{"id":2165,"date":"2011-04-19T12:37:51","date_gmt":"2011-04-19T16:37:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2011\/04\/why-georgia-wants-to-build-private-prisons.html"},"modified":"2011-04-19T12:37:51","modified_gmt":"2011-04-19T16:37:51","slug":"why-georgia-wants-to-build-private-prisons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2011\/04\/why-georgia-wants-to-build-private-prisons.html","title":{"rendered":"Why Georgia wants to build private prisons"},"content":{"rendered":"Jake Armstrong wrote 4 Dec 2008 in the Florida Times-Union that\n\nPrivate prisons trump Georgia’s:\nDOC says incarceration is cheaper when done by private companies.<\/a>\nReally? How much cheaper?\n
\n\n<\/a>\nPrivate companies can build prisons faster and operate them for\nslightly less than the state, said Michael Nail, deputy director of the\ndepartment’s corrections division.\n<\/blockquote>\nSlightly cheaper.\nWhich we already learned is by having\n\nfewer guards per prisoner.<\/a>\nRisking public safety for small dollar savings:\ndoes that sound like a good idea to you?.\n

\nHow much cheaper?\n\n\n

\nPrivate prisons also reduce the state’s $48 daily per-inmate cost by $3 to $5.\n<\/blockquote>\nThat’s right, 6.25% to 10.42% cheaper.\nWhile funnelling profits\n\nto private prison company executives and shareholders.<\/a>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n\n<\/a>\nBuild them faster.\nWhy build them at all when other states, such as Texas,\n\nare cancelling prisons because they can’t afford them.<\/a>\n

\nWhat are such states doing instead?\nWhat critics of Georgia’s path recommend:\n

\nBut critics of the state’s justice system say money should be directed\nat education, drug treatment and job development, rather than at more\nspace for offenders.\n<\/blockquote>\n

\nHere’s the problem:\n

\nThe population in the 58,000-inmate system grows between 4 percent and\n7 percent each year, and the department needs beds for as many as 4,000\ninmates in the next year, Nail said.\n<\/blockquote>\nNeeds?\nWhat Georgia needs to do is to stop locking up so many people,\nespecially for minor drug offenses.\n

\nThe first rule of getting out of a hole:\nstop digging!\n

\n\n<\/a>\nWho is digging?\n

\nGeorgia began contracting with two prison companies in 1998. Two\ncompanies, Cornell Corp. and Corrections Corp. of America, run three\nprisons with capacity for 7,000 inmates.\n<\/blockquote>\n

\nThe digging has continued since 2008,\nwith \nan Arizona-style anti-immigrant law to rake in more prison “customers”.<\/a>\nHB 87 passed\n\ndespite thousands of opponents rallying against it.<\/a>\n\n<\/a>\n

\nCCA wants to build a prison in Lowndes County,\n\nwhere our Industrial Authority thinks that’s a fine idea.<\/a>\n

\nWhat say we cancel the prison and\n\n<\/a>\n\ngrow local industry like solar, food, prison rehabilitation, and education.<\/a>\n

\n-jsq\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jake Armstrong wrote 4 Dec 2008 in the Florida Times-Union that Private prisons trump Georgia’s: DOC says incarceration is cheaper when done by private companies. Really? How much cheaper? Private companies can build prisons faster and operate them for slightly less than the state, said Michael Nail, deputy director of the department’s corrections division. Slightly […]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1113,14,71,1381,72,178],"tags":[8817,8705,8830,8730,4706,1048,2712],"class_list":["post-2165","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cca","category-economy","category-gdoc","category-immigration","category-incarceration","category-vlcia","tag-cca","tag-education","tag-immigration","tag-incarceration","tag-michael-nail","tag-prevention","tag-rehabilitation"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-yV","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2165","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2165"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2165\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}