Felons are expensive.  They'd want dope smokers, not rapists and bank robbers.  Fewer guards, more people to a cell, less security hinderance.

Corporal punishment for misdemeanors, thread over.

I wonder why prisons are private businesses. What's the point of paying not only prison guards and support staff but also profits for the owners?

Allowing a prison industry is a morally reprehensable act of a greedy, immoral society. This is indeed capitalism at its most evil extension. Only in America.

There's this conviction that market mechanisms improve efficiency on every level: If you want to make a profit you have to be better than the competition. And that increases efficience and lowers prices. According to an interview, prices for housing prisoners lowered indeed after bringing the free market into the game.

Some liberals think that profit oriented approaches shouldn't be applied to everything - especially not in areas involving human fates.

The problem I see with prisons-for-profits is that it generates incentives to put more people in jail for longer terms. And that just doesn't feel right.

And that is the sort of thing that makes criticism of anything in America always seem so ridiculous.

Some people look at the world, overlook genocide and slavery, dictatorships and hunger, and then decide that America is worst.

In fact the US is not the only country where prisons are run by private companies. Such private prisons are run in the UK by companies like Serco (who coincidentally also do the facilities management in my office). Other countries with profitable prison industries are Canada, South Africa, Australia, and Chile. There is nothing devious about it. None of these countries are (currently) among the worst human rights offenders (unless one believes the "only in America" crowd and simply ignores the rest of the world).

Privately run prisons are better than government-run prisons in Iran (see note 1) or even Turkey (see note 2).

So if you are looking for a morally reprehensable act of a greedy, immoral society, look at government-run prisons in other countries. "Only in America" is a stupid principle to apply when trying to figure out what to change to make the world a better place.

Note 1:

Observers were stunned when Abtahi (above), who served as a vice president for former reformist President Mohammad Khatami, publicly confessed to conspiring against Ahmadinejad.

It wasn't just that his words appeared to be copied verbatim from Iran's hardline press. But the 51-year-old looked terrible.

He had just spent weeks under interrogation and in solitary confinement without access to a lawyer. The mid-ranking cleric appeared gaunt, withdrawn and without his turban.  

By most accounts, Evin Prison is an unlikely self-help venue.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/babylonbeyond/2009/08/iran-ahmadinejad-aide-proposes-evin-prison-diet-plan.html

Note 2:

The government is trying to erase the traces of pain and tears of the past as part of the democratization package it announced last month, which aims to answer the long-standing Kurdish question. The Diyarbakır Prison, associated with torture and maltreatment particularly in the post-1980 period, will be no more, according to a statement from Agriculture Minister Mehdi Eker. Eker also announced that the prison grounds, spanning some 45 acres, will be the new home of an educational facility, much needed in the region. “We will be moving the prison, which is not remembered fondly in Diyarbakır's collective psyche and which has left major wounds on our democracy.”

http://www.todayszaman.com/tz-web/news-184888-101-notorious-diyarbakir-prison-to-become-history.html

I am fully convinced that market mechanisms improve efficiency on every level, up to a point. But the market itself cannot compete with a strict plan organised by competent people.

And I am convinced that the state has competent people who can run prisons.

I really don't care what liberals consider "areas involving human fates".

All areas involve human fates.

It generates incentives for the prisons to want more people in jail. But it also generates incentives for the state not to send many people to jail (because it costs money per prisoner).

Ideally, the state should have no special incentive to send more or fewer people to jail.

The problem I see with private prisons is that it means that some private company is doing things that ONLY representatives of the state should be allowed to do: namely enforce laws ("Stay in prison!") and use violent means to achieve such ("He is trying to escape, stop him!").

I know a guy who runs one of these private prison companies.

He's a man of his convictions and he has served time for every one of them. 

Incidentally, this is not slavery.

This is another word that is starting to lose its original meaning, used by people to convince themselves that this world is a much nicer place than it really is and would be perfect if only the evil west would reform.

Prisoners are working voluntarily. And nobody forced them to become prisoners.

To call their situation "slavery" is making a mockery of real slavery.

Generalizations don't help in a civil discourse.

For one, they inflame.

For another, they are usually easy to rebut by other generalizations not necessarily related to the actual topic.

I agree, this generalization is unfair. And it's completely besides the point.

I'm interested to hear how the prison industry in other countries performs. But for this topic I don't care how chinese or north-korean prisons work which, I'm sure, are not fun to be in.

I worked for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Department of Correction for 23 years, and privitization is a really bad thing, take it from experience, I am retired of course, after 20 years in unifrom you can retire,

Did you by chance witness the change from state prisons to privatized prisons? This should have started in the Reagen era - mid 80s.

Care to share some stories?

Private or government run, makes no difference.  What needs to be done is to remove the TV's computers and regress back to the 20's and restart the chain gangs.  Put these idiots to work, make it tough, and quit making it more like a vacation spot.  used to be that once you were a convicted felon, you lost the right to vote and other things.  Now thats changed.  They have to many rights.  Getting to be, why put them in jail, just slap their hand and say,,,don't do that again.

Ya, it completely makes sense to put a guy/girl busted for a joint, in a jail, on a chain gang, and strip all his/her rights to vote, after serving his/her time. (coincidently, the state will have no problem taxing said felon, but wont allow him/her to vote after taking his/her money)

Note on above: The overwhelming majority of prisoners today are incarcerated for drug or drug-related charges. Hardened criminals are but a small part of our ballooning prison populations.

As for chain gangs, what exactly do you want them to do? Displace road workers in the middle of a major recession? A fair amount of prisoners already work in prison.

Where's Jean Valjean when you need him?