Tag Archives: prison

Cook County schools furloughing teachers

Cook county schools have a budget shortfall problem, and they think they can solve it only by furloughing teachers. Remind me again why we're wasting $1 billion a year on prisons, including private prisons for the profit of private prison shareholders and executives (like CCA CEO Damon Hininger's $3 million a year) and we're furloughing teachers instead?

Greg Gullberg wrote for WCTV 10 May 2012, Teachers in Cook County Face Furloughs,

The Cook County School System is facing a $472,352 deficit. Superintendent Lance Heard tells Eyewitness News reporter Greg Gullberg that the only way out may be to initiate system-wide furlough days and cutting jobs.

"We've done everything we can to maintain the level of education for the students that we've always had and we think we've been able to do that," said Superintendent Heard.

Nothing is set in stone yet, but 488 teachers, staff and administrators, may be facing furlough days next school year. Superintendent Heard hopes to limit them to three to five per employee.

"I would like to say also that when we do take furlough days, they are always none instructional days. The students do not miss any school," said Superintendent Heard.

Yet. Keep on in this direction and the students will be missing school. As it is, they just get less-prepared teachers, for less-effective teaching. But this is not Supt. Heard's fault.

Do we in Georgia want to prepare students for jail, or to succeed in life? Prisons cost we the taxpayers lots of money. Successful young people help pay for everything. Maybe we should choose successful young people, starting with education.

-jsq

Let’s Be Blunt: It’s Time to End the Drug War

Don’t believe Latin American presidents (former and current) or a global commission including captains of industry or historic statesmen such as Jimmy Carter or major newspapers or Judge Napolitano or law enforcement professionals like Frank Serpico? Ask an economist who spells it out: the War on Drugs is an economic, public safety, and civil rights disaster, and legalization is needed right now.

Economist Art Carden wrote for Forbes yesterday, Let’s Be Blunt: It’s Time to End the Drug War,

April 20 is the counter-culture “holiday” on which lots and lots of people come together to advocate marijuana legalization (or just get high). Should drugs—especially marijuana—be legal? The answer is “yes.” Immediately. Without hesitation. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200 seized in a civil asset forfeiture. The war on drugs has been a dismal failure. It’s high time to end prohibition. Even if you aren’t willing to go whole-hog and legalize all drugs, at the very least we should legalize marijuana.

OK, why?

Continue reading →

Good thing we didn’t buy a “jail to nowhere”

Still more evidence that private prisons are bad business. If the Industrial Authority won't do due diligence before buying into boondoggles like biomass and private prisons, we'll have to do it for them.

Kirsten Bokenkamp wrote for ACLU Texas 4 April 2012, Nobody wants a “Jail to Nowhere”,

…a number of Texas counties and towns ( the article points to Anson, Littlefield, and Angelina, Newton, Dickens and Falls Counties as a few examples) were sold on the idea that mass incarceration was in Texas to stay. According to the article, most of the privately operated county jails sit less than half full, and guess who is left holding the bill? (Hint – it is not the for-profit prison company).

Meanwhile, we can look askance at anything else that is pushed by ALEC, like private prisons and charter schools are.

-jsq

 

ALEC, Trayvon Martin, CCA’s private prisons, and charter schools?

What’s the connection between

the Florida law that’s letting
the killer of Trayvon Martin hide, the

private prisons CCA
runs in Georgia and other states, and HB 797, the Georgia charter schools
bill
that’s on the floor today for Senate debate today?

ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council.

Paul Krugman wrote yesterday for the NYTimes,

Lobbyists, Guns and Money,

ALEC seems, however, to have a special interest in privatization


— that is, on turning the provision of public services, from
schools to prisons, over to for-profit corporations. And some of the
most prominent beneficiaries of privatization, such as the online
education company K12 Inc. and the prison operator Corrections
Corporation of America, are, not surprisingly, very much involved
with the organization.

What this tells us, in turn, is that ALEC’s claim to stand for
limited government and free markets is deeply misleading. To a large
extent the organization seeks not limited government but privatized
government, in which corporations get their profits from taxpayer
dollars, dollars steered their way by friendly politicians. In
short, ALEC isn’t so much about promoting free markets as it is
about expanding crony capitalism.

And in case you were wondering, no, the kind of privatization ALEC
promotes isn’t in the public interest; instead of success stories,
what we’re getting is a series of scandals. Private charter schools,
for example, appear to deliver a lot of profits but little in the
way of educational achievement.

Same as private prisons.
The only real benefit goes to

private prison company executives and shareholders.

Think about that: we seem to be turning into a country where crony
capitalism doesn’t just waste taxpayer money but warps criminal
justice, in which growing incarceration reflects not the need to
protect law-abiding citizens but the profits corporations can reap
from a larger prison population.

Martin Luther King Jr. wrote from a Birmingham jail in 1963:

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

And today we have an organized threat to justice everywhere.
That threat is called ALEC.

-jsq

Sentencing reform passed joint committee in Georgia

Remember the Georgia legislature was considering sentencing reform? Now it's passed the Special Joint Committee on Georgia Criminal Justice Reform.

Bill Rankin wrote for the AJC Tuesday, Sweeping changes to state sentencing laws passes committee,

A key legislative committee on Tuesday approved sweeping changes to Georgia's criminal justice system in a sentencing reform package intended to control prison spending and ensure costly prison beds are reserved for the state's most dangerous criminals.

Well, that sounds good!

But wait, this is cautious Georgia:

Continue reading →

VLCIA executive session on real estate transactions last Thursday noon

According to the VLCIA website,
they had a special called meeting last Thursday,
including apparently an executive session to discuss real estate
transactions.
One big real estate transaction with a deadline of today (13 March 2012)
is the CCA private prison.



This is on the front page of the VLCIA website:

Notice:The Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority will hold
a Special Called Meeting on Thursday, March 8, 2012 at noon, for the
purpose of reviewing bids and awarding a contract for the Miller Business
Park Landscape/Irrigation Project and discuss real estate transactions.

Here’s

the agenda.
I congratulate the Industrial Authority for posting agendas!

Note the executive session.
The agenda doesn’t say what the executive session is for (isn’t it supposed to,
according to Georgia sunshine laws?).
We can guess it’s for real estate transactions, as in the notice on the VLCIA
front page.

Hm, what real estate transactions could that be?
A contract for a landscaping and irrigation project isn’t a real estate
transaction.
Let me think…
oh, the CCA private prison is a real estate transaction!
Could that be what they were discussing?

The rest of VLCIA’s website is pretty thoroughly broken right now, as in

Warning: Parameter 3 to showItem() expected to be a reference, value given
in /home/industri/public_html/includes/Cache/Lite/Function.php on line 100

None of the other links seem to work.

-jsq


Special Called Meeting of the

Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority

Thursday, March 8, 2012, 12 noon

Valdosta Lowndes County Industrial Authority

Conference Room

Valdosta, Georgia

  • Call to Order Special Called Meeting

  • Invocation

  • Welcome Guests

  • Westside Business Park

    • Reviewing bids and awarding a contract for the Miller Business Park
      Landscape and Irrigation Project
  • Adjourn Special Called Meeting into Executive Session

  • Adjourn Executive Session/Call to Order Special Called Meeting

  • Adjourn Special Called Meeting

Marching at the Industrial Authority 2012-03-06



After

starting up at the prison site
and

heading out,


we
honking at the Valdosta City Council,
we
marched at the Industrial Authority office.

Drive Away CCA!

Here’s

Part 1 of 3:




Marching at the Industrial Authority 2012 Part 1 of 3:

No private prison in Lowndes County,

Motorcade against Corrections Corporation of America, Drive Away CCA,

CCA, VLCIA, Corrections Corporation of America, Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority,

Valdosta City Council, Lowndes County Commission, incarceration, prison, private prison,

Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 6 March 2012.

Videos by Gretchen Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.



They weren’t in, since they only meet once a month.

Here’s

Part 2 of 3:

Continue reading →

Crony capitalism corruption, a non-partisan enemy —Barbara Stratton

Received yesterday on

VSU Health Sciences: much better than a private prison. -jsq

You know my main argument against the private prison is I don’t like


public/private partnerships and the sweetheart deals they encourage.
Also, when I requested CCA to provide me with information that
supports private prisons so I could research both sides they did not
respond. This led me to believe they have no concern for community
opinion even when citizens are open minded and seeking honest
information. They seem to prefer back room deals with local
politicians that escape community detection unless citizens are
aggressively observant like LAKE members.

However, we are not on the same page about what I consider
simplistic solutions for reducing the prison population. Education
and good drug treatment programs are definitely positives, but they
are not the silver bullet liberals proclaim them to be. Criminals
evolve from complex heredity and environmental mediums that don’t
magically dissolve via education or intervention protocols.
Certainly these are to be encouraged because they do help some, but
they will never totally replace the need for legal intervention and
penal institutions. In addition to educational and medical
institutions not being a magical replacement solution for crime,
these very institutions often encourage crony capitalism corruption,
which we agree to be a non-partisan enemy.

In summary, I support our criminal justice system which includes
prisons, but I do not support any mixing of government and business.
Public/private partnerships are crony capitalism playgrounds that
undermine free enterprise and citizen control. Unfortunately our
trusted elected legislators have already filled our GA Codes and
State Constitution with government consolidation and multi county
regional partnership initiatives. At present, they are pushing
SB 284, already passed by the senate, and in the house, which will
further enhance Land Bank Authority powers and partnerships. As
citizens we all need to remember that increasing unelected
bureaucratic authorities equals minimized citizen control. We also
need to ask our local, state and federal elected representatives why
they are listening to special interest groups that encourage
authorities and public/private partnerships instead of protecting
their constituents.

-Barbara Stratton Commenter

We don’t have to agree on every point to oppose (private prison) or
support (government transparency) the same things.
Indeed, there will always be criminals, but we don’t need to lock up
more than any other country on the planet.
The big change in the environment that has produced seven times
more criminals now than in the 1960s is the War on Drugs.
Time to end that failed experiment in prohibition.
Meanwhile, indeed crony capitalism corruption is our non-partisan enemy.

-jsq

A few questions I have… —Etta Mims

Received Monday. -jsq

John –

You have my permission to post this – these are the questions I have
regarding the private prisons:

I believe research is one of my best friends! Thank you Wikipedia and
Google!

I researched private prisons over the weekend, and here are some of my
questions and “aha” statements:

  1. Please note: these Private Prisons are also called “For Profit
    Prison” – that right there should cause fear and trembling.

  2. If we as tax payers are funding these “Private/For Profit Prisons”
    are we allowed a percentage of the profits?

  3. “Private/For Profit Prisons” typically enter into contractual
    agreements with governments – again – fear and trembling.

  4. Why build a private prison? Why not add on to the current prison
    located to the west of I-75?

  5. If you look online, there are many Private/For Profit Prisons
    closing due to the recession:

  6. There are inadequately staffed Private/For Profit Prisons

    http://www.ccpoa.org/news/tags/tag/private+prisons
    This will lead to an increase in prisoners escaping.

  7. Prison employees typically live outside the county they work in, so
    how will this help our local economy?

I haven’t completed my research. I will continue to look into these
questions and “ahas” until I understand the pros and cons completely.

Until then — I think March 13 is the deadline? Scary.

Heading out Drive Away CCA 2012 03 06



Yes, we drove about that slow the whole way: that was in the plan.
We honked at Valdosta City Hall: the City Council could hear us inside.

They have Citizens to be Heard at their

regular meeting tonight.

Here’s

the video:




Heading out Drive Away CCA 2012 03 06

No private prison in Lowndes County,

Motorcade against Corrections Corporation of America, Drive Away CCA,

CCA, VLCIA, Corrections Corporation of America, Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority,

Valdosta City Council, Lowndes County Commission, incarceration, prison, private prison,

Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 6 March 2012.

Videos by Gretchen Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.

-jsq