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...nor iron bars a cage. (photo: miss_millions)
A new study by the state of Arizona shows that private prisons end up costing the state more than public facilities. From the New York Times:
The conviction that private prisons save money helped drive more than 30 states to turn to them for housing inmates. But Arizona shows that popular wisdom might be wrong: Data there suggest that privately operated prisons can cost more to operate than state-run prisons — even though they often steer clear of the sickest, costliest inmates.
[...]
Despite a state law stipulating that private prisons must create “cost savings,” the state’s own data indicate that inmates in private prisons can cost as much as $1,600 more per year, while many cost about the same as they do in state-run prisons.
The idea that private companies were going to somehow find a radically more efficient way to do something as basic as holding and feeding criminals in a secure building was always pretty much pure fantasy. Private prisons end up having the same basic cost structure as state-run prisons, but with the added cost of the private prisons needing to make a profit.
In actuality, the increased cost to the state of using private prisons is probably much higher than you see with any study that simply does an inmate-to-inmate price comparison.
Private prisons are huge businesses that only exist because of corporate welfare from the state, and their financial success is wholly dependent on keeping incarceration rates high. Allowing private prisons creates a massive lobbying force whose interests are to use the money they are paid by the state to lobby politicians against criminal justice reforms. Such reforms could radically reduce incarceration rates, saving the state huge amounts of money, but hurting private prison profits, so the private prisons have a massive incentive to use the state’s money to fight against the state’s overall financial interests.
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Great catch, thanks.
At what point are people going to realize that there is no possible way that you can provide the same level of service as the government does for a lower price if you have to make a profit. It cannot and will not happen. That is why roads, mail, schools, and other essential services are public and not private (which was tried in the early days of the Republic)
I just love it when we’re right.
the idea that the market is going to come up with a radically more efficient way to effectively people people in a cage is pure fantasy, the logic of keeping so many Americans in cages is a whole other issue as well though.
There’s no class that teaches that, huh? Oh, right. Critical Thinking. Hi Dick.
We tried a private penitentiary at Alton here in Illinois in 1833. When it closed in 1860, with the prisoners moved to Joliet, it was deemed an abject failure. Now they want to try it again? Guess those of us who know our history really are condemned to watching others repeat it.
are you still here?
and any profit feeds the greed monster
“The idea that private companies were going to somehow find a radically more efficient way to do something as basic as holding and feeding criminals in a secure building was always pretty much pure fantasy.”
Faced with facts, they lie. Reality continues to exhibit its librul bias.
I think the original concept (or the original “selling point”) was that private prisons wouldn’t be subject to the same wage and benefit costs of public prisons with unionized work forces. However, the money saved on the labor side just migrated across the balance sheet to the column marked “profits and dividends”.
Since many of these private prisons are new or near-new, I’d love to see a cost comparison on construction costs, esp. with respect to amounts saved/allegedly saved by the state not having to build the new facilities themselves.
One thing I know here in CA is that sooner or later we’re going to have to replace San Quentin and Folsom, which are both very old (think SQ is well over 100 years) and deteriorating to the point where both upkeep costs and physical safety issues are going to get out of hand soon.
Or Econ 101.
Being right isn’t worth much unless you are effective. This country is in a fast downward spiral. You will be left with the hollow satisfaction of “I told you so.”
Private prisons were never about saving money they are for profit and an excellent way to launder and recycle the illegal drug profits that are used to build them.
I see even less of an incentive to fix the existing problem of prison-based gerrymandering when prisons are privatized (May 10, 2011).
I predict new laws allowing private-sector prisons to feed inmates only once per day, disallow hot water, sell off old weight equipment and put them to work as telemarketers to line the pockets of the masters^W owners. They are bound by law to save money, after all.
Yep, everything old is new again. Three strikes seems too lenient, how about one strike.
I bet Heritage is already working on a proposal:
Making America Competitive (one more brown convict at a time).
and then we’ll get this:
http://www.economicpopulist.org/content/tennessee-convict-war
The public has been trained to be so afraid and angry, they are more than happy to trade their own self interests for barbaric retribution.
War, its not just for foreigners anymore!
link didn’t work..
http://www.economicpopulist.org/content/tennessee-convict-war
Private Prisons are terrible, and a national disgrace. They cut corners on everything related to operations, from maintenance and staffing to medical care for prisoners. They pay their guards less, are less secure, have higher rates of violence, and even cherry-pick which inmates come to their facilities, avoiding costly prisoners like high-security ones and those with major medical or mental health issues. But even after all this, they don’t save money, and cost taxpayers more. The push to privatize prisons is nothing but governments handing out contracts to wealthy donors who consistently fail to live up to their contractual requirements.
For way more on this despicable industry, check out http://whyihatecca.blogspot.com
You missed the fact that two judges in Pennsylvania are going to prison for bribes they took to send juveniles to prison instead of probation.
Amazingly to me, there has been absolutely no follow up on what bribes the same private prison corporation paid to other crooked judges.
Only one state had two criminal judges? Juvenile court judges got millions.
How much are the criminal court judges drawing down?
Funny that Holder at “Justice” department doesn’t seem to know what the RICO law is for.
Let’s please not call locking people up in inhumane conditions a “service.”