Private prisons have a financial incentive to detain inmates for as long as possible. The prison has some input into when a detainee is released (good behavior, etc) and private prisons have been observed abusing this power. Private prisons also have incentives to find ways to cut costs and often do so in ways which harm detainees. Private prisons also have incentive to lobby for longer mandatory prison terms regardless of whether it makes sense for the crime or not.
Tons of conflict of interest in private prisons which are in addition to the potential abuses associated with public prisons.
It doesnt have to be. Why don't they do something like pay private prisons the bare minimum per diem but then offer a trailing commission for every year an ex-con is out of jail past a certain date.
Do the statistics for average time to return to prison, and pay them a bonus every year a prisoner is over that average date for 10 years type thing.
So jails make little money for the incarceration but earn profits from the rehabilitation.
What could also make sense is paying the prison a lump sum for the convict instead of a per diem. This changes the incentive structure from keeping people locked up as long as possible to rehabilitating and releasing them as fast as possible.
Just skip the rehab step entirely and just release them - it's cheaper for the prison and the increased chance of re-offending means they'll get another lump sum next go around too!
That's not up to the prison. The only way for a convict to leave prison early is to convince the State that they are worth paroling.
Therefore, the prison would be incentivized to work with the prisoners to encourage good behavior and to show the parole board that a prisoner is worth paroling.
> This changes the incentive structure from keeping people locked up as long as possible to rehabilitating and releasing them as fast as possible.
So long as private prisons have a say in when a prisoner is released there is conflict of interest. If a private prison gets paid $100k for a prisoner, they are going to ensure they are released at the very soonest opportunity instead of detaining them as long as possible. If they get paid per diem, they will keep them as long as possible.
> So long as private prisons have a say in when a prisoner is released there is conflict of interest.
I agree. This would work best if the prison had no influence on the parole board's decision. That way, the only way to get people out of prison faster is to actually rehabilitate them and encourage good behavior.
Aren't parole boards and the justice system in general involved in the process of releasing people from prison? Its the State that ultimately decides when a prisoner is allowed out.
> They're just incentivized to release them ASAP
And the only way to do that is to show the parole board that a person is worth paroling, e.g. by rehabilitating them.
The issue isn't that you can structure incentives to make private prisons prioritize rehabilitation. The issue is that private prisons create a risk of regulatory capture. What creates the largest ROI for the private prison under your suggestions? Sinking loads of money into rehabilitation programmes losing money until decades later where they start to see their trailing commission, or ploughing loads of money into lobbying to change the rules to provide a high per diem and no rehabilitation goals?
The government run prisons in CA are worse than the private prisons they closed. The prisons in CA are so bad, the federal government actually took over oversight of the medical care as they failed to provide a constitutional level of medical care to its prisoners:
>... US District Court Judge Thelton Henderson said he was “driven in large measure by the stunning testimony that was uncontroverted that a prisoner in one of California's 32 prisons dies on average every 6 or 7 days as a result of malpractice, negligence, or some other deficiency in the State's medical care delivery system.”
As fennecfoxen pointed out they also did things like forced sterilizations.
The real problem is that we spend many billions on a prison industrial complex and there are many public sector unions, contractors, builders, etc who profit from it. The political contributions of the CA prison guard union are obviously not being done to lower the number of prison guard positions. As wikipedia says "...The CCPOA is widely considered one of the most powerful political forces in California politics. ... Lobbying efforts and campaign contributions by the CCPOA have helped secure passage of numerous legislative bills favorable to union members, including bills that increase prison terms, member pay, and enforce current drug laws."
This isn't to say that CA prisons are the worst in the country - likely other state's prisons are just as bad as CA. When you have the people regulating a system be the same people who are running the system, you really can't expect things to be that good.
Abolishing private prisons is a good start, but we need much more drastic reform to the prison-industrial complex and failed "tough on crime" policies, particular in the realms of drug policy, community investment, and mental health.
Prison guard unions have vastly less financial resources to work with and a wider range of issues they care about. They often brought up to deflect discussion, but simply operate at a order of magnitude smaller scale.
I'm on the left, and I'm not trying to deflect, engage in "whataboutism", or castigate unions in general. But all humans can succumb to perverse incentives: executives, stockholders, political representatives, and yes, even middle-class workers. The systemic corruption of police and prisons runs so deep, we need to be able to "walk and chew gum" in order to fix it, rather than assume that we can pull out a single thorn of bad policy.
Now compare the private prison industry to the prison guard union in CA CCPOA(California Correctional Peace Officers Association).
>...These dues raise approximately $23 million each year, of which the CCPOA allocates approximately $8 million to lobbying.
This is just the CA prison guard union and it is $8 million a year.
From the same article:
>...many of [CCPOA’s] contributions are directly pro-incarceration. It gave over $100,000 to California’s Three Strikes initiative, Proposition 184 in 1994, making it the second-largest contributor. It gave at least $75,000 to the opponents of Proposition 36, the 2000 initiative that replaced incarceration with substance abuse treatment for certain nonviolent offenders. From 1998 to 2000 it gave over $120,000 to crime victims’ groups, who present a more sympathetic face to the public in their pro-incarceration advocacy. It spent over $1 million to help defeat Proposition 66, the 2004 initiative that would have limited the crimes that triggered a life sentence under the Three Strikes law. And in 2005, it killed Gov. Schwarzenegger’s plan to “reduce the prison population by as much as 20,000, mainly through a program that diverted parole violators into rehabilitation efforts: drug programs, halfway houses and home detention.”
Besides lobbying for more incarceration, they also lobby to prevent accountability:
>...Between 1989 and 1999, 39 inmates were shot to death, and 200 more were wounded. Not one district attorney in the state prosecuted a correctional officer for any of these assaults. ... Local district attorneys have good reason to hesitate before taking a position against the CCPOA’s interests. Greg Strickland, former district attorney in Kings County, home to Corcoran state correctional facilitity, attempted to take a brutality case to the grand jury. The CCPOA fueled his opponent with $30,000 in the next election, leading to Strickland’s defeat. A similar scenario happened in Del Norte County and in Susanville.
The second quote which gives various numbers across multiple different years, including 1994 lobbing showing relatively small amounts in most years. Though one very big one in 2004 at 1 million, but just $75,000 in 2000. So, very rare big spends on election years vs constant multimillion dollar annual donations.
You further misunderstood the first link the bar chart below lists 4.3 million in 2019 and 2.8 million in 2016. But, that’s a subset of total spending which very focused on their bottom line.
PS: California is both very large and unusual in it’s use of propositions for major policies which confuses the issue. Nationwide union spending has a vastly lower average.
>...The second quote which gives various numbers across multiple different years, including 1994 lobbing showing relatively small amounts in most years.
I never implied this was a total breakdown of their lobbying money. They spend an estimated 8 million a year on lobbying. As the wikipedia article says:
>...Although its membership is relatively small, representing only about one tenth the membership of the California Teachers Association, CCPOA political activity routinely exceeds that of all other labor unions in California.
>...You further misunderstood the first link the bar chart below lists 4.3 million in 2019 and 2.8 million in 2016. But, that’s a subset of total spending which very focused on their bottom line.
Sorry, I was in a hurry and didn't notice they had a chart for Lobbying Totals, 1998-2019, that gives a better indication than just 2016. That shows a little over $4 million total political lobbying nationally by the private prison industry. That compares to $8 million alone in CA by the prison guard union. You originally said:
>...They often brought up to deflect discussion, but simply operate at a order of magnitude smaller scale.
This one union in one state spends more on lobbying than the private prison industry. And as the article says:
>...“The formula is simple: more prisoners lead to more prisons; more prisons require more guards; more guards means more dues-paying members and fund-raising capability; and fund-raising, of course, translates into political influence.”
The political contributions of the CA prison guard union are obviously not being done to lower the number of prison guard positions. It wasn't the private prison lobby that pushed through all that bad policy in CA.
In reality, private prisons are often brought up to deflect discussion. The reality is private prisons house a small percentage of prisoners and are a tiny part of the prison industrial complex.
CA getting rid of private prisons isn't going to help reform a broken prison system.
>...Nationwide union spending has a vastly lower average.
You haven't given any evidence that is true. Even if true, just because it costs less to influence policy in other states, doesn't mean they aren't trying to do it.
> not being done to lower the number of prison guard positions.
True, but number of guards and their salaries are surprisingly independent of the number of prisoners. https://www.scstatehouse.gov/CommitteeInfo/HouseLegislativeO... Unions can thus lobby for higher wages or more officers without lobbing for more prisoners. Private prisons on the other hand directly profit on a per inmate basis. As they need to look cost competitive with public prisons they thus need to lobby for more prisoners if they want increased profits. That’s either from more private prisons or more prisoners at existing prisons.
The election makes WACLE the representative for about 5,900 state security and public safety workers, a big chunk of the 22,000 members who belonged to WSEU before Act 10 outlawed most state employee collective bargaining and made union membership voluntary.
PS: Private prisons are recent and growing thing making comparisons even a 10 years ago misses the current reality.
>...Unions can thus lobby for higher wages or more officers without lobbing for more prisoners.
Rather than coming up with hypotheticals of how you think they could operate, it is more useful to look at what they did:
>...many of [CCPOA’s] contributions are directly pro-incarceration. It gave over $100,000 to California’s Three Strikes initiative, Proposition 184 in 1994, making it the second-largest contributor. It gave at least $75,000 to the opponents of Proposition 36, the 2000 initiative that replaced incarceration with substance abuse treatment for certain nonviolent offenders. From 1998 to 2000 it gave over $120,000 to crime victims’ groups, who present a more sympathetic face to the public in their pro-incarceration advocacy. It spent over $1 million to help defeat Proposition 66, the 2004 initiative that would have limited the crimes that triggered a life sentence under the Three Strikes law. And in 2005, it killed Gov. Schwarzenegger’s plan to “reduce the prison population by as much as 20,000, mainly through a program that diverted parole violators into rehabilitation efforts: drug programs, halfway houses and home detention.”
I don't know where private prisons spend their lobbying money, but in terms of a hypothetical private prison, they have such a small percentage of prisons, the best return for their money would probably be to lobby for privatization and bidding against government prisons. The only thing we really do know is that industry spends less nationally than the prison guard union in CA alone spends on lobbying. The prison problems in CA can't be blamed on private prisons and trying to do so is simple deflection.
>...Again I am not saying unions don’t do a lot of lobbying they clearly do for all sorts of things, most recently to stop prisoner transfers during COVID-19 and get more PPE.
Yes health/safety issues are the things they should lobby for, the issue that they have so much money, they also lobby for lots of things they shouldn't be involved with.
>Just one of many examples of a union at the other end of the spectrum:
Well there has been a backlash against public sector unions in Wisconsin and one group of prison guards has decided to leave AFSCME and form a new union with supposedly less interest in electoral politics. That doesn't tell us much about how much influence they had before this point.
>PS: Private prisons are recent and growing thing making comparisons even a 10 years ago misses the current reality.
Not really. Private prisons first started around 1987 and have a slow growth in the number of prisoners compared to public prisons. The last 10 years have been stagnant with little growth.
It is clear though that claiming that prison guard unions
"simply operate at a order of magnitude smaller scale." is simply wrong.
With the way they are currently regulated, it isn't clear if private prisons are much better than state run prisons, but to focus on them and ignore law enforcement public sector unions is a deflection.
The current system is broken though. Those of us who care about prison reform, also care about the lack of accountability of prison guards and the cruelty for cruelty sake that seems to permeate the prison system. When you have the people who regulate the system are the same ones who run it, though what do you expect? Take the example of Cochran prison. This was a prison which shot and killed more prisoners than any prison in the country and the guards were setting up and then betting on gladiator battles.
>...Guards and inmates described macabre scenes in which prison officers gathered in control booths overlooking cramped exercise yards in advance of fights, which were sometimes delayed so that female guards and even prison secretaries could be present.
After 60 minutes covered the story, the California Department of Corrections did an investigation and naturally found no "'widespread staff conspiracy' to abuse prisoners".
First prison guard unions try and protect guards even in situations where they arguably shouldn’t. But, that’s also arguably their job and not trying to increase number of people in prison.
Anyway, I don’t want to bring up the same point, but over a 26 year period that quote covers nearly 1% of total spending which is clearly not a major focus.
> The last 10 years have been stagnant with little growth.
In 2015, the private prison industry operated 62 percent of immigration detention beds and ran nine of the ten largest detention centers housing ICE detainees. Although the model of prison privatization varies, a private prison typically charges a daily rate per person incarcerated to cover investment and operating costs, and to turn a profit. In FY 2017, DHS spent approximately $126 per day for each detained noncitizen. As immigration detention costs steadily increased to around $2 billion annually, industry profits soared. Between 2007 and 2014, CoreCivic’s overall annual profits grew from about $133 million to $195 million, and GEO Group’s profits grew from about $42 million to $144 million yearly.
When your talking 62% of a specific market that’s worth lobbing for. As shown by very healthy profit growth in a ‘stagnant’ industry.
Preventing any accountability for many murders, probably goes a little beyond "arguably shouldn’t". Though in particular, the infamous gladiator spectacle at Cochran though was likely more a case of what happens when an organization regulates itself. People seem to understand that it isn't a good idea for businesses that could harm the public to regulate themselves, but forgot that idea when it is a government agency.
>...Anyway, I don’t want to bring up the same point, but over a 26 year period that quote covers nearly 1% of total spending which is clearly not a major focus.
That is more like the tip of the iceberg. LA Times reporter Dan Moraine estimates the prison guard union might have 11 PACS.
>The political budget flows out in 6 main directions.
>CCPOA pays for public relations.
>CCPOA pays for lobbying services.
>CCPOA funds affiliate groups.
>CCPOA contributes “soft money” to political parties, political events, debates.
>CCPOA gives direct contributions to candidates.
>Election winners support the CCPOA political agenda.
>Tough on crime legislation fuels expansion of the correctional system.
>Expanded correctional system adds membership to the CCPOA.
>In 2015, the private prison industry operated 62 percent of immigration detention beds
Immigration detention is not usually what the average person thinks of when they think of private prison, so it is good to call out the differences so everyone is talking about the same things.
>...When your talking 62% of a specific market that’s worth lobbing for. As shown by very healthy profit growth in a ‘stagnant’ industry.
Their lobbying though is a tiny fraction of the lobbying of law enforcement groups.
> Abolishing private prisons is a good start, but we need much more drastic reform to the prison-industrial complex and failed "tough on crime" policies, particular in the realms of drug policy, community investment, and mental health.
Why is this comment greyed? It's not an insult, or troll, it's a known problem and the OP shifted the debate to horrible stuff done in state prisons, which is equally true and awful, but doesn't change the facts, right?
I have a friend that's spent time in both state and private facilities and he's said--hands down--he'd rather be at a private facility than a state-run one.
According to him, the quality of the food, cleanliness, staff is WAY higher at a private facility than the state run one.
Tons of conflict of interest in private prisons which are in addition to the potential abuses associated with public prisons.