Prison Privatization 101

What does that mean, anyway?

It means giving or selling off government assets to private owners. Right away, some questions arise. Those assets have been paid for, and maintained, and operated, by your money and mine: by our taxes. Are they not ours? Should we not be consulted before they are sold at any price?

The theory underlying privatization is Milton Friedman's "free market." In his view, the capitalist marketplace is perfectly self-regulating, and needs no regulation (hence "free") and ought to function even in realms traditionally operated by the federal or state goverment. Prisons come to mind.

This theory raises other questions, on the order of those we ought to direct at anyone who thinks his interpretation of the US Constitution is better than that which has prevailed for the last 250 years. Big questions occur to me, such as: What is the theory underlying government ownership of certain services and certain utilities? What incentives are introduced when these are privatized? How can the public evaluate the performance of privately-held entities, and hold them accountable when they do poorly or become corrupted?

Public (government) ownership of prisons probably stems from the constitutional role of government to maintain the public order. That is, law enforcement, the courts, and the prison system are seen as parts of one constitutional role granted to the government. Such a system theoretically has no incentives other than to maintain order efficiently. In the case of a state or federal prison, for instance, there really are no incentives to hold a prisoner longer than his or her sentence unless the public order is threatened, and in that case, lawyers, courts, and due process are involved. In fact, the economics of prison operations probably creates the incentive to discharge prisoners as soon as legally appropriate.

On the other hand, "privatized" prisons are paid by the government to discharge its penal function. Contracts are awarded based, at least theoretically, on prison economics, and owners are paid "per capita," by the head. Right away, it is obvious that the capitalist market incentive inevitably is to hold prisoners as long as possible, and to get as many prisoners as possible.

When the conservative proponents of privatization are also state and congressional lawmakers, lawyers, and judges--and staff the White House and the Department of Justice and the US Supreme Court--that incentive doesn't go away and isn't regulated. On the contrary: The so-called "tough-on-crime" contingent is very well aware that "three strikes" and mandatory sentencing increase the length of prison terms and increase the numbers of people in prisons. In this way, the "free market" is a hideous joke on those who rely on the government for our freedoms, our civil liberties, our right to fair and impartial justice. None are hurt more than people of color and the poor.

Isn't it worth considering whether the profit motive has something to do with the fact that the USA has more people in prison than any other country in the world? As of 2006, some 7 million--that's right, 7 million people were in prison, on parole, or on probation. The only other country to come close is China, and it has four times our population.

It's all a bit suspect to me, all this rush to build detention centers and the sudden concern about "illegal" immigrants. From all the data I've seen--from reputable sources, I mean--the immigrant "problem" isnt much of a problem since our economy comes out well ahead after all the costs are accounted for. Oh, there may be pockets where new arrivals create issues, but to equate that with the rampaging Mongol hordes as the Right does is ludicrous. So I'm wondering what the incentive might be to hype the immigrant situation in a way that sparks midnight roundups and detention. I'm wondering who benfits? Obviously Wackenhut and CCA and the other prison corporations gain mightily, and the contractors who provide food and beverage, laundry, and facility maintenance services gain as well.

Maybe these considerations help also to explain why our "Justice" Department--I use the term reluctantly--hasn't been all that anxious to address the gross disparities in sentences for African American, Hispanic, and Native American populations, or even the hideous problem of wrongful conviction. Maybe there are too many people at the for-profit prison trough?

This is obviously "Privatized Prisons 101." There's so much more to consider. I really hope that people younger than I am read this post, because I worry that they don't have the life history or the depth of familiarity with the Constitution and all that lies behind it to argue against privatization.

In our culture, success is equated with conspicuous consumption, with wealth, and wealth is about money, and privatization is about money. It's all too easy to forget about the social consequences when somebody's waving green stuff around.

Sean Taylor

I don't follow pro football, haven't fooled with the 'Skins for twenty years or more, and wouldn't have known Sean Taylor if I had walked into him. Still, I'm moved by his senseless murder and feel his loss. I send my sympathies to Sean's wife, daughter, and larger family, to those who knew and cared for him, to the 'Skins, and to all of us.

The little I know of Sean Taylor comes from one clip of him and three televised interviews with men who knew him well.

What struck me was a jarring deconstruction in all three interviews. First, the interviewer posited Taylor's evolution from some sort of difficult youth to a man matured by the birth of his daughter. Then the interviewee expressed mystification and insisted that that the story didn't fit the man they knew at all. Rather, they said, they didn't know of a troubled past, and said that he was shy, gentle, focused on his work, brilliantly talented, unassuming, and devoted to his family.

Somebody clearly got the story wrong. But what's odd is that though it was not accurate, still it was lodged firmly in the files of the sportscasters. I don't get that. Is this a measure of the quality of sports reporting?

Hmmmmmm. Now that I think about it, I seem to recall hearing just this mythic oddyssey applied to other famous African American athletes. If I followed pro sports maybe I could give examples. Since I don't, I can't, but I'm sure I'm not making this up.

In a way, it's standard fare. All men have rebellious youths. Boys will be boys and then they grow up.

But what in my experience plays as charmingly picaresque for young white men plays differently (among Anglos) for young African American, Hispanic, and Native American men. I so hope it's different for them in their own worlds. I hope they're cut the same amount of slack we cut for our (middle class) boys' testosterone factor, because in my world, we don't cut slack at all for young men of color. Nuh-uh. What we first trivialize and then assume a young white man has left permanently behind, we convert to living sinister potential in a young man of color: There's just no telling when he'll revert "to type," we think, but thank God somebody's civilized him. For now.

Sean Taylor is iconic. His murder is the tragedy of wasted talent, potential lost to us all, forever, and I don't mean only his football skills. There was a whole man there. Taylor's early success speaks of his focus, his priorities, his discipline, his remarkable ability even as a kid to pursue a dream that you know didn't always seem to be within easy reach. And yet he didn't limit his life to football. In the one clip I saw, he himself alluded to his life off the field in ways that made it clear he knew pretty well which was his life and which was his job.

Sean Talor is iconic. How many other brilliantly talented, gentle, focused, shy, unassuming, and devoted young African American, Native American, and Hispanic family men are boxed inside that myth, and what happens when they aren't pro football stars of massive talent? Where do they end up?

Oh wait, don't tell me.

At yearend 2005 there were 3,145 black male sentenced prison inmates per 100,000 black males in the United States, compared to 1,244 Hispanic male inmates per 100,000 Hispanic males and 471 white male inmates per 100,000 white males.