Csteele

Apologies, I read the end of the your thread and felt I should respond to Squeers.

Back to your topic.

Privatising prisons is yet another import from the USA we could do without. Public utilities should never be part of the for-profit sector - it is a conflict of interest between the well being of the prisoner for any chance of rehabilitation and the money to be made by keeping prison populations high and long-term.

In addition, like so many privatised enterprises, it still receives government subsidies. More examples of privatise the profits and socialise the losses.

The masses continue to be screwed.

Csteele and Ammonite,
I am conscious that I'm hard on the US and it's certainly true that Australia's no better. But the US set's itself up as a force for good in the world, sanctimoniously preaching freedom and democracy on the world stage when these are just hollow rhetoric. The incarceration rate is just one indicator that American imperialism is rotten.
It's surely true <that if the policies of a government taken as a whole result in a long-term increase in the proportion of us citizens behind bars then it should be seen as a failure> The fact that the vast majority are black is a further indictment. The US ought to get its own house in order before it preaches to the rest of the world.

Dear Ammonite,

All your concerns about privatisation of prisons are really valid.

The State of Texas is an extraordinary example of where things have gone entirely off the rails.

By the end of the 1990’s and George Bush’s governorship the state had an annual growth rate in its prison population of over 11% throughout that decade.

One in 20 adults were under the control of the justice system either through direct incarceration, parole, or community based orders. The figures are even more damning for young black men where one in every three was under some form of supervision.

Yet over the same period crime only dropped by 5% compared to the national average of 10% and California’s decline of 23%.

But why the huge increase in incarceration with a falling crime rate? The answer may well be here.

“At least 37 states have legalized the contracting of prison labor by private corporations that mount their operations inside state prisons. The list of such companies contains the cream of U.S. corporate society: IBM, Boeing, Motorola, Microsoft, AT&T, Wireless, Texas Instrument, Dell, Compaq, Honeywell, Hewlett-Packard, Nortel, Lucent Technologies, 3Com, Intel, Northern Telecom, TWA, Nordstrom's, Revlon, Macy's, Pierre Cardin, Target Stores, and many more. All of these businesses are excited about the economic boom generation by prison labor. Just between 1980 and 1994, profits went up from $392 million to $1.31 billion. Inmates in state penitentiaries generally receive the minimum wage for their work, but not all; in Colorado, they get about $2 per hour, well under the minimum. And in privately-run prisons, they receive as little as 17 cents per hour for a maximum of six hours a day, the equivalent of $20 per month. The highest-paying private prison is CCA in Tennessee, where prisoners receive 50 cents per hour for what they call "highly skilled positions." At those rates, it is no surprise that inmates find the pay in federal prisons to be very generous. There, they can earn $1.25 an hour and work eight hours a day, and sometimes overtime. They can send home $200-$300 per month.”

Cont..

Cont..

“Thanks to prison labor, the United States is once again an attractive location for investment in work that was designed for Third World labor markets. A company that operated a maquiladora (assembly plant in Mexico near the border) closed down its operations there and relocated to San Quentin State Prison in California. In Texas, a factory fired its 150 workers and contracted the services of prisoner-workers from the private Lockhart Texas prison, where circuit boards are assembled for companies like IBM and Compaq.”

“[Former] Oregon State Representative Kevin Mannix recently urged Nike to cut its production in Indonesia and bring it to his state, telling the shoe manufacturer that "there won't be any transportation costs; we're offering you competitive prison labor (here)."

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8289

Why don’t we call it what it is, legalised slavery. There are indications of its horrors in the annual staff turnover rates of the private prisons contracted by the State of Texas. It is 90%.

However I don’t think it is a coincidence though that during Bush’s governorship he passed the two largest tax cuts in the State’s history and the per capita spend of Texas is still the lowest in the nation.

My state of Victoria is a case in point. A relatively stable incarceration rate started climbing after Jeff Kennett was elected and by his second year when his cuts were starting to bite it was already 10% higher. At the end of his term they were over 25% higher but under the Labour Premier Bracks they continued to climb, even accelerate reaching a high of over 80 per 100,000 in his last year, a rate that eclipsed anything in the previous 100 years.

We need to be able to hold governments to account for these figures but it is hard to get past the ‘lock ‘em up and throw away the key’ mentality that prevails at election time.

Ammo:”Public utilities should never be part of the for-profit sector - it is a conflict of interest between the well being of the prisoner for any chance of rehabilitation and the money to be made by keeping prison populations high and long-term.”

Not much difference between a prisoner, foster child, and a hospital patient when it comes to profit. Funding depends on all services being well under par since a successful outcome would mean their services are no longer needed or the need is reduced along with the income/funding.

Ammo:”The masses continue to be screwed.”

Yep. The masses should wake up.

Dear Squeers,

While I don’t think a current incarceration rate in Australia of 133 per 100,000 compares with the American figure of 743 but I do note that if the Northern Territory were a country it would be second only to the US and yes the vast majority in this case are black as well.

One might think the NT has historically been a bit of a wild frontier and it certainly had those characteristics when I lived there pre cyclone but the recent increase in rates have been dramatic.

“At 30 June 2010, the Northern Territory continued to have the highest imprisonment rate at 663 prisoners per 100,000 adult population. All states and territories, with the exception of Queensland and the Australian Capital Territory, recorded increased imprisonment rates since 2000. The Northern Territory recorded the largest percentage increase in the imprisonment rate between 2000 and 2010, rising 41% (from 469 prisoners per 100,000 adult population to 663 prisoners per 100,000 adult population). This was followed by South Australia, increasing by 35% (from 113 to 153 prisoners per 100,000 adults). The imprisonment rate in Queensland decreased between 2000 and 2010 (3%, from 167 to 162 prisoners per 100,000 adults), and a slight decrease (1%) was also recorded for the Australian Capital Territory over the same period (from 102 to 101 prisoners per 100,000 adults).”

http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Products/E3ADE4A394878BD1CA2577F3000F0A26?opendocument

While one might do it through gritted teeth there is a reason for tilting the hat to Queensland’s effort especially since it has its fair share of problem areas.