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California bans private prisons

theguardian.com

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Re: California bans private prisons

#91

Post by cryptoz »

spoiledtechie wrote: post #72
llarsson wrote: post #24

Good riddance. The whole premise of private, for-profit, prisons has always seemed deeply troubling to me. The focus of a healthy prison system should be to rehabilitate people and help them turn their lives around so that they contribute positively to society. That can take years of hard work by the individual, and require assistance from professionals (therapists, teachers, ...). A for-profit company by definition…

I would recommend you do some research on this topic. Your giving talking points produced by mainstream talking heads. When in fact, research points to private prisons being better at dropping incarceration rates through the programs offered at them. Therefore increasing ones chance at correct rehabilitation. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/249718665_A_Compara...

That paper is older than 20 years, and takes place during a short period of time in Florida, from a very small number of private prisons. A lot has changed since then, and the paper makes assumptions that are invalid with the current discussion, specifically the extremely small sample of private prisons (n=2?).

I don't think it's valid to draw concrete conclusions about the current crisis from the study you linked. There are far more variables at play than were studied in the paper, and those variables - such as racism, increasing societal inequality, etc - matter.

Also, reasons cited in that paper for the reduced recidivism are to do with the programs offered by the private prison. Are private prisons in all states / California allowed or incentived to offer similar programs? Do they choose not to?

These things affect the statistics, and drawing strong conclusions from that paper about private prisons in California today may lead you to invalid conclusions.

Re: California bans private prisons

#92

Post by [deleted] »

happytoexplain wrote: post #76
creaghpatr wrote: post #4

>Servin said that while the new law was a significant victory, there was one other thing immigrants rights groups were concerned about. When several sheriffs’ departments canceled their contracts to house Ice detainees last year, instead of freeing the detainees, Ice moved many of them to prisons in Colorado and Hawaii. Is this something that people against private prisons believe...that they just release all the pri…

The distance from the quote to your question seems like a pretty large leap.

[deleted]

Re: California bans private prisons

#93

Post by berdon »

spoiledtechie wrote: post #72
llarsson wrote: post #24

Good riddance. The whole premise of private, for-profit, prisons has always seemed deeply troubling to me. The focus of a healthy prison system should be to rehabilitate people and help them turn their lives around so that they contribute positively to society. That can take years of hard work by the individual, and require assistance from professionals (therapists, teachers, ...). A for-profit company by definition…

I would recommend you do some research on this topic. Your giving talking points produced by mainstream talking heads. When in fact, research points to private prisons being better at dropping incarceration rates through the programs offered at them. Therefore increasing ones chance at correct rehabilitation. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/249718665_A_Compara...

I'm not sure one 20 year old study of 200 inmates from one state is representative of the population.

Besides that, it's inarguable that for-profit entities need profit to exist. You could claim that some for-profit prisons have lower recidivism but a non-profit entity will, on average, have more incentive to help inmates than one who's lifeblood comes from profits.

Re: California bans private prisons

#94

Post by bsder »

creaghpatr wrote: post #4

>Servin said that while the new law was a significant victory, there was one other thing immigrants rights groups were concerned about. When several sheriffs’ departments canceled their contracts to house Ice detainees last year, instead of freeing the detainees, Ice moved many of them to prisons in Colorado and Hawaii. Is this something that people against private prisons believe...that they just release all the pri…

> Is this something that people against private prisons believe...that they just release all the prisoners when they close the prison?

No. The goal of wiping out the private prisons is simply that profit motive in the justice system is always an inherent conflict of interest.

The fact that ICE is getting smashed is just a side benefit.

Adelanto is almost 2,000 people and is the second biggest detention center for ICE. Who knows, ICE may indeed free these prisoners rather than spend the money to transport them to facilities that can't house them anyway. Wouldn't that be a nice benefit?

Re: California bans private prisons

#95

Post by cldellow »

addicted wrote: post #58
thatswrong0 wrote: post #39

Honestly, it's a bit of a red herring.. nothing is going to change from a criminal justice perspective. Less than 10% of incarcerated people are held in private prisons. But even more importantly, there are still so many private contractors / unions in the (public/private) prison industry that this ban won't really affect policies or outcomes going forward.. private interests will almost always exist in it that have…

Public jails are doing the same things because companies that provide those services lobby them to do it. The FCC under Obama had capped the amount they could charge which was promptly undone with government changes. This also ignores known stories such as an example where a judge had a stake in a private prison company (or was bribed outright?) And as a result was sentencing school kids to prison for things which pr…

Agreed, there's lots of work to do in public prison reform, too.

FWIW, the judges you mention are probably the two in the Kids for cash scandal [1]. They're currently serving sentences ranging from 17 to 28 years. Good riddance.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kids_for_cash_scandal

Re: California bans private prisons

#96

Post by dragonwriter »

anigbrowl wrote: post #63
oomkiller wrote: post #30

Reforming private prisons is just a small part of criminal justice reform. This is a good step but it seems like many are unaware or are ignoring the impact that labor unions have on overcriminalization. Police and corrections unions exist all across the country and share many of the perverse incentives that private prisons do.

Very true. The California Correctional and Peace Officer's Association is one of the largest unions in the state and exercises a good deal of political power, albeit less than it used to. Part of the problem is the division into trade unions, in which different economic sectors have their own unions and can then be rolled over or pandered to as is convenient for business or state interests. Syndicalism is an idea of…

> The California Correctional and Peace Officer's Association

There is no “and”, just “California Correctional Peace Officers Association” (and, as the absence of the “and” suggests, it is just prison guards, and not other law enforcement.)

Re: California bans private prisons

#97

Post by blancheneige »

dragonwriter wrote: post #50
blancheneige wrote: post #22

>Two of Ice’s largest immigrant detention centers in California Can somebody explain to a legal immigrant why The Guardian keeps omitting the illegal part over twelve times throughout the article?

Because the detention facilities don't house exclusively illegal immigrants (in fact, given the fact that US citizens have been detained in them for extended periods despite clear proof of citizenship, even calling them immigrant detention facilities is somewhat misleading.) A more accurate label would be “arbitrary detention facilities”.

> given the fact that US citizens have been detained in them for extended periods despite clear proof of citizenship

I'd be curious to hear more about these cases as well as their proportion relative to the illegal immigrants detained at these facilities. I'm not aware of lawful residents being detained in such proportions that this would suddenly warrant tipping the terminology on the side of indetermination.

Re: California bans private prisons

#98

Post by [deleted] »

addicted wrote: post #58
thatswrong0 wrote: post #39

Honestly, it's a bit of a red herring.. nothing is going to change from a criminal justice perspective. Less than 10% of incarcerated people are held in private prisons. But even more importantly, there are still so many private contractors / unions in the (public/private) prison industry that this ban won't really affect policies or outcomes going forward.. private interests will almost always exist in it that have…

Public jails are doing the same things because companies that provide those services lobby them to do it. The FCC under Obama had capped the amount they could charge which was promptly undone with government changes. This also ignores known stories such as an example where a judge had a stake in a private prison company (or was bribed outright?) And as a result was sentencing school kids to prison for things which pr…

[deleted]

Re: California bans private prisons

#99

Post by jakelazaroff »

spoiledtechie wrote: post #72
llarsson wrote: post #24

Good riddance. The whole premise of private, for-profit, prisons has always seemed deeply troubling to me. The focus of a healthy prison system should be to rehabilitate people and help them turn their lives around so that they contribute positively to society. That can take years of hard work by the individual, and require assistance from professionals (therapists, teachers, ...). A for-profit company by definition…

I would recommend you do some research on this topic. Your giving talking points produced by mainstream talking heads. When in fact, research points to private prisons being better at dropping incarceration rates through the programs offered at them. Therefore increasing ones chance at correct rehabilitation. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/249718665_A_Compara...

Interesting, literally every single link on the first page of the Google search for "private prison recidivism" appears to say the exact opposite.

- https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/news/2017/may/5/report-says-...

- https://news.wisc.edu/study-finds-private-prisons-keep-inmat...

- https://www.brennancenter.org/blog/how-create-more-humane-pr...

Re: California bans private prisons

#100

Post by lllr_finger »

spoiledtechie wrote: post #75

I would recommend you do some research on this topic. Your giving a talking point produced by mainstream talking heads. When in fact, research points to private prisons being better at dropping incarceration rates through the programs offered at them. Therefore increasing ones chance at correct rehabilitation. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/249718665_A_Compara...

You're all over this thread, and people have already put your resources under a critical light. What is your relationship with the private prison sector and why are you so passionate about it?
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