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With private prisons, lobbying is likely cheaper and more reliable than innovation. I assume you didn't intend this in a sinister way, but exercise caution whe

• chroma 7y ago
  Isn't my proposal giving prisoners more choice? Right now they have no choice which prison they are sent to. Are you worried that some private prisons might engage in sleazy marketing, convince convicts to choose them, and then treat them like crap? That can easily be fixed by letting prisoners switch after a certain period of time. Heck, the law could be that anyone in a private prison can at any time choose to serve the rest of their sentence in a state prison. That would ensure a baseline of care. Also, I think the point about lobbying proves too much. If lobbying is so much cheaper and more reliable than innovation, why don't all companies lobby instead of innovating? Apple has billions of dollars sitting around. Why don't they lobby to make the iPhone the sole phone used by federal employees? Heck, why don't they lobby to get rid of the new import tariffs affecting their products? I don't think companies leave $20 bills on the sidewalk, so lobbying must not be as effective as people like to believe. I agree that lobbying is bad, but my objection to it is that the government is allowed to pass laws that coerce people in such ways, not that some companies take advantage of that power. Basically: hate the game, not the player.
  • scj 7y ago
    To both of your points of having more choice and lobbying: Market considerations matter.
    • chroma 7y ago
      Could you elaborate? I don't understand what you're getting at.
      • salawat 7y ago
        Apple can't lobby to make the "Official phone of the United States" simply because there are significant hurdles in place. Government procurement is a very different beast than most people would be used too. Imagine an organization tasked to deliver the world, but while spending the absolute minimum, and without showing anything that could remotely resemble favoritism in the process. That's Government. The supplier must be reliable, yet everyone should have an equal footing from which to have a chance to grab a contract. It has to be cheap, yet must satisfy every requirement necessary to fulfill the procurement's intended purpose. There must an always also be at least the appearance of propriety in all transactions, or losing bidders have every incentive to challenge the integrity of the decision. Given the significant hurdles represented by having to jump through all the hoops in winning a Government supply contract, it simply makes more sense to focus mercantile efforts elsewhere where returns can be made with far less risk. Prisons on the other hand, run into the worst of both worlds. Private prisons don't make money without convicts. So they might lobby for increased mandatory incarceration as a punishment for violation of new laws. You also have operations where prisoners are exploited as slave labor (which is explicitly allowed by the Constitution). Which if you really sit and think about it, makes the threat of increased incarceration as a result of profit-motive for the private prison industry that much more dangerous, as by definition, you are delegating people to a more abusable status in the eyes of the law. Hard-on-crime stances notwithstanding (I'm not taking sides, just pointing it out), one really needs to take into account on what spending on prisons really says about our society. Begone yee incarceree! Ye has't offended in the eyes of Man and God, and to the Pit do we consign'st thee til through suffering that debt is repaid! Vs. Your offense has brought you here, being due to the threat to civil society your reckless and thoughtless behavior represents. Through the insecurity you suffer through here, it is our hope that you will come to understand the fragility of the civic construct, and come to see the error of your ways. Vs. Yet still: Clearly, our society has failed to incorporate/integrate you in a safe or constructive way. Here you must remain for a period until such time as it is deemed necessary to recompensense for the crime you have committed, or until it can be observed beyond a reasonable doubt that you no longer represent a threat to the civil life outside these walls. A prison by it's nature does not function as anything else than a container or isolator of men and their proclivities. To create a profit making enterprise around that under the guise of "innovation shall make this system better" is foolhardy, seeing as the law, and punishments for breaking it often preclude any way to operate a prison or treat the offender in a "innovative" way. The price of a man's years is set by the people already, that is. No private prison can innovate on that except by changing or altering the suffering they experience therein contained from the rest of society. Their Wardens' alone reaping the benefit of the custody of society's delinquents. Furthermore, even the vaunted Market can be severely damaged by the "free labor" potential generated by prison inmates. I just see far too much potential for negatives and far too few possibilities through which one could wave a magic wand and both dispel the wickedness of the alleged offenders heart (if it actually exists), and also extracting something resembling justice for the victims should it be appropriate.