Un-Privatize Public Service and Save Millions

It's been decades since the corporatizing repugs started the privatization craze, and the evidence is in: all the results show overwhelmingly that handing public service over to private corporations ruins the service and wastes millions of dollars.

Fittingly considering that prisons were the first to be privatized, local law enforcement and corrections officials are now leading the charge to return services to public hands.

From the Courier:

Members of the Kentucky Jailers Association are pushing the state to cancel contracts with a pair of private prisons next summer and transfer some of the inmates to county jails, a move that would also redirect millions of state dollars to the jails.

The jailers say that because the state Department of Corrections pays local jails to house state inmates, the move could help jails across Kentucky reduce budget deficits.

Department of Corrections spokesman Todd Henson said making such a move wouldn’t go smoothly because of the laws governing which inmates may be housed at jails and which must remain in prisons, according to The Kentucky New Era. Not all the inmates at the private prisons are eligible for transfers to county jails, Henson said.

Kentucky’s contracts with Nashville, Tenn.-based CAA for two private prisons expire on June 30. CCA operates the Marion Adjustment Center in Marion County and Otter Creek Correctional Center in Floyd County.

Kentucky pays for Marion Adjustment Center to house at least 794 inmates. It pays $37.99 per day for minimum-security inmates and $47.98 for medium-security inmates.
The state pays for Otter Creek to house at least 600 inmates, at a rate of $44.26 each per day.

That totals roughly $21.6 million each year, at minimum.

Even in that cesspool of corporate destruction, Florida.

WhyIHateCCA at Firedoglake:

Sheriff Michael Page of Hernando County, Florida, is the latest in a line of Sheriffs to inherit the headache that is the county jail. After being operated by CCA for 22 years, the facility had fallen into exceptional disrepair, after CCA had neglected to perform millions of dollars worth of required maintenance. The county took over the facility a little more than a year ago and started the long process of upgrading the security, staff, and conditions of the jail.

Initial projections by then-Sheriff Richard Nugent hypothesized that the county could save up to $200,000 compared to what CCA would have charged. It turns out that de-privatizing the jail has actually saved Hernando County taxpayers more than $1,000,000 this year. Maybe Ric Scott and JD Alexander ought to reconsider their bullheaded push to privatize half the state’s prison system.

Liberals know that public employees always do the job better and for less than corporations with contracts.