USA Politics

Possibly, but I think it is minor (edit, in response to private prisons). Before anyone gets to any prison, there are a lot of steps they have to go through.

There are about 4600 prisons in the US, 153 are private prisons. 2.2-ish million total, 119K in private prisons. It is a drop in the bucket.

Fun fact, Texas became the first state to close a prison (2 more on the way) without replacing them with new prisons. That happened due to sentencing reform, Texas has some private prisons.

From a few years ago, but this trend has continued

http://www.statesman.com/news/news/...-population-shrinks-as-rehabilitatio-1/nRNRY/


In July, Texas' prison system posted its lowest head count in five years, even as the state's overall population continued to grow at a fast clip.

Instead of 156,500 prisoners behind bars in Texas' 111 state prisons a year ago, the lockups now hold just over 154,000 — a drop of about 2,500, according to state statistics. Texas, which historically has had one of the highest incarceration rates per capita of the 50 states, is now in fourth place, down from second two years ago.
 
bearfan said:
There are about 4600 prisons in the US, 153 are private prisons. 2.2-ish million total, 119K in private prisons. It is a drop in the bucket.
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Generally speaking, yes. But as you said, there are major states such as CA without private prisons, and LA has a disproportionate amount. What I'm saying is basically that each state may have a different texture to it's prison population, and LA with it's breakout incarceration rate may have a different combination of factors than other states. And it may be possible that in the isolated case of LA, private prisons may be more than just a drop in the bucket.
 
Maybe ... but LA has a large percentage of the population in poverty and is still having upheaval from Katrina and years and years of being the most corrupt state in the union --- not that Illinois, Rhode Island, and New Jersey have not been trying their best to catch up.

Still there are more public than private prisons there .. private prisons came up out of demand and a desire to cut costs. Remove the demand, they go away.
 
They have at least as much to do with it as they are established to meet a demand.
 
Perun said:
They have at least as much to do with it as they are established to meet a demand.
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Yeah, but the demand (number of prisoners) already existed. Stop locking people up for stupid shit, which comes from inane (and again, I think well meaning) laws at all levels of government (Federal, state, and local) .. prison population declines. See Texas, drop in prison population despite large increases in overall population, a lot more needs to be done, but private prisons did not stop that here.

See California, no private prisons and the only reductions in population they have seen has been due to court order from massive over crowding ... Texas has the same type of large population centers as CA (Houston, Dallas-Ft Worth Metro, San Antonio, Austin, El Paso).

What does CA have that TX does not? A prison union where guards make over 100K/year and union bosses that rack in millions as the sue the state any time they try to reduce the prison population and cut their overtime.

I think some are just opposed to privatization of anything, could it be a factor .. sure. Is it likely much of a factor in the grand scheme of the war on drugs, poverty, bad families, and on and on ... I would think probably equal or less so than the CA Prison Guards union
 
LooseCannon said:
I don't know about that. I remember reading a study where private prisons have higher recidivism rates than public prisons.

https://www.ncjrs.gov/App/publications/abstract.aspx?ID=205465
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Say they were twice as much, they still account for approx 120K of 2.2M prisoners and without knowing more about the population of them it is hard to say. If it is people that keep re-offending on drug charges (for example), it might just mean they had more drug addicts to start with as a percentage
 
I agree there's lots of possible variables there - but I also think that if you look at it logically, private prisons have less desire to rehabilitate than public prisons. Private prisons don't want to report to their stockholders that they have to close institutions and reduce profits.
 
That makes sense, but in most all cases, there are more than enough people waiting to take their places.

This is from 2008 (there might be something more recent), a difference but not a massive difference and the other finding could partially explain the slightly higher rate (though the breakdown from men to women is interesting). Younger population, more drug offenses, and more on probation could explain all the difference. They had a population more likely to re-offend


http://www.ncpc.org/resources/files/pdf/prisons/private-prisons-and-recidivism-rates.pdf

Key Findings: • There was a higher rate of recidivism among inmates released from private prisons (32.8%) than from state prisons (29.8%). • When controlling for gender, men in private prisons were more likely to recidivate (35.1%) than state prisoners (30.1%) and women in private prisons were less likely to recidivate (21.2%) than those in state prisons (26.8%).

Inmates in the private prisons differed from state prison inmates in several ways: o They were younger, on average o They had shorter sentences o They served less time o They were more likely to be released on probation o They were more likely to be incarcerated for drug offenses
 
Agreed, absolutely, on all fronts. I just very much worry about the way business corrupts things being put into something like the criminal justice system.
 
Do you share the same concern with public unions using their influence and corrupting things so they can keep their overtime hours?
 
bearfan said:
Do you share the same concern with public unions using their influence and corrupting things so they can keep their overtime hours?
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Absolutely, except lower, because in those cases people don't die. I think unions should be exactly as regulated as the businesses they work within.
 
LooseCannon said:
Absolutely, except lower, because in those cases people don't die. I think unions should be exactly as regulated as the businesses they work within.
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I am not sure that is the case, CA prisons are at their max capacity. They tried shipping prisoners to other states (union sued and stalled/blocked it), they sue the state constantly when they try reforms. I would be willing to bet prisons running at 140% capacity has lead to a death or two. Unions might not be the reason that many people are there to start with, but they certainly stopped efforts to make it at least somewhat better
 
bearfan said:
I would be willing to bet prisons running at 140% capacity has lead to a death or two.
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This is an excellent point. I hadn't realized this was an issue, so thank you for pointing this out. Yes, in this case, I think the union should be corrected as well.
 
But, to your earlier point, I think the "get tough on XXXXX" attitude is what needs to change and I think there are some positive signs there. I mentioned Texas, which is generally considered Law and Order central, is moving in the right direction and more and more are seeing the war on drugs as a failure.

I think all this stuff started with good intentions, but once vested interests of all kinds (cops, unions, legislatures, bureaucrats, etc) keep at it, you end up with a system that has gone way to far in imprisoning and fining people to for minor things, which leads to all kinds of other problems (people cannot get work with records, I think in part the problems with police, etc).

That is the primary cause in my mind, the rest are more symptoms to the larger disease.
 
In Canada, the Conservatives are pushing a Tough On Crime agenda, and they were actually written by Rick Perry who reminded them that his state had found success by going in the opposite direction. Hell of a note when Rick Perry says you're not doing it right.
 
We will probably disagree here, but when the answer is "more government control", that answer is usually much worse than the problem you are starting with. Once they get their hands on something, it is damn near impossible to make them let go and you start up a death spiral of stupidity from the get go.
 
Government does an excellent job regulating business in most situations. I'm not talking about control, but regulations - a difference.
 
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