{"id":1749,"date":"2011-07-18T07:38:08","date_gmt":"2011-07-18T11:38:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2011\/07\/ohio-selling-off-prisons.html"},"modified":"2011-07-18T07:38:08","modified_gmt":"2011-07-18T11:38:08","slug":"ohio-selling-off-prisons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2011\/07\/ohio-selling-off-prisons.html","title":{"rendered":"Ohio selling off prisons"},"content":{"rendered":"The governor of Ohio created a budget shortfall, and wants to solve it\nby selling off private prisons in “a yard sale” in a recession,\nlike “a junkie” for “his next fix.”\n

\n\nAccording to testimony by a nonpartisan research institute:<\/a>\n

\n“The biggest source of Ohio’s budget problem is not overspending or\ncompenstation for public employees. It is a reduction in revenue.\n
\n…\n
\nThe tax changes also were weighted to high-income Ohioans. More than 40\npercent of the income-tax cuts are going to the five percent of families\nwith income of $135,000 or more a year. Meanwhile, the bottom three-fifths\nof Ohio families will receive just 13 percent of the total tax cut.\n<\/blockquote>\nAccording to a recent poll<\/a>,\nthe people of Ohio think this is unfair and don’t believe the governor\ncan fix the budget without raising taxes.\n

\nThere are other reasons selling off prisons to private prison\ncompanies such as CCA is a bad idea.\n

\n\n<\/a>\nMark Niquette wrote for Bloomberg 29 June 2011,\n\nKasich Tries to Avoid Arizona\u2019s Mistakes in Ohio Prison Selloff<\/a>:\n

\n\n<\/a>\nStill, Democratic lawmakers, including Representative Matt Lundy of\nElyria, question whether Ohio is making a wise move.\n

\n\u201cThe buyer wins and the taxpayers lose when we sell in the middle of\na recession,\u201d Lundy said during press conference last month, calling\nthe move \u201ca yard sale.\u201d\n

\n\n<\/a>\nSelling assets for \u201cone-time\u201d money is a mistake, Louisiana Treasurer\nJohn Kennedy said. He opposed a plan by Republican Governor Bobby Jindal\nto sell three prisons to raise $90 million, a proposal the Legislature\ndidn\u2019t approve.\n

\n\u201cA junkie can sell his TV or his stereo or his iPod and generate money\nfor his next fix,\u201d Kennedy, also a Republican, said in a telephone\ninterview from Baton Rouge, Louisiana. \u201cBut if he’s going to ever\nget well, he needs to face his addiction.\u201d\n<\/blockquote>\n

\nAn even better quote in that story comes from CCA’s own Steve Owen:\n\n\n

\n\u201cIf we don’t operate safe, secure facilities, and we don’t provide\nthe cost savings that are expected, there’s no reason for government\nto continue to partner with our industry,\u201d\n<\/blockquote>\nWell, private prisons don’t save money<\/a>,\ndon’t improve local unemployment,<\/a>,\nand\n\nattempt to get cost cutting by cutting corners,<\/a>\nmaking them\n\nless safe.<\/a>\n

\nThe real reason prisons get privatized is\n\nprivate prison companies spend millions lobbying to get prisons privatized.<\/a>\nThe revolving door has now\n\nPrivatizing prisons to balance a state budget profits CCA at the expense\nof the majority of state taxpayers.\nAnd now that states \nsimply can’t afford to lock so many people up<\/a>,\nprivatizing the lockups doesn’t change that;\nit just puts local\nOhio may be falling for that scam, but Georgia doesn’t have to.\n

\nIt’s time for Georgia to face its addiction to locking people up,\n\nthe worst in the country, with 1 in 13 adults in the prison system.<\/a>\nThe biggest source of convictions is the failed war on drugs, which\n\nfuels drug gangs with money and then makes drug violence even worse\nby prosecuting them,<\/a>\nwhile\n\ncorrupting law enforcement.<\/a>\nGeorgia, like Arizona, is currently adding to the problem with\nthe anti-immigrant law HB 87, making us\n\na laughingstock across the country<\/a>\nand interfering with \nboth farm and city labor.<\/a>\n

\n\nPortugal has shown a way out<\/a>, along with other countries that have\ndecriminalized drugs: addictions down, expenses down.\nU.S. public opinion\n\nis trending rapidly towards legalization.<\/a>\nCalls for it\nare coming from all sorts of people\nin the U.S. and worldwide,\nfrom\n\nGrover Norquist and the president of the NAACP standing on the same podium<\/a>\nto\n\nJimmy Carter<\/a>.\nEven the U.S. Senate finds the drug war failed.<\/a>\nAs\n\nLaw Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP) says:<\/a>\n

\n“Prohibition didn’t work in the past, and it’s not working today.”\n<\/blockquote>\nEven GA Gov. Nathan Deal wants\n\nsentence reform, especially for low-level drug offenders.<\/a>\nThat’s a first step in the direction Portugal successfully pioneered.\n

\nWe can take a step right here in Lowndes County, Georgia,\nby refusing a private prison and spending that money on\nrehabilitation and education instead.\nEarly education\n\nprevents crime and raises living standards.<\/a>\nAnd\n\neducation costs less than locking people up:<\/a>\n

\nGeorgia pays $3,800 each year to educate a child in public schools, and $18,000 every year to keep each inmate behind bars, Deal said.\n<\/blockquote>\nLet’s do something real for education in Lowndes County:\nlet’s not waste tax money on a private prison,\nlet’s invest in early childhood education.\n

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