February 3, 2012
Well, it's nice work if you can get it. Florida
is set to privatize all of its prisons south of Orlando - 20% of its total -
according to
a report issued by Chris Kirkham for Huffington Post.
Getting rich off taxpayers by building cages
The for-profit prison scheme is a case study in crony capitalism, as it involves private prison corporations donating to the politicians best in position to grant them lucrative contracts.
Cenk Uygur,
in the video below, breaks down this "cherry picking" strategy that sets up
FL taxpayers to carry the burden of failure, while corporate/government
interests land another windfall; in this case, the largest procurement
contract in the industry's history:
* Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) was awarded a contract to take
over a facility in Hamilton County, Tennessee. This marked the first time
that any government in the country had contracted out the complete operation
of a jail to a private operator. (Source)
Furthermore, the implications of what it means that private companies are taking over captive populations should also be examined.
This strategy has even found its way into immigration policy, as it has been revealed that the private prison industry helped to draft Arizona's immigration law.
SB1070 was created in a hand-holding session between Corrections Corporation of America and State Senator Russell Pearce in another blatant example of corporatism.
This should anger those on either side of the immigration debate, as it completely excluded the voting public:
The "next big market" is something that is normally reserved for a new product designed to be desirable to its target audience, whether through novelty or efficiency.
Turning human beings into that product is nothing short of a type of human trafficking and slavery, as discussed in the video below:
Perhaps this is the crux of the message: real pressure is mounting on local governments to trim costs in a difficult economic environment. An empathetic public is primed to be swayed by that argument. However, Kirkham clearly demonstrates in his article that even this reasoning is completely fallacious:
Perhaps most worrisome about the growth of private control over an increasing "human product" cherry picked from the public is that it seems to be no longer reserved only for adults.
A heightening wave of arresting
children, some
as young as five, might be tempting to corporate interests
that have proven themselves to be more than happy to expand their product
line and reap profits... even from the most innocent among us. |