Maniac...you are wrong -- the government *does* set standards for how a prison is run, regardless of whether it is government run or privately run.

As for your assertion that is a company pockets 5% of the fees to run a prison, and therefore some things are being taken away, that is *ridiculously* false.

By your assertion, every company that makes a Widget has the exact same cost. Not true...different businesses run different ways.

For example, a large prison corp could streamline the payroll and administrative and payroll systems to reduce overall costs of non-guard/security type activities. They could leverage their cross-state industry to secure lower food prices and other commoditites, that a single state-run system can't do....i.e. economies of size bring about a reduced cost.

I'd argue a well run private prison corporation can provide a *higher* level of protection at lower costs.

This isn't even getting in to the *union* aspect of a government run industry, where salaries are set by an incestuous government-negotiating-with-government system...

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

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/feb/25/norwegian-prison-inmates-treated-like-people

That's the intro I had to it (though I heard the story a few years ago so this wasn't the exact article, but it details the same prison I read about). I don't know too much more than that and a contrasting article that I can't find, but you'd probably have no trouble looking one up.

I was in a Stasi prison in Germany and I was stunned at how some of the cells considered "nice" under the Stasi reign were actually really similar to a typical prison cell in the United States. The lone difference is that those cells in Germany were stone with barred windows while, as you know, we have cells of metal bars here. (Of course torture cells in Stasi prisons were way way crazy compared to the "controversial" torture cells here, but there are times when I see similarities between that surveillance state and the one maybe developing here now.)

@Maniac ... many of them aren't in visitation range of their families. Phones are just so that they aren't essentially in confinement from their loved ones, which really is a form of torture, and one of the most painful, albeit slowly.

@krellin ... private prisons *can* provide higher levels of protection and lower costs, but the fact is that they don't. If all businesses were trustworthy when it came to that, people wouldn't have so many issues with them. Anyway, prisons are part of our judicial system. Allowing corporative influence in courts is obviously frowned upon (though I'd argue it happens anyway at a much reduced degree than in the prisons), so why allow it in prisons? Makes no sense.

@ 'Prisoners are a resource and should be used as such. '

No, as soon as you start thinking of people like property, like a resource to be exploited... The whole world sucks a little bit more. That is all.

@ '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.'

I bought a bike, in the UK, last year from a prison workshop - prisoners learning bike repair skills and turning old broken bikes into useful products. It may not be very profitable (there is a oretty bad market for second hand bikes) but life skills which could earn employment is a definite positive - turning rubbish into a sell-able product is also good from a environmental point of view.

"No, as soon as you start thinking of people like property, like a resource to be exploited... The whole world sucks a little bit more. That is all."

Why? They have shown disdain for society, so society *should* consider them a resource to be used.

Depends of the prisoner. For most society should have at least one eye on rehabilitation. I'd treat them as a resource until the final couple of years or so, at which time they should be prepared to return to the world.

Lifers can be worked to death for all I care, and a rope left in the cells in case they decide they've had enough and want to save the public a bit of money ;).

Draugnar - no, if you use them as a resource, you create unfair competition for legitimate businesses that DO respect society and play by the rules. Why should government profit from the ill deeds of others at the expense of honest, hard-working businessmen?

You are a programmer...how would you like if the prisons found themselves full of programmers and took jobs away from you because they can code for $1/hr while serving time for drunk driving, spousal abuse and hacking?

Orange Is The New Black

Prisoners should be learning life skills, getting intense therapy and being re-educated to re-enter society, since 95+% of them WILL be back out on the streets again.

Heard an interview with the Orange is the New Black author. Says the show is nothing like her experience....big surprise.

Watched one episode. I was not compelled to come back to it.

@krellin - You put them to work in jobs people don't want to do anyhow. Forget undocumented workers working on farms or for less than minimum wage, give those jobs to inmates and the UWs won't bother coming across here in the first place.

"jobs people don't want to do anyhow" is a liberal lie.

People won't work when undocumented workers work them for cheap. Pay the right wage and Americans will work the jobs. Witness:
Garbage men
The guy that cleans your septic systems
OK...pretty much any guy that works with human waste in any form...plumber, porta-potty guy, etc.

Plenty of disgusting jobs that nobody would do unless the wage were right.

As for the agricultural jobs that American's "won't take"....BULLSHIT. People PAY to pick their own fruit! I try to go blueberry picking once a year, for example...I PAY to do the jobpeople claim Americans won’t do? See the problem here with the liberal media lie?

So the problem is an unfair wage…not the jobs…unfair wages steal jobs from Americans.

People run manufacturing in America…prisoners making license plates is a basic machine shop – you are saying Americans won’t run a machine shop?

Here is an idea. This is the season of blackberry and apple pies where you can just go pick them in the wild and have free food. How many people are getting meals from food kitchens.
Here's the plan. We get prisoners to cultivate waste land to grow food and plant loads of fruit trees. Then when the time is right they harvest them and provide for the poorest and most deserving in that community. If they have planted fruit trees in public places people can just pick them for themselves. Why pay good money for stuff you could be getting for free?
Whole areas of wasteland could be orchards or allotments, whatdoyouthink?

@krellin - So the company pays a fair wage to the prisoner (still only menial labor that can be done under close supervision). But the prisoner only sees what is left after taking out a housing allotment and a food allotment and a clothing allotment and laundry and... You get the idea. The prisoner is then self sustaining. The armed forces do it. I had all my pay direct depositied into an account in boot camp. I had access to it at the base store to buy toothpaste and soap and polish for my boots and such. Do something similar. Make them be self sufficient and let them have use of the excess at a prison store with prison approved goods like toilet paper.

The world throws out about 50% of the food...we are not at a shortage of food to feed people (another Liberal lie). Our problem is capturing the food in a proper distribution system.

Forgotten Harvest in Detroit is one of the best charities out there to reclaim food that would otherwise go to waste...daily pickups from restaurants, grocery and stuff that otherwise would be thrown out goes to their kitchens.

So what countries are throwing out all of the food?

The US throws out more than enough alone to make up for a chunk of many other non-wasteful countries.

I didn't know liberals said that food was short because we don't have enough... I'm pretty sure most say that food is short because it's distributed unevenly through the wealthy 10% with the expectation for some godforsaken reason that those 10% will funnel it through the other 90% and no one will starve. Wasted food is a big part of the problem in the top 10%.

But that's beside the point and for another thread.

@Draug/GunF ... prisoners are not resources. That, just like the private prison industry, creates a demand for prisoners. That's the exact thing that we ought to strive to be rid of completely. Prison is not a business, nor is it an industry or a place reserved for a class of people.

There should be two kinds of prisons - the American high-security prison and the Norwegian rehabilitation prison. The American high-security prison would, in theory, constitute maybe 10% of prisoners (maybe that's too high, give or take a few %) that committed the notoriously violent crimes: assault, rape, murder, etc. These are issues that anyone with half a conscience knows aren't just reprogrammable like some are. The Norwegian rehabilitation prison would cover 90% of prisoners, allowing the misdemeanors and small felonies to pay off their debt to society in prison, and once they are safely rehabilitated, by helping in the community with service and odd jobs or whatever else. Beyond that, they could be sent back out into the real world, regain all of the liberties that were taken away from them, and allowed to live their lives again with their family and friends supporting them the whole way like good family and friends would do.

A similar monetary system like you suggest wouldn't hurt, Draug, but be mindful that you can't just send them out into the world with absolutely nothing. Instead of simply giving them access to it, teach them to wisely and vigorously *save* the money they've accumulated during their sentence so that they have something when they get out again if their assets were frozen or they just didn't have jack shit or whatever.

There's no demand for prisoners. A lot of people are criminals.

Then I guess the United States just breeds criminals. Take one side or the other.

The United States imprisons a higher percentage of it's population than anyone other country in the world. I guess Americans are just naturally more criminal, eh?

Possibly. I can't count that out. It's likely a complicated issue with a multitude of factors - culture, age demographics, and family structure being prime candidates.

But ultimately people decide for themselves to engage in criminal behavior. If the prison industry were responsible for the crime rate, then we'd see an increase in the crime rate with the rise in the number of prisons. Instead we see a decline. The US crime rate has declined by quite a bit since the early 1990s.

Privately run prisons exist because states pay them a lower rate per prisoner than they spend themselves. Companies go into the business know what their rate of return will be and then cut costs to improve their profit line.

However this results in poorly run prisons where escape rates are higher and prisoners get more injuries that aren't treated. Boy I'm glad I don't live near one in Arizona because this really happens here.

Or you have the Maricopa County Prisons in Arizona that gets publicity for chain gangs for men and women, pink underwear, and having prisoners live in tents in 100 plus degree weather while housing injured dogs in air conditioned prison cells. They also get sued annually for prisoner deaths caused by guards because insurance pays for million dollar claims.

The injured dogs didn't harm society so 'scuse me while I extend a middle finger to the inmates and say "*WAH*. Whiny ass bitches.

Krellin - if state prisons are inefficient because of their payroll administration then change the system, there is no need to privatise them. What also happens when you privatise an industry is that govt sets up an oversight body which adds another layer of management adding yet more costs.

Efficiency is not linked to ownership, more to quality of management. If this were the case all of the big banks and multinationals would be super-efficient and of course we know that is absolutely nonsense.

@ Bo-sox "@Maniac ... many of them aren't in visitation range of their families. Phones are just so that they aren't essentially in confinement from their loved ones, which really is a form of torture, and one of the most painful, albeit slowly."

The prisoner I was visiting has 2no 2hr visits per week with upto 3 people per visit. I accept that prisoners should retain contact with loved ones especially as this is important to cutting re-offending rates. My astonishment is that the phones are in the cells and could be used 24/7 if the prisoner paid the cost. I thought phones would be in public areas (so no phone sex) and limited to 10mins a day or something.

Phone sex? Who cares if they have phone sex? Nothing comes from that. As long as I don't know about it (or by chance hear it), doesn't matter to me.

Phones are practically a human right nowadays. They are nearing universal usage around the world. Internet will probably reach that plateau within 20 or 30 years. If they listen to phone calls (prisoners sacrifice their liberty), there is no reason at all that they can't have their own phones.

@Maniac - sorry, your "government can be more efficient, too" argument is just ***stoooooo-pid*****. No need to even explore that ridiculous statement.

As for "another layer of oversight" if you privatize -- that layer *already* exists so the government can MONITOR ITSELF!

There is no evidence that the crime rate is reduced by increasong the number of prisons - correlation does NOT imply causation.

@'The US crime rate has declined by quite a bit since the early
1990s.'

I believe the trend goes back further than the 90s, but also that most developed nations have seen a reduction in their crime rates - take the UK as a large urbanised nation with similar culture (ok, not all that similar, but it's impossible to find a perfect match) the crime rate in the 90s may have started out lower than the US average and ended up lower, but the general trend was a reduction.

The US prison population may keep increasing due to life sentences given as part of the three strikes rule - i'm not sure how big this impact is.

@krellin 'sorry, your "government can be more efficient, too" argument is
just ***stoooooo-pid*****. No need to even explore that ridiculous statement.'

Actually, i think you'll find it more than vital to explore why government is inefficient and how to target this inefficiency. Your solution seems to be privatisation, and this may have advantages from which the gov can learn. Though it sounds like it also has disadvantsges, at least according to this threae...