Private Prisons and the Occupancy Requirement

[AgeofKnowledge]

Good points and your history here is correct. What we are desperately lacking in this country is a return to traditional Christian values in which parents raise children in families that model Christ. That's the number one solution to criminalization.

Just as an example statistic, in the U.S. presently 40% of all children are raised in a home without a father. These children then go to rapidly failing public schools where they are taught that it's OK to engage in serious sexual immorality because it's "normal." The social fabric is in rapid deterioration before our eyes. It's no wonder the FBI released a report stating that street gang membership in the U.S. ballooned 40% since 2009 and the material decrease in serious crime we've enjoyed may be coming to an end.

The U.S. is about to have a large wave of fatherless, ill-educated, adolescents come of age that were taught engaging in immoral behavior is normal in the worst domestic labor market since the Great Depression. A great many of them are going to turn to drugs to ease their pain and provide quick "kicks."

That's the social foundation being poured right now in the U.S.. Understand that it's on that foundation, we simultaneously have a problem with overcriminalization for non-violent offenders convicted of offenses that also didn't harm anyone's property.

Although I agree that commercial prisons and contracted occupancy rates can create a situation where the system feels pressured to keep incarceration rates high, the concept of commercial prisons met a very real need at their beginnings. During the 80's and 90's many sentencing guidelines were changed at the legislative level removing the judiciary's prior discretion in sentencing. Likewise along with mandatory minimums in sentencing laws such as Three Strike's Your Out which give extremely long sentences to three time felons, and zero tolerance laws for drug offenders our prison populations soared at a rate that states could not afford to build new prison space quickly enough to keep up with the demand.

Simply put, legislators wanting to give the appearance of being hard on crime made some serious errors that cost the taxpayers a boat load of cash. I have no issue with the idea of extremely long sentences for career violent offenders, but some people get hung on the three strikes laws when their third felony was a DUI and end up locked away for 20 years. Zero tolerance on drug sentencing resulted in a boat load of addicts and small time dealers being locked away while the big dealers and cartels that those laws were intended for are relatively unaffected.

Along come the incarceration corporations to fill a public need but of course they are going to demand a contractual minimum occupancy in order to insure their profitability but those contracts typically do not require the beds to be filled, just that they get paid as if the beds are filled.

 

[AgeofKnowledge]

As things stand right now, you're going to see a lot more of this as a very immoral, ill-educated, increasingly fatherless, and often addicted generation comes of age in a five years to life in state prison environment for a single 1.5 pound batch of pot brownies:

Teen could face life after cops find pot brownies - Houston Chronicle

 

[AgeofKnowledge]

Thousands of non-citizens are subjected to abusive and dangerous conditions in privately run federal prisons in Texas, according to a report by the American Civil Liberties Union released Tuesday.

ACLU: "Shocking Abuse" of Immigrants at Private Prisons | The Texas Tribune

 

[wisebeardman]

Problem is, we should be making it where people won't commit crime for FEAR of prison.

I have said for a long long time, Prisons need to be horrid. You should be forced to work sun up to sun down 7 days a week 365 a year as long as you are in prison. Make prison so hard nobody wants to go. No sitting around watching TV, lifting weights, or playing basketball. You commit crime you do HARD time. if the sun is up you work. sun down you are in the 8x8 box to sleep. refuse to work you don't eat. And there is plenty of work that could be done to keep the criminals busy.

I bet if it was done my way crime would go down.

 

[tinynascarfan]

I just read in another forum here of someone getting sent to jail for "shooting a mail box."

I had to wonder if this is not a result of this corporate adventure into the world of prisons. Just shocking! And what happens if crime does go down. I guess I will not be holidaying in the US in the future!

If it was not the person's own mailbox, they deserve to be sent to jail. If one of my children did that, they would wish the cops would come and get them before I got ahold of them.

 

[tinynascarfan]

It's a growing problem.....and they also charge ridiculous amounts of money for a local call on the prison payphones for people that want to talk to their family.....they squeeze every nickel they can out of the prisoners

The prisoner's need to be paying their own expenses while in jail.

 

[tinynascarfan]

We must not support any mental, economic, or physical harm done to those in prison. In fact, we are called to visit them and show them mercy. A murderer, thief, drug dealer, or any form of criminal is still a living human being who is beloved by God. They are our brothers and sisters. They are the least and the most vulnerable in society,since society despises them. They deserve their time in prison, but we must still show compassion.

I agree that we should not have any mental or physical harm done to prisoners, but economical harm I support, I believe if you murder someone accidently, you should lose everything you have, it should be forfeit and left to the victims family, if that means your family is out in the cold, then you should not have been drinking and driving, or losing your temper, or texting/talking on your phone, etc.

As far as compassion for cold blooded murderers and child molesters go, I have none. I don't want them in prison, I want them in the ground. I hope they repent and find Jesus before they die, but I will lose no sleep at all when they die.

 

[tinynascarfan]

Thousands of non-citizens are subjected to abusive and dangerous conditions in privately run federal prisons in Texas, according to a report by the American Civil Liberties Union released Tuesday.

ACLU: "Shocking Abuse" of Immigrants at Private Prisons | The Texas Tribune

I read it, did you? it's very humorous that the American civil liberties union investigates non-citizens. Just a side point there.

Most of these people are in the USA illegally, and should just be sent back home, but then what, send them home every other day? I have no problem whatsoever with legal immigrants, its the illegal ones that destroy our economy, and take money out of my pocket, that I have a problem with. And if they are living in filthy conditions, they have an option, go back home and stay there.

 

[tinynascarfan]

Problem is, we should be making it where people won't commit crime for FEAR of prison.

I have said for a long long time, Prisons need to be horrid. You should be forced to work sun up to sun down 7 days a week 365 a year as long as you are in prison. Make prison so hard nobody wants to go. No sitting around watching TV, lifting weights, or playing basketball. You commit crime you do HARD time. if the sun is up you work. sun down you are in the 8x8 box to sleep. refuse to work you don't eat. And there is plenty of work that could be done to keep the criminals busy.

I bet if it was done my way crime would go down.

+1
I like your thinking.

 

[kennethcadwell]

I understand your thinking, but having no forgiveness and wishing to see some one dead is also against God way. As to having others pay a penalty, as the family members of one who murders some one should endure as you say, you forget the family members of that person that committed the murder are victims as well.

Forgive others, or you will not be forgiven.

I agree that we should not have any mental or physical harm done to prisoners, but economical harm I support, I believe if you murder someone accidently, you should lose everything you have, it should be forfeit and left to the victims family, if that means your family is out in the cold, then you should not have been drinking and driving, or losing your temper, or texting/talking on your phone, etc.

As far as compassion for cold blooded murderers and child molesters go, I have none. I don't want them in prison, I want them in the ground. I hope they repent and find Jesus before they die, but I will lose no sleep at all when they die.

 

[AgeofKnowledge]

Two problems. The first is that ICE releases enormous numbers of illegal alien convicted criminals right back into U.S. society:

ICE Document Details 36,000 Criminal Alien Releases in 2013 | Center for Immigration Studies

^ This is coming from the top and it's unacceptable even though Obama obviously thinks it is as he's created the climate for it to occur.

Secondly, our jails and prisons are not to be places where people are systematically abused and killed off like Soviet Union and Nazi camps. It was wrong in those places and it's wrong here too when it occurs.

We need to fix immigration and we need to fix our penal/judicial system. They are both broken. Obama's simply made both worse.