This Isn't Public Safety; This Is Stealing From the Poor to Engorge Rich Corporations

We've all forgotten our Willie Sutton: You tax the fuck out of the rich for the same reason Willie robbed banks: because that's where the money is.

Stealing from the poor just impoverishes the rest of us.

Think Progress:

With federal action expected this summer to regulate the cost of prison phone calls, the National Sheriffs’ Association announced they may “significantly limit or eliminate altogether” the right of prisoners to make those calls.

Incarcerated people and their families — who are disproportionately low-income — have fought for decades against the often exorbitant rates charged for a phone call home by companies that hold exclusive contracts and provide kickbacks to the jails themselves.

In 2013, they appeared to win a major victory when the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) passed an interim rule to cap the cost of calls between states at 25 cents per minute — meaning 15-minute calls that used to be as high as $17 could no longer cost more than $3.25. In announcing the change, the FCC said the current fee structure is “unjust and unreasonable.”

But this reform has sparked a revolt from those who benefited financially from the old system: the prison phone industry that makes more than a billion a year in profits, and the state and county governments that get “commissions” from those calls that they use to pad their budget. In some states, commissions make up as much as 94 percent of the cost of the call, funneling millions of dollars to cash-strapped local jurisdictions.

Deborah Golden, an attorney with the DC Prisoners’ Rights Project, told ThinkProgress she views these commissions as “another tax on poor people and people of color.”

Privatization Kills: Detainees Are Slave Labor in Private Prisons

Erik Loomis asks: What 13th Amendment?

Outstanding Ian Urbina story on the exploitation of people held in immigrant detention centers. The immigration detention system serves as a nearly unpaid labor force thanks to the privatized prison companies controlling the prisons:

SNIP

Last year, at least 60,000 immigrants worked in the federal government’s nationwide patchwork of detention centers — more than worked for any other single employer in the country, according to data from United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement, known as ICE. The cheap labor, 13 cents an hour, saves the government and the private companies $40 million or more a year by allowing them to avoid paying outside contractors the $7.25 federal minimum wage. Some immigrants held at county jails work for free, or are paid with sodas or candy bars, while also providing services like meal preparation for other government institutions.

Unlike inmates convicted of crimes, who often participate in prison work programs and forfeit their rights to many wage protections, these immigrants are civil detainees placed in holding centers, most of them awaiting hearings to determine their legal status. Roughly half of the people who appear before immigration courts are ultimately permitted to stay in the United States — often because they were here legally, because they made a compelling humanitarian argument to a judge or because federal authorities decided not to pursue the case.

“I went from making $15 an hour as a chef to $1 a day in the kitchen in lockup,” said Pedro Guzmán, 34, who had worked for restaurants in California, Minnesota and North Carolina before he was picked up and held for about 19 months, mostly at Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin, Ga. “And I was in the country legally.”

It's almost too easy to make the case that corporations - a form of business disdained by the Founders, who refused to countenance their existence in the Constitution - are the source of virtually all the evil in this country today, and the primary anti-democratic force undermining our republic.

 

How Kentucky Stopped Using Private Prisons

Don't give the Justice Cabinet too much credit for this one; state officials let the horrific abuses at private prisons go on far too long, and still won't release the data showing how much money taxpayers wasted on privatization.

But here's hoping other states learn that you can reverse privatization.

Mike Wynn at the Courier:

For decades, Kentucky officials looked at private prisons as a cost-effective solution to an inmate population that exploded under “tough on crime” policies inthe 1980s and ’90s.

Even some critics of the industry acknowledged a need for private facilities as Kentucky’s incarceration rates soared past most other states’ and consumed an increasingly larger share of the state budget — more than $487 million in 2012.

But this month, as the Department of Corrections cuts ties with the largest prison company in the country and moves all remaining inmates to publicly run institutions, Kentucky’s 28-year venture with for-profit prisons is ending with a mixed legacy.

Officials say recent penal reforms and declining prisoner counts are behind the state’s decision not to renew its contract with Corrections Corp.of America, a Nashville-based firm that has operated three private prisons and held thousands of inmates in Kentucky since 1998, most recently at the Marion Adjustment Center in St. Mary.

“Our decision wasn’t based on an opinion of private prisons,” said Kentucky Justice Secretary J. Michael Brown. “CCA was a great partner. We could not have operated without that partnership while our (inmate) population was trending up.”

CCA estimates that it has saved the state millions of dollars — 12 percent to 24 percent in corrections costs, according to an industry-backed study — while employing hundreds of workers and boosting local economies.

"CCA estimates that it has saved the state millions of dollars."  No state documentation, of course, because it's not true. And those jobs are minimum wage, no-benefit, high-turnover dead-ends, unlike the good state jobs at public prisons.

Still, critics argue that outsourcing a key function of government to a private company raised significant issues, including criminal charges of sexual misconduct, poor health care and lawsuits at the CCA-run Otter Creek Correctional Center in Eastern Kentucky.

 No, not "sexual misconduct:" rape of inmates. Not "poor health care:" sick and injured inmates ignored to suffer and die.

It's happening in every private prison in the country, because that's how private prisons work.  They cannot make a profit unless they neglect and abuse inmates, under-pay untrained staff and rip off the taxpayers.

If Kentucky can finally throw out the motherfuckers, any state can.

The Price of Privatization

Higher costs, less service, worse results: why would any local, state or federal government choose to turn public services over to a private company when it always means the taxpayers get screwed?

Because providing good service to taxpayers is not as important as lining the pockets of campaign-contributing corporations.

The real genius of giant corporate criminal CCA is that it takes the one public service which state governments perform worse than any other ... and do it even worse.

karoli at Crooks and Liars:

The ACLU has a deeply disturbing report about deteriorating conditions in Ohio prisons after Corrections Corporation of America took over.

This is what privatization looks like:

CCA took control of Lake Erie Correctional Facility on January 1, 2012, and the problems started almost immediately. Officials in Conneaut, Ohio – where the prison is located – were surprised to learn they may be on the hook for policing the facility because state law prohibited the highway patrol from so investigating crimes in this no-longer-state-owned building.

Conneaut taxpayers were not keen on CCA and the state passing the financial burden onto them, and despite the community successfully lobbying the state to change this law last year, Conneaut is still saddled with increased responsibility for policing Lake Erie.

Unfortunately, this is not where the problems end.

In September 2012, the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections (ODRC) released its first internal audit report. If this was CCA's first report card, let's just say they would need to repeat the semester. The compliance rating plummeted from the 97.3% compliance rating the prison achieved when publicly-owned to 66.7%. Auditors found outrageous violations like prisoners being forced to use plastic bags for defecation and cups for urination because they had no running water for toilets. Basic conditions were heinous, with black mold, standing water, and spoiled food found throughout the prison. Perhaps even more troubling were reports that the medical department is grossly understaffed and many prisoners go untreated.

CCA is a very, very large contributor to Republicans, particularly the Republican Governors' Association. In 2012, it contributed $225,000 to the RGA, because Republican governors like to give them business. In 2010, the year Kasich was elected, their own report shows that corporate contributions were $722,200. Of course, they were able to bury these in the state-by-state breakdown they published following the totals, because the RGA is a national committee and doesn't break down by state.

This is what happens when public duties are handed off to for-profit corporations. According to CCA's most recent quarterly report, their contract for the Ohio facility is an initial twenty-year term with unlimited options to renew.

As the ACLU report warns, if the CCA wants to manage prisons in your state, just shout NO, over and over and over. Also, it might be good not to elect Republican governors.

When your governor and state legislators start babbling about "saving money" by firing public employees and contracting with a private company,  think about having to shit in plastic bags because there's no water.

Prison Deform

I've been reading the Washington Monthly for more than 30 years, and while its passion for neoliberalism has led it into some nasty conservative traps before - welfare deform at the top of that list - this piece takes the cake.

Right-wing operatives have decided that prisons are a lot like schools: hugely expensive, inefficient, and in need of root-and-branch reform. Is this how progress will happen in a hyper-polarized world?

No, of course not. What a stupid question.

There is no conservative "war on prisons."  There is a conservative war on government-run prisons, and a conservative war on all non-white, non-Xian, non-straight prisoners.

Sure, conservatives would like nothing better than to fire all the government-employed prison guards and set free all the Aryan Brotherhood lynch mobs.

But when it comes to keeping dusky-hued, muslim and/or gay prisoners in the privatized hellholes run by corporate criminals like Corrections Corporation of America, conservatives are all about wasting as many billions of tax dollars as possible.

Yes, we desperately need massive prison reform as close as we can get to tearing the whole stinking edifice down and starting from scratch.  The only way to do that is with trillions of dollars in anti-poverty programs, education, substance abuse treatment, drug legalization and a huge expansion of social services.

But that's not what we're going to get if we let conservatives take the lead and set the rules.

Seriously, Monthly: Do you not, after the overwhelming evidence of the last four years, accept the fundamental truth that conservatives are interested in two things only:

 - establishing permanent white xian male supremacy

 - diverting all tax dollars to rich, white, xian males.

Interpreting conservative claims and efforts through any other lens is political malpractice and terminal naivete.

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.

Save Money: Let State Employees Do the Job

Kentucky's last attempt to let a private corporation run essential public services * ended predictably - said corporation stole/wasted millions of taxpayer dollars - so I'm glad to see the state lawmakers are at least skeptical about the state's newest attempt to waste money by paying a corporation to do work state employees used to do and should still be doing.

We've all been so brainwashed by 30 years of "government is the problem" bullshit that we've forgotten that the sole and entire purpose of privatizing government responsibilities is to enrich corporations at the expense of middle-class taxpayers.

It is always cheaper and more effective to pay public employees to do it, and do it right.

Case in point, from Firedoglake:

The new Sheriff of Hernando County, Florida, is continuing in the ways of his predecessor. After Sheriff Nugent uncovered widespread neglect of maintenance at his county jail, which had been run for 22 years by CCA, he took over operations and estimated he could save more than $200,000 per year by operating it as part of the department (which should have been operating it all along).

New Sheriff Al Neinhuis went a step further. He is actually http://www.tampabay.com/news/localgovernment/hernando-sheriffs-proposed-budget-cuts-less-than-county-requested saving the county more than a million and a half dollars just this year, compared to what CCA would have charged to operate the facility. And he’ll do it better.

* Edited for clarity.

Quote of the Day

From The Rude Pundit, regarding the coincidence of California prisons being at 200 percent capacity while Corrections Corporations of America saw its California contracts soar in value:

Yeah, whenever there's some horror occurring to the poor and disenfranchised, you can bet there's a profit motive somewhere.

Kentucky Sentences 400 Women to Sexual Assault

No, not for sexual assault; to sexual assault.

A day after Hawaii announced it will pull inmates from a troubled private prison in Wheelwright, Kentucky officials said the state will keep more than 400 female inmates in the facility despite allegations that several prisoners have been sexually abused.

Kentucky public safety officials said Wednesday that the state will keep inmates at Otter Creek Correctional Center because Corrections Corporation of America — which runs Otter Creek — has agreed to make improvements to ensure inmate safety.

The Department of Corrections is currently negotiating its contract with the Nashville-based private prison company. Otter Creek houses both Hawaii and Kentucky inmates.

Hawaii officials announced Tuesday at a legislative hearing that the state has already removed 40 inmates from Otter Creek and the remaining 128 Hawaii prisoners will be moved to other facilities by the end of the month.

Both Hawaii and Kentucky have launched investigations into sexual abuse of female prisoners by guards at the facility. Several guards have been charged with sexual assault over the past several years and the Kentucky State Police plan to present another alleged sexual assault case to a grand jury soon.

SNIP

Last year, Kentucky paid CCA $8.1 million to house an average of 431 inmates.

SNIP

An investigation into more than a dozen possible sexual assaults at the facility is still ongoing, Brislin said. If the department is not satisfied with changes at Otter Creek, the state has a 120-day “out clause” in its contract.

In July, when the state of Hawaii started investigating claims by Hawaiian women at Otter Creek that they were being raped, Governor Linda Lingle said the state had no other place to keep those female prisoners.

Lingle noted the costs involved in housing the prisoners in Hawaii. "It's a concern because there's no where to put them," she said. "If there's a desire to bring prisoners home -- whether they're male or female prisoners -- we're talking about hundreds of millions of dollars that we don't have right now. ... We don't have a facility right now where we can house them."

And yet, barely a month later, Hawaii is removing all 169 of its women prisoners from Otter Creek.

To force a republican governor to spend millions to transfer a bunch of criminals who complained about bad treatment, that investigation must have found some pretty bad shit going on.

But hey, Kaintuck wimmins is tuff. Do the crime, do the time. Be thankful it's just rape; in Saudia Arabia it'd be 100 lashes, too.

Read the whole thing.

Cross-posted at They Gave Us A Republic ....