8 ms·

How for-profit prisons have become the biggest lobby no one is talking about

266 points by bontoJR 11y ago

MichaelCrawford 11y ago
In the State of California, the very highest-paying job that can is within reach of most people who do not have college degrees is to be a State prison guard. That can be unpleasant and dangerous work so I readily agree it should pay well however it has resulted in their union being one of the most-powerful political lobbies in the state. Dozens of new prisons have been built in the last few decades but only one new University of California campus. Several years ago a Federal judge ordered the state to reduce prison overcrowding. It hasn't made much progress.
- philwelch 11y ago
  Bingo. For-profit prisons exist, but they are a tiny minority. But even the state prisons come with a financial motive attached. And, because people are conditioned to see unions as good guys, this obvious lobbying bias is never checked.
  - danieltillett 11y ago
    Unions are in general a force for good for their members - the problem is there is no countervailing unions to oppose the interests of the prison guard union. If we had more union members in other industries then the interest of these other union members would act as a check on the power of the guards.
    - philwelch 11y ago
      The whole point of a union is to benefit its members contra the interests of their employer. The problem with public sector unions is that they benefit government employees contra the interests of the public.
      - danieltillett 11y ago
        Yes because the vast majority of the public is not in a union. If they were then their union would be fighting for their interest and prevent the public sector unions capturing all the benefits at their expense.
        zo1 11y ago
        I find it ironic that you call for free-market principles (competition between unions) to be the mechanism by which union-power is kept in check.
        danieltillett 11y ago
        Why is this ironic? I am a not anti-free markets. If a solution exists for a problem that can be solved by the market then I am of the opinion that the market should solve it.
        icebraining 11y ago
        Nothing ironic about it. Unions, if not enforced on workers by laws, are perfectly valid market mechanisms. Like economists such as Zingales say, pro-market is not necessarily pro-business, and unions are a good way to gage what people actually support.
        MichaelCrawford 11y ago
        Kuro5hin's Orion Blastar is completely convinced that I am anti-business, despite that I own two different corporations and get all my consulting gigs from businesses. However it is hard for me to find work at all because I will not work for companies that I regard as unethical. Orion claims this implies that I regard ALL companies as unethical, but no, only certain specific ones.
      - JupiterMoon 11y ago
        And yet in some countries the union is able to work together with the employer so that everyone wins. (By wins I mean the employer makes money and stays in business and the employees earn a living wage.) This of course requires mature sensible people who see beyond the next financial quarter or the next paycheck.
  - jeffmould 11y ago
    Actually about 15% of all state/federal prisons are owned or managed by for-profit corporations. There are really two classifications of "for-profit" prisons. One is where the company owns/operates the entire facility. These are the ones that receive the most attention even though they are the minority comparatively. The big for-profit companies usually try to buy first before moving to option 2. The second option is where the state/county builds a prison or jail, owns the facility, possibly supplements some staffing, but contracts out the day-to-day operations to a for-profit company. This is what is more common as many states won't sell the actual facility and/or land. They just want someone to takeover the day-to-day operations so they don't have to worry about it. Both are just as bad and both have occupancy based contracts.
    - MichaelCrawford 11y ago
      The incompetent medical and mental health care in the Clark County Jail in Vancouver, Washington is largely due to a contractor trying to save a few pennies by ordering prescription drugs from a pharmacy in Maryland. This has the result that lots of mentally ill inmates - including myself - land in Western State Hospital at a cost to the taxpayer of $550.00 per day. I've been taking psychiatric medicine since 1985; the very most I have ever paid for my happy pills was $1000.00 per month. Because the contractor wants to save perhaps ten dollars per month, every mentally ill inmate goes cold turkey on their medicine when they are detained. Every prescriber I have ever met adamantly urged me never to stop my medicine suddenly. There are all kinds of ways that could lead to death but in my particular case I find myself in a very expensive nuthouse rather than an inexpensive slammer.
- bontoJR 11y ago
  > In the State of California, the very highest-paying job that can is within reach of most people who do not have college degrees is to be a State prison guard. This is very interesting, this means there's a big business behind it. I don't know which are the requirements to be hired as prison guard, for sure is, as you said, an unpleasant and dangerous work, but I don't get why a prison guard should be paid higher than a cop, that is always facing criminals, but in more dangerous situations. > Several years ago a Federal judge ordered the state to reduce prison overcrowding. It hasn't made much progress. This would definitely cost a lot, prison overcrowding, in some countries, is a big issue. There's no real solution other than build new prisons, hire new people and transfer prisoners. I read in the past an article stating that the future of prisons will be mostly private, turned into a real business. I honestly laughed in a first instance, then reading a lot about the topic, I figured out that maybe that article wasn't so much wrong after all...
  - praptak 11y ago
    "There's no real solution other than build new prisons, hire new people and transfer prisoners." Changing idiotic laws that land harmless people in jail would help a lot.
  - wisty 11y ago
    > I don't get why a prison guard should be paid higher than a cop A quick web search shows cops making $100k, while guards make $70k. I'd imagine the police are more selective though. It might not be "within reach" of a lot of people (low turnover, and higher requirements).
    - MichaelCrawford 11y ago
      Most police officers have college degrees. I don't know that a degree is specifically regard to get a job as a police officer but I do know that most cops have degrees.
    - yclept 11y ago
      My quick search shows 30-57k for a police officer's average salary.
girvo 11y ago
I find it amazing that there is a guarantee of 90% occupancy or higher for these prisons, and if it falls below the taxpayers foot the bill. Of course, I find it amazing that "private prisons" are a thing at all.
- gnopgnip 11y ago
  Is it any different than private hospitals or electric companies?
  - ifdefdebug 11y ago
    Yes. In none of those businesses you are allowed to restrict the fundamental rights of human beings. In private prisons that's the core business model.
    - praxeologist 11y ago
      The real problem here is government and not "private" (corporatist) prisons who would only exist as they are because gov't enabling. Were we to abolish gov't and it's geographic monopolies on law and policing, then truly private prisons would both be way less common and nothing at all like what's talked about in the article. Some of the statistics on crime are outdated but Benson's The Enterprise of Law is a great book to look at understanding the problem here. Conditions were so terrible before the move for privatization in federal prisons (sometime in the 70's). With a move back toward that system (which would never happen because more politicians' and bureaucrats' pockets are being lined) you might not have quotas and the push for continued prohibition from this one little angle, but gov't is not a business[0], so the comparison to private hospitals or electric companies is faulty. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqoBZLSm1WA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqoBZLSm1WA
    - MichaelCrawford 11y ago
      While strictly speaking there are many laws as well as court precedents that protect the rights of mental hospital patients, quite commonly the hospital staff are not only unaware of those laws, but regard me as delusional for claiming that I have any rights at all. I was on an involuntary ten day hold in Reno, Nevada because I told a shrink I planned to go camping in the desert. Not being from Reno myself, I was unaware that "camping in the desert" is a local euphemism for "committing suicide". It was of no use to point out that I had gone camping in the desert just the night before, nor that I have the Boy Scout Wilderness Survival Merit Badge. I was handcuffed then taken by a deputy to a hospital emergency room, where I refused to wear a hospital gown because "As a mental hospital patient, I have the right to wear my own clothes". In reality I don't particularly care, I only say that to determine whether the staff knows that the laws are. Some very, very angry man shouted "YOU'RE ON A HOLD! YOU HAVE NO RIGHTS!" When I bluntly pointed out that the United States Supreme Court disagreed, they injected me with a massive dose of Haldol. That's widely considered one of the most-powerful antipsychotics. While I was not in any way symptomatic all the time, it is also powerfully sedating. I don't know why but for some reason Haldol is largely ineffective on me. That really freaked them all out when I continued going on about my right to wear my own clothes, so they injected me again with a far higher dose.
afarrell 11y ago
> no one is talking about Is there some way to actually determine what is in the public consciousness? Because I definitely see this brought up pretty frequently. I'm also pretty sure that folks know and talk about the internment of the Japanese as well as the prevalence of domestic violence.
- FanaHOVA 11y ago
  Yep. Especially since Kanye West released New Slaves 2 years ago: See they'll confuse us with some bullshit Like the New World Order Meanwhile the DEA Teamed up with the CCA They tryna lock niggas up They tryna make new slaves See that's that privately owned prison Get your piece today They prolly all in the Hamptons Bragging 'bout what they made The ACLU signed up on Genius to annotate this and sparked lots of conversations. I also see it regularly mentioned every time something such as Ferguson happens.
  - emehrkay 11y ago
    I love how piece could also be peace in that line. I am reading The New Jim Crow and it is fascinating. The author talks about how prisons were utilized as a means to get free labor after slavery ended and how laws in this country were/are designed to keep black people in jail. Good read so far http://www.amazon.com/dp/1595586431/?tag=googhydr-20&hvadid=66602494644&hvpos=1t1&hvexid=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=12310126189639521031&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=b&hvdev=c&ref=pd_sl_4wgnuzkc48_b http://www.amazon.com/dp/1595586431/?tag=googhydr-20&hvadid=...
    - MilkyWayMasta 11y ago
      And piece can be piece of the investment, or piece as in "gun". Love that verse.
- MichaelCrawford 11y ago
  among the reasons I use my hosts file to blackhole the web bugs from analytics services, is that one of the more-common applications of web and mobile analytics is to determine what is in the public consciousness. Most webmasters and mobile developers regard analytics as a way to find out how people are using their sites and apps. While strictly speaking that's true, most analytics SDKs are provided free of charge. The ones who actually pay for the analytics are commonly politicians and large companies. During the last presidential campaign I discovered that each major candidate's website contained dozens of web bugs from several distinctly different analytics companies.
rorykoehler 11y ago
USA: 25% of the worlds prison population with 4.5% of worlds total population.
- adventured 11y ago
  Fortunately it has begun to decline. The end of the war on drugs will see the prison population in the US cut in half in 20 years. Colorado has already seen a radical reduction in arrests for drug offenses.
  - leesalminen 11y ago
    Yet they've seen a large increase in marijuana related DUI arrests [0]. They're just shifting the crime around, not eliminating it. [0] http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2014/06/26/colorado-dui-recreational-marijuana/11391053/ http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2014/06/26/col...
    - rorykoehler 11y ago
      Unfortunately some negative aspects are so heavily ingrained in US culture and politics (incarceration and bondage being examples) it will take a long time for things to change. I have been reading about American history recently (mainly 1800's, gold rush etc) and some of it is very disturbing, almost dystopian. It has been very interesting to look at contemporary American culture with this in the back of my mind.
vbezhenar 11y ago
21-st century slavery. Humanity never changes.
Shivetya 11y ago
California Correctional Peace Officers Association and Correction Officers Benevolent Association are playing the same game and are not exactly private organizations and exert far more influence over individual politicians than either private corporation does. The first makes political donations across the country. We also by no means blame the prison industry; public or private; for this outcome. Its a government industry through and through, from police, to prosecutors, public defenders, judges, and even the supply chain benefits. * besides this is nothing but a Rubio hit piece which tells you it basically is pushed by operatives in the Democrat party, a party which basically does even more in most states to keep people in jail. They even fought Republicans in NY over a law to make it not criminal for a certain amount of pot
brohoolio 11y ago
It's a group who is lobbying for inefficiency in the recovery and rehabilitation of our citizens. That is not great. It goes against the long terms interests of society. I'm not against privatization of services, but this sort of service lends itself to lobbying for inefficiency which is what you are trying to squeeze out of the system by engaging the private sector.
jpetersonmn 11y ago
There should not be a profit motive involved with incarcerating people. That's just plain immoral.
rcarrigan87 11y ago
This article is very poorly balanced and reads like an attack on a politician rather than an honest investigation into what is clearly a very complicated issue. I'd love to see some historical comparisons between the prison industry prior and the rise of their lobby. Does anyone know of a more in depth analysis?
jeffmould 11y ago
The real issue, IMO, is not who owns or manages the prison, it is the laws we have on the books in the US that hinder or prevent individuals released from jails/prisons from becoming productive members of society. Often the easiest path for them is the path back to jail. For example, we expect an ex-offender to get out of jail, get a job, have a stable housing environment, pay taxes, and not break any more laws. Instead, we release individuals, hinder their ability to find gainful employment because of their arrest, deny them loans, deny access to public housing, tell them they can't go to some schools and deny them grants/scholarship opportunities for the ones they can, and then we tell them they can't vote in elections. While I am all for you do the crime you do the time, but when does that time end exactly? Do we tell someone that committed a non-violent petty felony at age 18, serves a year in jail, gets their HS diploma in that time, and is otherwise a decent person that even when they get out of jail they are no longer welcome in our society because of their crime? What do we as a society expect is going to happen to that person? And the cycle begins. There's a group that did a short film highlighting these issues: https://vimeo.com/121718382 https://vimeo.com/121718382 Ok, rant over :)
- maxerickson 11y ago
  The majority of US states eventually restore the right to vote: http://felonvoting.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=000286 http://felonvoting.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=0... Vermont and Maine allow prisoners to vote, 13 other states allow voting on release, and then some more restore the right after parole/probation. Many of the remaining states allow petitioning of the governor to restore the right to vote. (That felon voting is not particularly problematic in the states where it is allowed can be used as an argument against disenfranchisement, so I think it is good to try to accurately characterize the situation)
  - jeffmould 11y ago
    Yes, you are right in that most states do have a path to restoring voting rights. But the fact that it is an issue at all is the problem. A non-violent ex-offender should not have to go through a process of petitioning, or even have to worry about having their voting rights restored at all, when their sentence is completed. Even automatic restoration is not always "sure thing". Florida for example used to have "automatic restoration" but it actually entailed filing with the clemency board and getting approved (although approval was pretty much a guarantee). Since then though, Florida, like some of the other states that have automatic restoration, has changed to add a waiting period and additional approvals. For non-violent felons that complete their sentence there should not be a wait. Using the Florida example, an 18 year old arrested for selling drugs on the street corner. Serves a year in jail. Gets out free/clear (meaning no parole or probation). Has to wait 5 years to have his right to vote restored. That is wrong in my opinion and only makes the situation worse. Disenfranchisement is a much bigger problem than people realize when it comes to elections. There are over 6 million adults in the US that are disenfranchised. Making the number worse is the hodgepodge of state laws across the country that lead to confusion. There are countless numbers above the 6 million that have no clue if they can vote at all, if their rights have been restored, or what is even required to get them restored. Yes, they can get lawyers to figure it out for them, but who is going to pay for that?
justin66 11y ago
There's an interesting political Rorschach test with articles like this. The article is unambiguously about prison companies lobbying the government but, invariably, people start ranting about the prison guard's union and their lobbying efforts. I assume this is a flag for conservatism or libertarianism (or just a measure of the effectiveness of their rhetoric?) rather than a simple inability to stay on topic or to distinguish between a company and its workers' union. It is interesting because of how utterly consistent it is between conversations. It always seems to happen when this subject comes up.
istvan__ 11y ago
We should just call lobbying the same way it is called in other countries: corruption. The problem with legalizing corruption that corporations gain way to much power.
- hga 11y ago
  If it's corruption, its Constitutionally protected, in the First Amendment: Congress shall make no law [respecting/or abridging] the right of the people ... to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
  - MichaelCrawford 11y ago
    In general, the Supreme Court regards commercial speech as far, far less protected than those of the press or of individuals.
    - hga 11y ago
      I don't see that as being at all relevant, since free speech is in the earlier part of the whole amendment, and "petitioning" people in your Government, while obviously a form of speech, is specifically and additionally protected here.
MCRed 11y ago
If a prisoner is raped, the prison should incur liability, civil and criminal for allowing it to happen. When guards initiate violence against prisoners they should be liable as well. This should be the case for both private and "public" prisons. If you have a legal system that actually enforces the law everywhere, rather than giving violent criminals running prisons free reign to brutalize their charges, you would find that private prisons are more efficient at operating successful prisons than government ones-- just as private entities are more efficient (and humane) everywhere else in the economy. The problem is that we don't have the rule of law in this country. Cops are not indicted let alone prosecuted when they murder people or steal their life's savings. Politicians are held even less accountable. Until this is resolved, fighting over lobbying and who runs the prisons is like debating who left the barn doors open after the cattle have left. Prisons should be punishment, humanely, and rehabilitation. So long as they aren't they are corrupt. And they will continue to drive corruption-- whether it's a private entity or the warden of prisons building his own fiefdom, the incentive is to keep more people imprisoned longer for personal profit. Hence the drug war and all the other corruption that brings. Frankly, this alone proves that government cannot be trusted with the business of distributing justice. Which is why I'm an anarchist. but all you government lovers-- where is the reform? why do you support the violent brutalization via anal rape and regular beatings that 22 year old kids whose only "Crime" was being caught with a dime bag of weed are getting?
- omegaham 11y ago
  > If a prisoner is raped, the prison should incur liability, civil and criminal for allowing it to happen. When guards initiate violence against prisoners they should be liable as well. This should be the case for both private and "public" prisons. Here's the problem - you can have safe, large-scale, and cheap incarceration. Pick two. You can have safe, large-scale incarceration by sticking everyone in solitary and never letting them out of their cells, after all, but I doubt many people would consider that to be acceptable. If you want to treat prisoners with dignity and respect, you have to pay for it. The current model is the result of budget cuts upon budget cuts upon budget cuts coupled with vastly increased "demand" created by the War on Drugs. When you're incarcerating everyone for having a dime bag of weed, you're running a Walmart-style prison instead of a focused rehabilitation facility. If we, at the very least, decriminalized possession and only went after dealers, prisons would immediately improve. Fewer prisoners means safer conditions. > Frankly, this alone proves that government cannot be trusted with the business of distributing justice. Which is why I'm an anarchist. I see this as misguided. Yes, the government sucks at distributing justice. But I don't see the absence of government doing any better. You'd effectively end up with mob rule, which is typically governed by the biggest asshole. At least with democracy, the asshole has to keep the electorate somewhat happy. The very first thing that people did after settling the American frontier was to set up government to deal with justice. It beat forming a posse to kill your enemies whenever they pissed you off.
yummyfajitas 11y ago
Notably absent is a comparison showing how large for-profit prison lobbying actually is. Glancing at Opensecret's top 20 lists doesn't actually suggest it's very large: https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/top.php?indexType=i&showYear=2015 https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/top.php?indexType=i&showYe... https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/top.php?indexType=s&showYear=2015 https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/top.php?indexType=s&showYe... https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/top.php?indexType=u&showYear=2015 https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/top.php?indexType=u&showYe... https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/indus.php?id=W&year=2015 https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/indus.php?id=W&year=2015 For the last one (by industry), note that the breakdown of subcategories is weird. The "Other" category includes "Education", "Civil Servants" and "Non-Profit", all of which would be large enough independently to show up in the top category.
- maxerickson 11y ago
  CCA has had a few big years: https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/clientsum.php?id=D000021940&year=2015 https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/clientsum.php?id=D00002194...
- hga 11y ago
  Indeed. While I think this is a problem (see my comment on the Cash for Kids atrocity), I've never ever seen any sign it's a big problem, as in there being all that many private prisons. Between the political power issues noted by others that push for government prisons, and people's instinctive realization that this is dangerous, I see this at worst being a self-limiting problem. Especially after the first scandal like the Cash for Kids atrocity surfaces with Republican politicians to blame.
smutticus 11y ago
We should recognize that the constitution still allows slavery as a punishment for crime. This is as much about slave labor, as it is about the prison industry receiving money from the public purse. 13th amendment "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction." Good general overview of prison labor: http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2013/04/04/prison-labor-and-taxpayer-dollars/ http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2013/04/04/prison-labor... More detailed account of prison labor in Nevada regarding casinos and construction. http://vltp.net/casinos-prison-labor-strange-bedfellows/ http://vltp.net/casinos-prison-labor-strange-bedfellows/ The slave market: http://www.unicor.gov/ http://www.unicor.gov/ You can even get slave labor to operate your call center: http://www.unicor.gov/services/contact_helpdesk/ http://www.unicor.gov/services/contact_helpdesk/
- FrankenPC 11y ago
  It's more like slave siphoning. Once someone is tagged as a criminal, there are seemingly endless ways to suck money from them, their families, the state, and the federal government. Each American indoctrinated into the criminal justice system in essence becomes that famous Duracell from the Matrix movie.
protomyth 11y ago
This keeps coming up, and the answer is still the same. People with profit motives that are not aligned with society tend make for bad actors. The same article can be written about the prison unions in California and many other states. It is also a major lobby affecting legislation and not many people talk about it. Their advocacy of jail time is just as bad as private companies. Both have a profit motive in the number of people that are in prison. Both benefit from laws that DO NOT allow alternate treatment. This is very predictable since both groups profit from the number of people in jail. Unfortunately, I don't really see legislators changing the conditions so the profit motive for both groups will be something other than number of people currently in jail. So, both groups: unions and private companies, will continue to lobby for laws that are not fair. My own suggestion is to pay based on capacity and not occupancy with a penalty (stick) or bonus payment (carrot) for individuals released from jail that do / do not commit another offense for at least 5 years. On a second note, all these debtors >> prison schemes should be illegal.
leesalminen 11y ago
I would like to know how our society expects people to follow laws that are incomprehensible to the average joe. I (and most HNers, I'd presume) have the reading comprehension skills to navigate through legislature. Most do not. When attempting to show people the actual legislation that is behind what they heard was a "law", they tend to get glossy eyed and shut down entirely. IMHO, this is a problem worth solving.
- jeffmould 11y ago
  You are 200% right! We are actually working on something remotely like this. There are so many collateral consequences associated with various laws. For example, some states require a waiting period of 1-5 years before you can even apply to get a barber license if you have certain misdemeanor or felony convictions. While the judge and society feels it is fair to say hey we caught you with an pound of marijuana, here's a fine and a year probation to serve. The true consequence is that you are now a convicted felon and lose many rights, including some job opportunities or at minimum the ability to obtain an occupational license as is the case for a barber. In short, on top of several other services, we are building an overlay to job search for ex-offenders that will allow them to easily see if they qualify for a job/occupational license based on their offense. If they don't it will tell them the criteria if and when they can. It is a tedious process because sorting through laws and various legislation is not exactly the most exciting startup concept at 3am and can be open to a wide array of interpretation by design (criminal lawyers gotta make their money somehow). We don't intend for it to be the holy grail for information, but at least it will provide a guideline for job seekers with criminal records to be able to easily sort through and identify opportunities.
foolinaround 11y ago
the earliest form of justice was "eye for an eye" --> From there, it was noticed that the first person who lost that eye gained nothing when the criminal's eye was taken. From there on it progressed to some variation of "pay for the eye or for the opportunity cost", in which the criminal had to barter his resources ( existing property, strength, time, etc ) to compensate the victim. This is the justice described in those voluminous biblical or other laws. From there on, those criminals who were unable to compensate ( too poor, or cost too high ) were deprived of something till they were able to or forced to compensate. This started the concept of 'debtors prisons' Now, when the concept of compensating the victim ( individual / society / government ) has been removed, this very act of putting a criminal in prison is itself a crime.
hellbanner 11y ago
By "lobby" they mean.. bribe?
hellbanner 11y ago
Linked from a related EFF link recently: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/06/facebook-reforms-inmate-account-takedown-process https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/06/facebook-reforms-inmat... Prisoners denied access to social networking, in a state law & through Facebook's prisoner profile takedown forms (!)

266 points by bontoJR 11y ago

In the State of California, the very highest-paying job that can is within reach of most people who do not have college degrees is to be a State prison guard. That can be unpleasant and dangerous work so I readily agree it should pay well however it has resulted in their union being one of the most-powerful political lobbies in the state. Dozens of new prisons have been built in the last few decades but only one new University of California campus. Several years ago a Federal judge ordered the state to reduce prison overcrowding. It hasn't made much progress.

philwelch 11y ago
Bingo. For-profit prisons exist, but they are a tiny minority. But even the state prisons come with a financial motive attached. And, because people are conditioned to see unions as good guys, this obvious lobbying bias is never checked.
- danieltillett 11y ago
  Unions are in general a force for good for their members - the problem is there is no countervailing unions to oppose the interests of the prison guard union. If we had more union members in other industries then the interest of these other union members would act as a check on the power of the guards.
  - philwelch 11y ago
    The whole point of a union is to benefit its members contra the interests of their employer. The problem with public sector unions is that they benefit government employees contra the interests of the public.
    - danieltillett 11y ago
      Yes because the vast majority of the public is not in a union. If they were then their union would be fighting for their interest and prevent the public sector unions capturing all the benefits at their expense.
      - zo1 11y ago
        I find it ironic that you call for free-market principles (competition between unions) to be the mechanism by which union-power is kept in check.
        danieltillett 11y ago
        Why is this ironic? I am a not anti-free markets. If a solution exists for a problem that can be solved by the market then I am of the opinion that the market should solve it.
        icebraining 11y ago
        Nothing ironic about it. Unions, if not enforced on workers by laws, are perfectly valid market mechanisms. Like economists such as Zingales say, pro-market is not necessarily pro-business, and unions are a good way to gage what people actually support.
        MichaelCrawford 11y ago
        Kuro5hin's Orion Blastar is completely convinced that I am anti-business, despite that I own two different corporations and get all my consulting gigs from businesses. However it is hard for me to find work at all because I will not work for companies that I regard as unethical. Orion claims this implies that I regard ALL companies as unethical, but no, only certain specific ones.
    - JupiterMoon 11y ago
      And yet in some countries the union is able to work together with the employer so that everyone wins. (By wins I mean the employer makes money and stays in business and the employees earn a living wage.) This of course requires mature sensible people who see beyond the next financial quarter or the next paycheck.
- jeffmould 11y ago
  Actually about 15% of all state/federal prisons are owned or managed by for-profit corporations. There are really two classifications of "for-profit" prisons. One is where the company owns/operates the entire facility. These are the ones that receive the most attention even though they are the minority comparatively. The big for-profit companies usually try to buy first before moving to option 2. The second option is where the state/county builds a prison or jail, owns the facility, possibly supplements some staffing, but contracts out the day-to-day operations to a for-profit company. This is what is more common as many states won't sell the actual facility and/or land. They just want someone to takeover the day-to-day operations so they don't have to worry about it. Both are just as bad and both have occupancy based contracts.
  - MichaelCrawford 11y ago
    The incompetent medical and mental health care in the Clark County Jail in Vancouver, Washington is largely due to a contractor trying to save a few pennies by ordering prescription drugs from a pharmacy in Maryland. This has the result that lots of mentally ill inmates - including myself - land in Western State Hospital at a cost to the taxpayer of $550.00 per day. I've been taking psychiatric medicine since 1985; the very most I have ever paid for my happy pills was $1000.00 per month. Because the contractor wants to save perhaps ten dollars per month, every mentally ill inmate goes cold turkey on their medicine when they are detained. Every prescriber I have ever met adamantly urged me never to stop my medicine suddenly. There are all kinds of ways that could lead to death but in my particular case I find myself in a very expensive nuthouse rather than an inexpensive slammer.
bontoJR 11y ago
> In the State of California, the very highest-paying job that can is within reach of most people who do not have college degrees is to be a State prison guard. This is very interesting, this means there's a big business behind it. I don't know which are the requirements to be hired as prison guard, for sure is, as you said, an unpleasant and dangerous work, but I don't get why a prison guard should be paid higher than a cop, that is always facing criminals, but in more dangerous situations. > Several years ago a Federal judge ordered the state to reduce prison overcrowding. It hasn't made much progress. This would definitely cost a lot, prison overcrowding, in some countries, is a big issue. There's no real solution other than build new prisons, hire new people and transfer prisoners. I read in the past an article stating that the future of prisons will be mostly private, turned into a real business. I honestly laughed in a first instance, then reading a lot about the topic, I figured out that maybe that article wasn't so much wrong after all...
- praptak 11y ago
  "There's no real solution other than build new prisons, hire new people and transfer prisoners." Changing idiotic laws that land harmless people in jail would help a lot.
- wisty 11y ago
  > I don't get why a prison guard should be paid higher than a cop A quick web search shows cops making $100k, while guards make $70k. I'd imagine the police are more selective though. It might not be "within reach" of a lot of people (low turnover, and higher requirements).
  - MichaelCrawford 11y ago
    Most police officers have college degrees. I don't know that a degree is specifically regard to get a job as a police officer but I do know that most cops have degrees.
  - yclept 11y ago
    My quick search shows 30-57k for a police officer's average salary.

girvo 11y ago

I find it amazing that there is a guarantee of 90% occupancy or higher for these prisons, and if it falls below the taxpayers foot the bill. Of course, I find it amazing that "private prisons" are a thing at all.

gnopgnip 11y ago
Is it any different than private hospitals or electric companies?
- ifdefdebug 11y ago
  Yes. In none of those businesses you are allowed to restrict the fundamental rights of human beings. In private prisons that's the core business model.
  - praxeologist 11y ago
    The real problem here is government and not "private" (corporatist) prisons who would only exist as they are because gov't enabling. Were we to abolish gov't and it's geographic monopolies on law and policing, then truly private prisons would both be way less common and nothing at all like what's talked about in the article. Some of the statistics on crime are outdated but Benson's The Enterprise of Law is a great book to look at understanding the problem here. Conditions were so terrible before the move for privatization in federal prisons (sometime in the 70's). With a move back toward that system (which would never happen because more politicians' and bureaucrats' pockets are being lined) you might not have quotas and the push for continued prohibition from this one little angle, but gov't is not a business[0], so the comparison to private hospitals or electric companies is faulty. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqoBZLSm1WA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqoBZLSm1WA
  - MichaelCrawford 11y ago
    While strictly speaking there are many laws as well as court precedents that protect the rights of mental hospital patients, quite commonly the hospital staff are not only unaware of those laws, but regard me as delusional for claiming that I have any rights at all. I was on an involuntary ten day hold in Reno, Nevada because I told a shrink I planned to go camping in the desert. Not being from Reno myself, I was unaware that "camping in the desert" is a local euphemism for "committing suicide". It was of no use to point out that I had gone camping in the desert just the night before, nor that I have the Boy Scout Wilderness Survival Merit Badge. I was handcuffed then taken by a deputy to a hospital emergency room, where I refused to wear a hospital gown because "As a mental hospital patient, I have the right to wear my own clothes". In reality I don't particularly care, I only say that to determine whether the staff knows that the laws are. Some very, very angry man shouted "YOU'RE ON A HOLD! YOU HAVE NO RIGHTS!" When I bluntly pointed out that the United States Supreme Court disagreed, they injected me with a massive dose of Haldol. That's widely considered one of the most-powerful antipsychotics. While I was not in any way symptomatic all the time, it is also powerfully sedating. I don't know why but for some reason Haldol is largely ineffective on me. That really freaked them all out when I continued going on about my right to wear my own clothes, so they injected me again with a far higher dose.

afarrell 11y ago

> no one is talking about Is there some way to actually determine what is in the public consciousness? Because I definitely see this brought up pretty frequently. I'm also pretty sure that folks know and talk about the internment of the Japanese as well as the prevalence of domestic violence.

FanaHOVA 11y ago
Yep. Especially since Kanye West released New Slaves 2 years ago: See they'll confuse us with some bullshit Like the New World Order Meanwhile the DEA Teamed up with the CCA They tryna lock niggas up They tryna make new slaves See that's that privately owned prison Get your piece today They prolly all in the Hamptons Bragging 'bout what they made The ACLU signed up on Genius to annotate this and sparked lots of conversations. I also see it regularly mentioned every time something such as Ferguson happens.
- emehrkay 11y ago
  I love how piece could also be peace in that line. I am reading The New Jim Crow and it is fascinating. The author talks about how prisons were utilized as a means to get free labor after slavery ended and how laws in this country were/are designed to keep black people in jail. Good read so far http://www.amazon.com/dp/1595586431/?tag=googhydr-20&hvadid=66602494644&hvpos=1t1&hvexid=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=12310126189639521031&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=b&hvdev=c&ref=pd_sl_4wgnuzkc48_b http://www.amazon.com/dp/1595586431/?tag=googhydr-20&hvadid=...
  - MilkyWayMasta 11y ago
    And piece can be piece of the investment, or piece as in "gun". Love that verse.
MichaelCrawford 11y ago
among the reasons I use my hosts file to blackhole the web bugs from analytics services, is that one of the more-common applications of web and mobile analytics is to determine what is in the public consciousness. Most webmasters and mobile developers regard analytics as a way to find out how people are using their sites and apps. While strictly speaking that's true, most analytics SDKs are provided free of charge. The ones who actually pay for the analytics are commonly politicians and large companies. During the last presidential campaign I discovered that each major candidate's website contained dozens of web bugs from several distinctly different analytics companies.

rorykoehler 11y ago

USA: 25% of the worlds prison population with 4.5% of worlds total population.

adventured 11y ago
Fortunately it has begun to decline. The end of the war on drugs will see the prison population in the US cut in half in 20 years. Colorado has already seen a radical reduction in arrests for drug offenses.
- leesalminen 11y ago
  Yet they've seen a large increase in marijuana related DUI arrests [0]. They're just shifting the crime around, not eliminating it. [0] http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2014/06/26/colorado-dui-recreational-marijuana/11391053/ http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2014/06/26/col...
  - rorykoehler 11y ago
    Unfortunately some negative aspects are so heavily ingrained in US culture and politics (incarceration and bondage being examples) it will take a long time for things to change. I have been reading about American history recently (mainly 1800's, gold rush etc) and some of it is very disturbing, almost dystopian. It has been very interesting to look at contemporary American culture with this in the back of my mind.

vbezhenar 11y ago

21-st century slavery. Humanity never changes.

Shivetya 11y ago

California Correctional Peace Officers Association and Correction Officers Benevolent Association are playing the same game and are not exactly private organizations and exert far more influence over individual politicians than either private corporation does. The first makes political donations across the country. We also by no means blame the prison industry; public or private; for this outcome. Its a government industry through and through, from police, to prosecutors, public defenders, judges, and even the supply chain benefits. * besides this is nothing but a Rubio hit piece which tells you it basically is pushed by operatives in the Democrat party, a party which basically does even more in most states to keep people in jail. They even fought Republicans in NY over a law to make it not criminal for a certain amount of pot

brohoolio 11y ago

It's a group who is lobbying for inefficiency in the recovery and rehabilitation of our citizens. That is not great. It goes against the long terms interests of society. I'm not against privatization of services, but this sort of service lends itself to lobbying for inefficiency which is what you are trying to squeeze out of the system by engaging the private sector.

jpetersonmn 11y ago

There should not be a profit motive involved with incarcerating people. That's just plain immoral.

rcarrigan87 11y ago

This article is very poorly balanced and reads like an attack on a politician rather than an honest investigation into what is clearly a very complicated issue. I'd love to see some historical comparisons between the prison industry prior and the rise of their lobby. Does anyone know of a more in depth analysis?

jeffmould 11y ago

The real issue, IMO, is not who owns or manages the prison, it is the laws we have on the books in the US that hinder or prevent individuals released from jails/prisons from becoming productive members of society. Often the easiest path for them is the path back to jail. For example, we expect an ex-offender to get out of jail, get a job, have a stable housing environment, pay taxes, and not break any more laws. Instead, we release individuals, hinder their ability to find gainful employment because of their arrest, deny them loans, deny access to public housing, tell them they can't go to some schools and deny them grants/scholarship opportunities for the ones they can, and then we tell them they can't vote in elections. While I am all for you do the crime you do the time, but when does that time end exactly? Do we tell someone that committed a non-violent petty felony at age 18, serves a year in jail, gets their HS diploma in that time, and is otherwise a decent person that even when they get out of jail they are no longer welcome in our society because of their crime? What do we as a society expect is going to happen to that person? And the cycle begins. There's a group that did a short film highlighting these issues: https://vimeo.com/121718382 https://vimeo.com/121718382 Ok, rant over :)

maxerickson 11y ago
The majority of US states eventually restore the right to vote: http://felonvoting.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=000286 http://felonvoting.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=0... Vermont and Maine allow prisoners to vote, 13 other states allow voting on release, and then some more restore the right after parole/probation. Many of the remaining states allow petitioning of the governor to restore the right to vote. (That felon voting is not particularly problematic in the states where it is allowed can be used as an argument against disenfranchisement, so I think it is good to try to accurately characterize the situation)
- jeffmould 11y ago
  Yes, you are right in that most states do have a path to restoring voting rights. But the fact that it is an issue at all is the problem. A non-violent ex-offender should not have to go through a process of petitioning, or even have to worry about having their voting rights restored at all, when their sentence is completed. Even automatic restoration is not always "sure thing". Florida for example used to have "automatic restoration" but it actually entailed filing with the clemency board and getting approved (although approval was pretty much a guarantee). Since then though, Florida, like some of the other states that have automatic restoration, has changed to add a waiting period and additional approvals. For non-violent felons that complete their sentence there should not be a wait. Using the Florida example, an 18 year old arrested for selling drugs on the street corner. Serves a year in jail. Gets out free/clear (meaning no parole or probation). Has to wait 5 years to have his right to vote restored. That is wrong in my opinion and only makes the situation worse. Disenfranchisement is a much bigger problem than people realize when it comes to elections. There are over 6 million adults in the US that are disenfranchised. Making the number worse is the hodgepodge of state laws across the country that lead to confusion. There are countless numbers above the 6 million that have no clue if they can vote at all, if their rights have been restored, or what is even required to get them restored. Yes, they can get lawyers to figure it out for them, but who is going to pay for that?

justin66 11y ago

There's an interesting political Rorschach test with articles like this. The article is unambiguously about prison companies lobbying the government but, invariably, people start ranting about the prison guard's union and their lobbying efforts. I assume this is a flag for conservatism or libertarianism (or just a measure of the effectiveness of their rhetoric?) rather than a simple inability to stay on topic or to distinguish between a company and its workers' union. It is interesting because of how utterly consistent it is between conversations. It always seems to happen when this subject comes up.

istvan__ 11y ago

We should just call lobbying the same way it is called in other countries: corruption. The problem with legalizing corruption that corporations gain way to much power.

hga 11y ago
If it's corruption, its Constitutionally protected, in the First Amendment: Congress shall make no law [respecting/or abridging] the right of the people ... to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
- MichaelCrawford 11y ago
  In general, the Supreme Court regards commercial speech as far, far less protected than those of the press or of individuals.
  - hga 11y ago
    I don't see that as being at all relevant, since free speech is in the earlier part of the whole amendment, and "petitioning" people in your Government, while obviously a form of speech, is specifically and additionally protected here.

MCRed 11y ago

If a prisoner is raped, the prison should incur liability, civil and criminal for allowing it to happen. When guards initiate violence against prisoners they should be liable as well. This should be the case for both private and "public" prisons. If you have a legal system that actually enforces the law everywhere, rather than giving violent criminals running prisons free reign to brutalize their charges, you would find that private prisons are more efficient at operating successful prisons than government ones-- just as private entities are more efficient (and humane) everywhere else in the economy. The problem is that we don't have the rule of law in this country. Cops are not indicted let alone prosecuted when they murder people or steal their life's savings. Politicians are held even less accountable. Until this is resolved, fighting over lobbying and who runs the prisons is like debating who left the barn doors open after the cattle have left. Prisons should be punishment, humanely, and rehabilitation. So long as they aren't they are corrupt. And they will continue to drive corruption-- whether it's a private entity or the warden of prisons building his own fiefdom, the incentive is to keep more people imprisoned longer for personal profit. Hence the drug war and all the other corruption that brings. Frankly, this alone proves that government cannot be trusted with the business of distributing justice. Which is why I'm an anarchist. but all you government lovers-- where is the reform? why do you support the violent brutalization via anal rape and regular beatings that 22 year old kids whose only "Crime" was being caught with a dime bag of weed are getting?

omegaham 11y ago
> If a prisoner is raped, the prison should incur liability, civil and criminal for allowing it to happen. When guards initiate violence against prisoners they should be liable as well. This should be the case for both private and "public" prisons. Here's the problem - you can have safe, large-scale, and cheap incarceration. Pick two. You can have safe, large-scale incarceration by sticking everyone in solitary and never letting them out of their cells, after all, but I doubt many people would consider that to be acceptable. If you want to treat prisoners with dignity and respect, you have to pay for it. The current model is the result of budget cuts upon budget cuts upon budget cuts coupled with vastly increased "demand" created by the War on Drugs. When you're incarcerating everyone for having a dime bag of weed, you're running a Walmart-style prison instead of a focused rehabilitation facility. If we, at the very least, decriminalized possession and only went after dealers, prisons would immediately improve. Fewer prisoners means safer conditions. > Frankly, this alone proves that government cannot be trusted with the business of distributing justice. Which is why I'm an anarchist. I see this as misguided. Yes, the government sucks at distributing justice. But I don't see the absence of government doing any better. You'd effectively end up with mob rule, which is typically governed by the biggest asshole. At least with democracy, the asshole has to keep the electorate somewhat happy. The very first thing that people did after settling the American frontier was to set up government to deal with justice. It beat forming a posse to kill your enemies whenever they pissed you off.

yummyfajitas 11y ago

Notably absent is a comparison showing how large for-profit prison lobbying actually is. Glancing at Opensecret's top 20 lists doesn't actually suggest it's very large: https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/top.php?indexType=i&showYear=2015 https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/top.php?indexType=i&showYe... https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/top.php?indexType=s&showYear=2015 https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/top.php?indexType=s&showYe... https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/top.php?indexType=u&showYear=2015 https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/top.php?indexType=u&showYe... https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/indus.php?id=W&year=2015 https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/indus.php?id=W&year=2015 For the last one (by industry), note that the breakdown of subcategories is weird. The "Other" category includes "Education", "Civil Servants" and "Non-Profit", all of which would be large enough independently to show up in the top category.

maxerickson 11y ago
CCA has had a few big years: https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/clientsum.php?id=D000021940&year=2015 https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/clientsum.php?id=D00002194...
hga 11y ago
Indeed. While I think this is a problem (see my comment on the Cash for Kids atrocity), I've never ever seen any sign it's a big problem, as in there being all that many private prisons. Between the political power issues noted by others that push for government prisons, and people's instinctive realization that this is dangerous, I see this at worst being a self-limiting problem. Especially after the first scandal like the Cash for Kids atrocity surfaces with Republican politicians to blame.

smutticus 11y ago

We should recognize that the constitution still allows slavery as a punishment for crime. This is as much about slave labor, as it is about the prison industry receiving money from the public purse. 13th amendment "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction." Good general overview of prison labor: http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2013/04/04/prison-labor-and-taxpayer-dollars/ http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2013/04/04/prison-labor... More detailed account of prison labor in Nevada regarding casinos and construction. http://vltp.net/casinos-prison-labor-strange-bedfellows/ http://vltp.net/casinos-prison-labor-strange-bedfellows/ The slave market: http://www.unicor.gov/ http://www.unicor.gov/ You can even get slave labor to operate your call center: http://www.unicor.gov/services/contact_helpdesk/ http://www.unicor.gov/services/contact_helpdesk/

FrankenPC 11y ago
It's more like slave siphoning. Once someone is tagged as a criminal, there are seemingly endless ways to suck money from them, their families, the state, and the federal government. Each American indoctrinated into the criminal justice system in essence becomes that famous Duracell from the Matrix movie.

protomyth 11y ago

This keeps coming up, and the answer is still the same. People with profit motives that are not aligned with society tend make for bad actors. The same article can be written about the prison unions in California and many other states. It is also a major lobby affecting legislation and not many people talk about it. Their advocacy of jail time is just as bad as private companies. Both have a profit motive in the number of people that are in prison. Both benefit from laws that DO NOT allow alternate treatment. This is very predictable since both groups profit from the number of people in jail. Unfortunately, I don't really see legislators changing the conditions so the profit motive for both groups will be something other than number of people currently in jail. So, both groups: unions and private companies, will continue to lobby for laws that are not fair. My own suggestion is to pay based on capacity and not occupancy with a penalty (stick) or bonus payment (carrot) for individuals released from jail that do / do not commit another offense for at least 5 years. On a second note, all these debtors >> prison schemes should be illegal.

leesalminen 11y ago

I would like to know how our society expects people to follow laws that are incomprehensible to the average joe. I (and most HNers, I'd presume) have the reading comprehension skills to navigate through legislature. Most do not. When attempting to show people the actual legislation that is behind what they heard was a "law", they tend to get glossy eyed and shut down entirely. IMHO, this is a problem worth solving.

jeffmould 11y ago
You are 200% right! We are actually working on something remotely like this. There are so many collateral consequences associated with various laws. For example, some states require a waiting period of 1-5 years before you can even apply to get a barber license if you have certain misdemeanor or felony convictions. While the judge and society feels it is fair to say hey we caught you with an pound of marijuana, here's a fine and a year probation to serve. The true consequence is that you are now a convicted felon and lose many rights, including some job opportunities or at minimum the ability to obtain an occupational license as is the case for a barber. In short, on top of several other services, we are building an overlay to job search for ex-offenders that will allow them to easily see if they qualify for a job/occupational license based on their offense. If they don't it will tell them the criteria if and when they can. It is a tedious process because sorting through laws and various legislation is not exactly the most exciting startup concept at 3am and can be open to a wide array of interpretation by design (criminal lawyers gotta make their money somehow). We don't intend for it to be the holy grail for information, but at least it will provide a guideline for job seekers with criminal records to be able to easily sort through and identify opportunities.

foolinaround 11y ago

the earliest form of justice was "eye for an eye" --> From there, it was noticed that the first person who lost that eye gained nothing when the criminal's eye was taken. From there on it progressed to some variation of "pay for the eye or for the opportunity cost", in which the criminal had to barter his resources ( existing property, strength, time, etc ) to compensate the victim. This is the justice described in those voluminous biblical or other laws. From there on, those criminals who were unable to compensate ( too poor, or cost too high ) were deprived of something till they were able to or forced to compensate. This started the concept of 'debtors prisons' Now, when the concept of compensating the victim ( individual / society / government ) has been removed, this very act of putting a criminal in prison is itself a crime.

hellbanner 11y ago

By "lobby" they mean.. bribe?

hellbanner 11y ago

Linked from a related EFF link recently: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/06/facebook-reforms-inmate-account-takedown-process https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/06/facebook-reforms-inmat... Prisoners denied access to social networking, in a state law & through Facebook's prisoner profile takedown forms (!)