inmate warehousing and training system?

'Why the hell did we get rid of chain gangs? Prisoners should not get A/C and cable TV. Hard time means hard time.'

Unless that is not what prisons are for.

'What is the case FOR governments running
prisons?'

Perhaps there can be a measure of 'social good', or social profit, that prisons should bring - apart from offering a feeling of security to the public (confidence that violent offenders aren't allowed out in public) the arguement could be made that prison should be about rehab/re-education and not punishment. Actually this idea isn't all that modern, but if you establish a prison as a system for behaviour modification and it can turn people into tax paying members of society, then this is a social profit.

This is not the case for privately run prisons which are making a profit from the service they provide the state - the current system pays per prisoner per day. So if you subscribe to the notion that prisons should help reform prisoners then you need to alter this business interaction somewhat.

I would advocate for zero prison time for non-violent offenders (with community service and victim restitution programs, along with excluding white collar criminals from working in the industry which they defraud) and a decent set of diagnosis of frontal lobe activity/damage for viopent offenders - because individuals who can not physically control their violent urges (those suffering from certain types of frontal lobe problems, either damage or developmental) should not be allowed back into society, but should have permanent medical treatment.

I think that would leave a tiny fraction of people in the prison system - being those who can control themselves but choose not to - which may leave them in a psychopath/sociopath category; but i don't know that there is any treatment possible at present for these pathologies.

But Krellin is entirely right about organisations (governmental or not) wanting to grow and never give up any ground (in this case customers) reform is not gong to he easy.

The case for governments running prisons? A major responsibility of a government is maintaining a system of justice, or which prisons are a part. Why not have companies run courthouses too? If we got rid of inefficient due process requirements things would move along much more quickly. I hope you catch my sarcasm. As bad as the current prison system is, I don't think the answer is blanket privatization. What right does a company to deny me my liberty? I didn't vote for any of the executives.

Yes, they release them early. Maybe I'm just misreading what you said, but it seemed to me as if you were implying they used violent criminal release as a lobby for more funds. Which they probably do, but not in the way I was imagining when I first read it.

It's not to say that these prisoners are just let out of prison and walk off. They are often on parole, sometimes they get house arrest time, etc etc. Some are technically still inmates that have electronic monitoring and are tracked in person 24/7 and go right back to prison if they do something out of the ordinary. One might argue that such a program actually costs more than simply shoving those funds into the prisons, but I don't really know enough on those grounds to speak on it...

@ Invictus

"The case for governments running prisons? A major responsibility of a government is maintaining a system of justice, or which prisons are a part."

Exactly. But my position isn't schizophrenic. The government should be able to save money wherever possible, including forcing prisoners to work. This is neither cruel nor unusual and is therefore constitutional as long as the prisoners are treated humanely (not forced to work when sick or injured, reasonably safe working conditions). Obviously, the exact kinds of work would have to be carefully selected. Preferably, something physically demanding, reasonably safe, productive, and something that is to the benefit of the whole population instead of just one particular sector. There would be room for corruption in such a system, which is the downside.

Privately run/owned prisons are bad. Cushy prisons are bad. Inhumane prisons are bad. I also agree that well-behaved prisoners should be allowed to hone a particular vocation if the prison can make accommodations easily.

Just because you say it doesn't make it so. I have a feeling that the reason we don't have chain-gangs or yards where prisoners break rocks anymore is exactly BECAUSE courts have found such practices unconstitutional. Now, you may disagree with that interpretation, but once there's a ruling that pretty much settles things.

What is the value to the community of breaking rocks? (other than the idea that hard work is good for the soul?)

And gun, why not have them doing intellectually demanding work?

There is no reason to create labor camps. That's closer to Stalin than anything. Unless the labor is something remotely useful (such as creating license plates in New Hampshire I believe) there's no reason to force them to do so, and certainly not under inhumane conditions. Sorry, but the world you live in today refuses to take on the blame for improper treatment of people, even prisoners and even people that we find "uncivilized."

@Krellin - the case for govt prisons is as follows. The govt should set a criteria for how it wants its prisoners to be treated. Should they share cells, have excercise time, association time, access to healthcare, 3 meals a day, telephones in their rooms, sky TV, broadband etc...they should also, of course, be secure.

The govt can then either fund a prison's budget to pay for all of these OR it can offer it out to contract. But if the govt pay the same amount out to a private supplier who needs to make a profit only say 95% of the funds go to the prison, the other 5% goes to shareholders. This means the prison has to cut back on some of the requirements you stipulated as being necessary. The only way a private company can provide the same service for less is if somehow they become more efficient. There may be an argument to say state prisons are over manned and not efficient, but you can change that without necessarily privatising them.

Sorry Maniac, I don't buy any of that. I'm sure krellin will make the point better than I so I'll just wait for him.

@ Maniac

"telephones in their rooms, sky TV, broadband etc"

What the fuck?! It's PRISON, not a goddamned hotel! Reading and writing material for well-behaved prisoners (plus yard time for all prisoners) should be the maximum amount of entertainment/technology allowed.

@ Invictus, orathaic, bo_sox

I'm just saying that prisoners are just sucking money from the government when they sit in prison all day and don't do anything. I'm not advocating Stalin-esque gulag work camps, but some reasonably hard labor (under humane conditions) isn't too much to ask. Prisoners are a resource and should be used as such. Of course, they should be compensated for their efforts in some way (access to better food and other small rewards, work towards early release in some cases). There are tasks out there that are reasonably challenging but not menial and not unproductive. Like I said, humane working conditions (8 hour days, 30 or 15/15 minute breaks, not forced to work when sick or injured, limited work in inclement weather, et cetera)

Also, I would not be opposed to intellectually demanding work in certain circumstances. There are smart prisoners out there who would be of more benefit to society if they did a smart person task.

All I'm saying is that prisoners shouldn't sit on their asses all day watching cable and surfing the Internet. Make them do productive shit.

Also, I imagine many prisoners would rather work for 8 hours than stare at a whitewashed wall for 8 hours.

If you want to give prisoners some kind of work in order to establish a means to reintegrate them into society once their sentences are up and they come out of prison, then I will back what you say to no end. However, if you simply want to get use out of people in prison, then no, there is way too much opportunity for failure (and, by the way, for lawsuits).

In Norway (wonder who's gonna be the first to say "liberal dirtbags"), they set up their prison camps like colonies. The prisoners work together to sustain their mini civilization. They have the skills they need to do that work and when their time is up, they've learned (or retained in longer sentences) the skills to figure things out in the world and potentially get a job again somewhere. And, in terms of their prison life, the reward is that they live comfortably, they eat well, and they live in subsistence so that everyone is responsible for one another. That's how a prison should operate. It deters future crime by helping criminals figure out how to live without it and it rehabilitates them so that they are in form to help in the real world when they get out.

In Norway, how much to the guards/authorities assist in sustaining the prison colony?