The Private Prison Racket Evolves - Interstate Prisoner Transfer For-Profit

California is making history this week by transferring dozens of prisoners out of its overcrowded institutions, and out of state, into private institutions across the country. These are just the first handful of transfer candidates out of more than 2500 who will soon be on their way out of state. There are approximately 70000 more who may be removed from California due to overcrowding and budget shortfalls. The first batch of prisoners was moved to Tennessee, but the rest could find themselves in Arizona, Oklahoma, or Indiana instead. More facilities in other states are ramping up to offer the same service to California and other states.



The sea-change has been underway for some time, but this is a major development in the advent of a corrections system dominated by private industry. It won't be long before more states get in on the action, and start accepting prisoners from overcrowded institutions across the country.

Will all of America's prisoners eventually end up in a handful of states? Does this violate the rights of prisoners to be kept near their families, in familiar surroundings? How will this affect their relationship with their legal representation? Will these private prisons be at all accountable to the taxpayers who support them? Those are just a few of the issues from the perspective of the individual prisoners.

More pressing is what this means for the country as a whole. If we privatize the prison system and do away with a de-centralized corrections network, we run the risk of having all our eggs in one basket. Obviously it's not a foregone conclusion, but I can imagine riots and disruption on a massive scale if a prison-break turned into ten prison breaks in a matter of hours due to the proximity of the facilities, a flood of inmates let loose. The private companies will be thinking first of their profits, and that may mean fewer guards, cheaper construction, or some other cost-cutting measure that could endanger the surrounding population. There are a whole host of other concerns, too numerous to mention, having to do with long-held conspiracy theories and fears of government oppression, all of which spring to the forefront of my mind when I read a story like this.

Related AboveTopSecret.com Discussion Threads:
(business) Business Boom For Private Prisons (moved from ATSNN)
Sometimes You Don't Get What You Pay For - American Prison Study

[edit on 4-11-2006 by WyrdeOne]

[edit on 4-11-2006 by WyrdeOne]

I wonder how long it will take for this to take the same route as the healthcare sector.

Its not uncommon for people with medical insurance to be sent to India or other places around the world to have specific operations and treatments because its cheaper to send them over there and have it done then to have the operation or treatment in the US.

How long will it take before prisoners are shipped over to other nations around the globe because they provide cheaper or more profitable methods of imprisonment?
With free torture and descease infestations as a bonus.

Heck, if a prisoner escapes, he won't even have to try to get out of the country, hes already out :p

What about penetentiary leave, early release, apeal hearings, etc, etc, how can you posibly keep these things fair and square when its more profitable to keep the prisoners there? And I don't mean more profitable for society, but more profitable for the corporations involved in the privatized prison system.

But hey, wait, Gitmo, secret CIA prisons and prisoner transports in eastern europe, afrika, the middle east, oh yeah, they are already shipping prisoners all over the frigin world!

Hrm, I wonder why noone is even commenting on this article.

Indeed, thank you for mentioning a very important point. The next step is to ship these people out of the country, and that's wrong on so many different levels. Exile is one thing - for certain crimes I completely endorse that punishment. But simply moving criminals out of the country so that private companies can increase their margins even more, that's terribly unethical.

As to why this story might not get much attention...

It's an unfortunate fact of life that real conspiracies generally get very little attention.

They're not as sexy as some of the more outlandish theories, and because they lack that element of entertainment, they don't entice people in the same way.

I could have sworn I posted an article about this about a week or so ago. Couldn't find it again. If you look into this you will see quite a few former government employees as the board of directors for the company that is having prisoners transferred from California via Gov. Shwarzenegger. They have prisons all over the world that they maintain. South Africa, Great Britain , and several US states. Its quite a business so it seems. Seems kinda like these movies we used to have that were based on Sci-Fi or Fantasy have come true.


Pie

PieMan, if you go to www.abovetopsecret.com... you can see all the threads you've started. It also works if you want to see all the posts made by someone else, just fill in the member name.

I checked your list and didn't see anything on this story (I was going to post a link here for people to check out) - are you sure you posted something?

If you're sure you posted an article about this story, I'd be happy to look into the reasons for that post's dissapearance.

[edit on 5-11-2006 by WyrdeOne]

[edit on 5-11-2006 by WyrdeOne]

[edit on 5-11-2006 by WyrdeOne]

Originally posted by WyrdeOne
PieMan, if you go to www.abovetopsecret.com... you can see all the threads you've started. It also works if you want to see all the posts made by someone else, just fill in the member name.

That link didn't work for me.

I checked your list and didn't see anything on this story (I was going to post a link here for people to check out) - are you sure you posted something?

If you're sure you posted an article about this story, I'd be happy to look into the reasons for that post's dissapearance.

Thanks Wyrde. You don't have to trouble yourself. I could have sworn I did post it though because I remember posting links to the site for the Company that ran the prisons and I remember the article coming out about a week or so ago in regards to the California transfer. Maybe the server crashed as i posted it? No biggie! I didn't mean to interrupt your thread. I'll just contribute to yours.


Pie

You know I heard something about this a long while ago, over 2 yrs 3 maybe.

It was something cant remember if it was a documentary or something on the net... Anyway it went something like this.. going from memory.

They say that everytime someone goes to prison the higher ups get stocks in their names or something like that. Some people they keep in prison for a long while or something to have access to these funds..

Anyway something like that, I cant remember because it wasn't my thing back then.

WyrdeOne nice post, thanks for bringing this to light for us.

hey Pieman she was spelling your name out..

Click on anyones name and you get a link like this.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Try it click on my name or yours.

[edit on 11/5/2006 by ThichHeaded]

Indeed, thanks to thichheaded for pointing that out.

I just forgot to put .html at the end of the link.

Its aight, I am glad to help..

Anyway back to topic.

I'm waiting for the lawsuits. I can see it now. A prisoner's family sues the State of California over the hardship imposed on them because they can't afford to travel to visit the prisoner. Somewhere there is a lawyer drooling.

This development is indeed worrisome.

What's the strategy here?

Centralize corporate business and decentralize government?

Originally posted by soficrow
This development is indeed worrisome.

What's the strategy here?

Centralize corporate business and decentralize government?

Nope. The strategy is to save money. Why should California pay for building prisons and employing the people to operate them when private industry can do it cheaper? I don't agree with it.

There is a trend in industry to hire people through a temp service versus hiring them with a probationary period. If the person doesn't work out then the company isn't on the hook for unemployment or a wrongful termination suit. If the person does work out then they are hired from the service.

California is going one better. By contracting for prisons they don't have to worry if there is a sudden drop in the numbers of prisoners. Look at what happens anytime governments try to cut employees, it becomes a political mess.

Originally posted by JIMC5499

Originally posted by soficrow
This development is indeed worrisome.

What's the strategy here?

Centralize corporate business and decentralize government?

Nope. The strategy is to save money. ...

There is a trend in industry to hire people through a temp service versus hiring them with a probationary period. ...

California is going one better. By contracting for prisons they don't have to worry if there is a sudden drop in the numbers of prisoners.

Call it effiuciency or whatever,

You are defending the centralization of public services, provided control is given to corporations and according to the terms of corporate law.


.

Originally posted by soficrow

You are defending the centralization of public services, provided control is given to corporations and according to the terms of corporate law.

I am defending nothing. I am just answering your question.

Originally posted by ThichHeaded
They say that everytime someone goes to prison the higher ups get stocks in their names or something like that. Some people they keep in prison for a long while or something to have access to these funds..

I heard something like that too, but in the version I got, the higher-ups take out life insurance on prisoners.

Sounds apocryphal.

Originally posted by HarlemHottie
[I heard something like that too, but in the version I got, the higher-ups take out life insurance on prisoners.

Sounds apocryphal.

Google "Key Employee Insurance". I don't think it has gotten around to prisoners yet, but some companies (including mine) take out life insurance on their employees that the company is the beneficiary of (yes I have one on me).