[caption id="attachment_3991" align="alignleft" width="224" caption="Governor Bobby Jindal"]
[/caption]Carol Forsloff - Jindal plans to sell two prisons, in Allen and Winn Parishes. Gerald Long is uncertain about this, according to the Natchitoches Times. But what are the issues in private ownership of prisons and do they do a good job?
It turns out private ownership of prisons, although touted by some, don't have a good track record. One wonders how much research went into the decision about selling these prisons. For example,
For-profit prison companies like Corrections Corporations of America were looked at over a period of years and found to have serious problems, despite their claims of being cheaper than publicly owned prisons. As an example at the prison in Youngstown, Ohio the murders and mayhem taking place inside led to the company having a large series of wrongful death lawsuits. There were numerous disturbances in the prison, and those reviewing the prison found lots of problems with prison management.
Some of the problems involved failure to provide adequate medical care to prisoner. Here are some of the others:
- failure to control violence in its prisons;
- substandard conditions that have resulted in prisoner protests and uprisings;
- criminal activity on the part of some CCA employees, including the sale of illegal drugs to prisoners; and
- escapes,
which in the case of at least two facilities include inadvertent
releases of prisoners who were supposed to remain in custody.
These problems occur, according to studies made on private prisons because they often pay less and provide less training in order to save money.
Running a prison privately means running it for profit. One author asks the legitimate question: What kind of hysteria about crime might be fostered when profit is the potential?
Long says he "wants to have more information and details" before going along with Jindal's idea about privatizing these prisons. Given what research has found to date, that's likely a good idea.
