[Newsbot]

Title: B.C. shackled with private-prison experiment
Category: Law & Order
Posted By: Curtman
Date: 2011-07-25 13:49:30
Canadian

[Curtman]

The chicken little party has shoved us over the slippery slope, and now we're in free fall I guess.

[BartSimpson]

Curtman Curtman:

The chicken little party has shoved us over the slippery slope, and now we're in free fall I guess.

The End is Near because of a prison? Hyperbole much?

[Curtman]

If you're looking for hyperbole, it's ever present in the rhetoric that they use to justify the dumb-on-crime policy at a time when crime rates continue to fall.

[Zipperfish]

Stockwell Day's riding. How fitting.

[sandorski]

This is so stupid. Private prisons have been such a failure in the US that it boggles my mind that we'd even consider them.

[Freakinoldguy]

sandorski sandorski:

This is so stupid. Private prisons have been such a failure in the US that it boggles my mind that we'd even consider them.

I agree. If we're gonna build more prisons they should be Gov't run since everytime they create a "private" facility they generally cost more owing to the fact that it's a profit driven entity.

As for saving the taxpayers dollars, I have my doubts.


Here's an interesting read about the Private Prison system in the US.

http://www.good.is/post/private-prisons ... rk-better/

[Zipperfish]

Well, I've heerd that the US experience hasn't been great. On the other hand, Canada isn't the US. Nothing wrong with a pilot project. Take a risk. See if it works for us.

[Freakinoldguy]

Zipperfish Zipperfish:

Well, I've heerd that the US experience hasn't been great. On the other hand, Canada isn't the US. Nothing wrong with a pilot project. Take a risk. See if it works for us.

If it's anything like BC's privatization of the Ferry and Highways maintenance Systems I can see this costing the taxpayers alot more money than advertised.

[BartSimpson]

sandorski sandorski:

This is so stupid. Private prisons have been such a failure in the US that it boggles my mind that we'd even consider them.

Private prisons in parts of the US have done fine. Others have failed. That's just the free enterprise system at work sorting out the good from the bad.

On the upside of the private prison thing when a private prison screws up it closes and its employees are turned out. With government-run prisons when they screw up then we see decades of investigations, the creation of expensive oversight groups, and the subsidization of the failed prisons coupled with rich pension packages for the appointees who caused the misery.

[Curtman]

Zipperfish Zipperfish:

Well, I've heerd that the US experience hasn't been great. On the other hand, Canada isn't the US. Nothing wrong with a pilot project. Take a risk. See if it works for us.

There already was a pilot project: (from the article)

$1:

Canada's only experiment with a private prison ended badly in 2006 when the Ontario government took back the Central North Correctional Centre in Penetanguishene from Management and Training Corp.

While the private prison saved Ontario money, a study done by PricewaterhouseCoopers found that the province's publicly run ones had better security, better prisoner health care and - perhaps more importantly - reduced repeat offender rates.

[BartSimpson]

Myself, I've often proposed outsourcing selected convicts to progressive places like China or maybe even Burma to reduce costs.

[BeaverFever]

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

On the upside of the private prison thing when a private prison screws up it closes and its employees are turned out. With government-run prisons when they screw up then we see decades of investigations, the creation of expensive oversight groups, and the subsidization of the failed prisons coupled with rich pension packages for the appointees who caused the misery.

No it doesn't these private companies get 99-year contracts and all sorts of immunity. Also, their records are proprietary so there's less public oversight and accountability. The company that owns the prison hires another company to audit it and then a report that says everything is sunshine and roses is filed with the regulator and not open to public scrutiny.

Maybe you missed this article from a couple years ago on PA's "Cash for Kids" Scandal. I recommend you read it. Only in America, folks.

$1:

Pa. Supreme Court Throws Out Thousands of Juvenile Delinquency Cases
By FRANK MASTROPOLO, LAUREN PEARLE and GLENN RUPPEL
Oct. 29, 2009

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled late Thursday that almost all juvenile delinquency cases heard by an indicted former judge must be thrown out. The ruling means cases heard by former Luzerne County Judge Mark Ciavarella from Jan. 1, 2003 to May 31, 2008 are in question for fairness and impartiality.

Ciavarella faces criminal charges that accuse him of taking millions of dollars in kickbacks from owners of private detention centers in exchange for placing juvenile defendants at their facilities, often for minor crimes.

In one reported case, a college-bound high school student served three weeks in juvenile detention for making fun of the school principal on a Web site.

...

Ciavarella and Conahan had allegedly devised a plot to use their positions as judges to pad their pockets. They shut down the old county-run juvenile detention center by first refusing to send kids there and, then, by cutting off funds, choking it out of existence.

They then replaced the facility with a cash cow -- a privately owned lockup built by the judges' cronies -- and forged a deal for the county to pay $58 million for a 10-year period for its use. At the time, Conahan was serving as president judge of the Luzerne County Common Pleas Court, a position that allowed him to control the county-court budget. Ciavarella was the Luzerne County juvenile court judge.


In the judges' original plea deal, they admitted that they took more than $2.6 million in payoffs from the private youth detention center between 2003 and 2006.

http://abcnews.go.com/2020/pa-supreme-court-throws-thousands-juvenile-delinquency-cases/story?id=8952028

[1Peg]

Curtman Curtman:

If you're looking for hyperbole, it's ever present in the rhetoric that they use to justify the dumb-on-crime policy at a time when crime rates continue to fall.

"Reported crime" is down....

[ShepherdsDog]

and it's not across the board. The prairie provines actually saw an increase in violent crime even though property crimes decreased, and it's the violent criminals that need to be locked away. Property crimes and such should be public service sentences.....unless someone is hurt or killed by their crime, intentional or not.