Guy gets pulled over for drunk driving, county police lose records, he is left in solitary for two years.

[MichaeltheGreat]

A privately operated jail probably has a lot more to lose from something like this going wrong. And it would make much bigger headlines because of the punishment for profit or whatever deal. Not saying it couldn't happen though.

Actually, come to think of it, I don't know that there are privately operated jails. I doubt it. Privately operated prisons, yes, and the distinction is important.

Yep, there are privately operated pre-trial detention facilities. They're government owned facilities, but staffed with private corrections contractors, not public COs or law enforcement. Downtown San Diego has one, next to the main criminal court and a block from the main (county) jail, which is operated by the Sheriff's Dept. How they determine who goes where I don't know, but when I'm in that area of downtown, I see private COs coming and going out of the building and you can see in some of the corridors when they open the exit doors.

They actually typically have less to lose, since their contracts normally immunize them from most suits.

[snoopy369]

Private contracting jail would have the contract to lose, presumably; they'd have some sort of "don't do anything horribly illegal that brings us bad publicity or we pull your contract" bit. Also, if you lose a contract for-cause, you would have to inform other potential government clients you'd lost a contract for-cause, which would probably mean your company's done.

[Alexander's Horse]

Private jails might worry about costs per inmate and find such a an error faster if the contracts were structured correctly, a big if I know.

[regexcellent]

I doubt they get paid on the basis of how many inmates they hold, just adding to the reasons why there's no profit motive to **** up. The real question is if there's a profit motive not to **** up.

[snoopy369]

Actually, it seems entirely reasonable to be paid per inmate. MY_COMPANY does plenty of work for the government, and every single contract is paid by specific work done, not just a large dollar amount for the whole thing - ie, we mail out X number of pieces of mail, we get paid Y*X dollars. That's one of the best ways to make it harder to give out pointless contracts to your friends (requiring actual work to be done).

[MichaeltheGreat]

In theory, yes, practically, not so much. Little fish contractors won't get these kind of contracts anyway. In corrections, it's probably CCA or one of their competitors on that scale, so they have the usual bevy of lawyers and lobbyists that big fish contractors all have. Debarment is contestible, and economic damages from an improper debarment are actionable, so usually, in practice, debartment is voluntary, as part of a plea bargain or settlement of potential criminal or civil claims by the government. I was involved in three potential debarments when I worked in acquisition for USG. The only one actually successful (though it happened after I left) was my boss's boss, an SES1 who ran a little personal side business and used government Fedex accounts for personal shipping to the tune of several thousand. As part of a deal not to prosecute, she resigned, agreed to restitution and a three year individual debarment, which is essentially lifetime for federal contracting. She didn't give a ****, she retired and runs her business from some rural property in the midwest. To effect a debarment against a big fish contractor, practically speaking, you have to have provable serious criminal activity by senior management. At both federal and state level (and counties usually are subject to state level requirements) you have a separation of authority between contractors and "inherently governmental functions."

In a situation like this guy's, the hypothetical private contractor's likely line of defense would be two-fold - lobbyists working the politicians who can put the heat on lowly Contract Officers through their supervisors, and lawyers stating things to the effect "the inmate was classed mentally ill, and he was segregated for his own protection. We informed so and so (gov't employee) of this, and he was transported for X, Y and Z purpose, and returned to us. Despite your employee knowing his status, you didn't transfer him to another facility or authorize us and release us from liability for transferring him into regular confinement in the general population. Our contract does not call for having separate mental health facilities, nor for providing segregated, protected facilities in a regular confinement operation, so the only alternative you left us with was to maintain the prisoner in a solitary confinement area for his own protection." blah blah blah.

All they have to do is make it ambiguous enough sounding that the senior administrative people and elected officials will be scared ****less of contract termination or debarment litigation, and then the whole thing starts about "overzealous" contract officers, and next thing you know, the CO is running the agency's Office Depot account. There's also a good chance that the lobbyists/lawyers would make a case for additional training and facility improvements to "prevent such a tragic situation from recurring." Of course, this would be via a cost added change order.

edit - special purpose agencies have an easier time with this, since their boards are usually not as easily influenced. And it's a different world when you term or debar a little fish contractor - they don't have near the weight. But if you're gonna take on a Lockheed-Martin or CCA, not even God's gonna help you unless you have a hugely solid, spinproof case.

[Fake Boris]

I doubt they get paid on the basis of how many inmates they hold, just adding to the reasons why there's no profit motive to **** up. The real question is if there's a profit motive not to **** up.

They do - as a matter of the fact, they lobby for harsher terms.

[Sava]

blah blah blah profit motive
sounds like a commie
EVERYTHING WILL BE PERFECT UNDER MY PERFECT IDEOLOGY

[giblets]

Communists are way better at locking up people for no good reason. Sadly we're a bunch of amateurs when it comes to abusing human rights.

[Sava]

The US has like 1/4 of the world's prison population. We have good reason for locking up all these people?

oh yeah, they're black and mexican

[giblets]

Well we do have better law enforcement than most third world countries and worse crime rates than most first world countries.

[Sava]

and a thriving for-profit prison industry

[regexcellent]

Well we do have better law enforcement than most third world countries and worse crime rates than most first world countries.

Not actually true. Our crime rates are higher in some areas and lower than others.

Just because we have lots of people in prison doesn't mean they are there for no reason, or that they shouldn't be there.

Oncle Boris holds conspiracy theories about for-profit ****ing food companies like Monsanto so I have no reason to care about his opinion on for profit prison contractors.

[Kidlicious]

I've got a good reason to lock up a lot of people.

[kentonio]

Just because we have lots of people in prison doesn't mean they are there for no reason, or that they shouldn't be there.

When you have 1/23rd of the worlds population and 1/4 of the worlds prisoners then yes you can probably assume you're being a little over zealous.