Incarceration Nation

[Deepwater6]

http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2012/03/30/zakaria-incarceration-nation-2/?hpt=hp_c1

 

The above CNN article is about how prisons are big business with the private sector. Possible putting a whole sector of our society through an endless cycle of (in and out) of the system. When inmates do get out, society is set up as to assure it's not easy for them to secure gainful employment.

 

I read an article the other day about how states were trying to make a deal with private sector companies to build and operate prisons, but the companies were demanding a minimum inmate quota. In other words make sure enough people are put away long enough so we can charge the state enough to make this profitable.

 

I understand the private sector can do things for a society that is cheaper and more efficient han government can, but this is over the line for me and not very ethical in a societal sense. I have to agree with the reporter who wrote this piece "for once I agree with Pat Robertson".

 

Does anyone else out there see this as unethical?

[CraigD]

Does anyone else out there see this as unethical?

I don’t believe privately built, owned, and managed prisons are innately unethical, unconstitutional, or illegal, but I do believe they’re more vulnerable to mismanagement and abuse than publically built, owned, and managed ones.

 

In the interest of maximizing profits, the companies that run them will attempt to care for the inmates only as well as necessary to avoid expensive lawsuits alleging criminal assault, civil right violations due cruel and unusual punishment, etc.

 

Judges and other court officers may be bribed by officers of private prisons to unfairly sentence people to them, such as occurred in the “kids for cash scandal”, in which 2 Pennsylvania judges and the person who bribed them pled or were found guilt and given long (13 to 28 year) prison sentences for doing just this.