This is why I am opposed to privatized prisons.

[Hauldren Collider]

If the government sucks at a lot of things, it's because you idiots don't hold your government responsible when things go wrong, and instead just sit back *****ing about it. Grow some balls and take some responsibility rather than sitting back and hoping some profit driven businessman is going to wave a magic ****ing wand and suddenly cure all your countries problems.

That was not a snoopy post...

[snoopy369]

Ken, you're either being dense or just not thinking about it. This isn't really something that most liberals disagree with - they oppose privatizing on moral grounds, generally. Government agencies are extremely inefficient. If you're handed $100MM to run a prison, and you have to give back whatever you don't spend, you spend $100MM to run your prison, and then you ask for $110MM next year. If you are handed $100MM to run a prison and you get to keep whatever you don't spend, you spend $85MM to run your prison and take home the change, and then when the contract comes up for bid again a competing company offers to do it for $90MM. This isn't fantasy, it's not even particularly complicated. It's just common sense, and it's exactly what happens in the real world.

You also end up with competing prison companies that develop interesting ways to do things more efficiently, that won't generally happen in a government-run institution which is tied to doing things the old way to preserve power and jobs.

You can certainly suggest that a company might do a ****ty job with the intent of cutting costs where they oughtn't, or whatever moral concerns you may have, but they will almost certainly do it more efficiently (in terms of cost to the state). Those moral concerns are valid, but need to be explicitly given - and in the case of prisons I generally think they're invalid, largely because the states now do such terrible jobs of rehabilitating prisoners that it's not likely to be any worse - and perhaps if there are incentives to companies for non-recidivism, that might even change!

[rah]

Basically this comes down to nothing more than the standard American fantasy that private industry = good, public service = bad. A corporation just bribed judges to imprison children, and instead of stopping and asking yourselves what the hell are you getting yourselves into, you all just sit around talking about how you might reword the contracts to make them work better.

Absolutely shameful.

As apposed to the standard Euro fantasy that government is the right answer to everything and the all private industry is evil?

Neither extreme is true and a balance must be found.

[MrFun]

Corruption can peak it's head anywhere. Do you think there's no graft and corruption in Government run prisons?
The solution is to investigate and punish those that do take advantage of it. It seems that was done here.

I'm worried about how often this is happening across the country; the ones that are happening, and that we never hear about. You're only seeing the ones that the media covers, and the ones in which the perpetrators have been caught.

[rah]

I'm worried about how often this is happening across the country; the ones that are happening, and that we never hear about. You're only seeing the ones that the media covers, and the ones in which the perpetrators have been caught.

There's always that fear but you can't let it paralyze policy so nothing ever changes. The only solution is to keep trying to improve or set higher standards of conduct.

[Aeson]

Ken, you're either being dense or just not thinking about it. This isn't really something that most liberals disagree with - they oppose privatizing on moral grounds, generally. Government agencies are extremely inefficient. If you're handed $100MM to run a prison, and you have to give back whatever you don't spend, you spend $100MM to run your prison, and then you ask for $110MM next year. If you are handed $100MM to run a prison and you get to keep whatever you don't spend, you spend $85MM to run your prison and take home the change, and then when the contract comes up for bid again a competing company offers to do it for $90MM. This isn't fantasy, it's not even particularly complicated. It's just common sense, and it's exactly what happens in the real world.

It's not exactly what happens in the real world. You forgot the part where the original prison takes some of the $15MM profit and pays someone off in government (usually through completely legal means) to ensure they get the contract again, and a more favorable one at that.

Our healthcare system, agricultural subsidies, college loans/scholarships, and military-industrial complex are good examples of government money going to private business ... gone horribly wrong on the cost-effective front. Our government in general is a good example of government money going anywhere ... gone horribly wrong on the cost-effective front.

Both ways are probably going to suck. Which one sucks more is largely a function of who's in office, when, and who they're beholden too.

The best cost-cutting solution in regards to prisons is what Felch suggested (extended to all non-violent offenders).

[Sava]

I don't understand why people insist that privatization is more efficient. In every single case of privatization, results are worse. There's not a single case of privatization that does provides better service or results. It just takes the cost out of government... and with it, accountability. That's all it does. The people who promote it as an alternative don't care about efficiency or results. They just want to lower the government budget at all costs. If a perfect, utopian system did exist, they would dismantle it in favor of a crappy one just so they didn't have to pay for it.

[Sava]

Also, the whole "Well, you think government is the solution to everything" argument is such bull****. You know what government is? Accountability. People who hate on government and the process are just hating on the fact that we have to work together to solve problems... and value input from workers, the community at large, and people who use the services.

You hate government? Fine. Go move to Idaho. Get the **** out of society. If government sucks, it's because people like you make it suck.

[PLATO]

1.) The government is NOT efficient
2.) Regulations and enforcement is the Government's "accountability" method...not management.

[Hauldren Collider]

Sava is just post after post of epic, blatant wrongness. When does privatization make things less efficient? What bull****. And at prison bureaucracies being accountable. Just .

[Sava]

And why is that bad?

There is mercury in the water because of the coal plant. Make a law saying that's illegal. Punish the coal plant.

I fail to see the problem.

If government isn't efficient, it's OUR ****ING FAULT.

Fixing it is a three step process.

First you fix.

Then you it.

Then you FIX IT

You don't say... aw government sucks... hey some billionaire can make a lot of money paying people **** wages to do a **** job. Let's abdicate our responsibility for solving the problem and let that guy make money. That way, we can pay more for less. But you know what? We didn't have to think about it. We can just sit around feeling all good that our actions are in line with some retarded ideological framework.

[Sava]

Sava is just post after post of epic, blatant wrongness. When does privatization make things less efficient? What bull****. And at prison bureaucracies being accountable. Just .

POST ONE ****ING EXAMPLE YOU STUPID ****

ONE

JUST ONE


OMG SAVA IS SO STUPID AHHAHRAHRHAHRAHRHARH


you are useless

[Sava]

An example of privatization sucking?

Chicago sold off the parking meters... the skyway...

Now, people in the city pay more for the same thing... and the city doesn't get the revenue.

That's privatization. It's outright theft of public assets.

[snoopy369]

I don't understand why this is difficult for people to understand. There are (lots) of valid arguments for not privatizing things. Almost none of them are related to efficiency. People (as human beings) work based on incentives. You find out what the incentive is to do something, you find out what people do. Government agencies are incented to accomplish their task, and secondarily to ensure their jobs remain and the jobs of their friends/coworkers. You don't get a bonus at the end of the year if you come in under budget. Anybody who's worked for a government contractor knows this - at the end of the FY you get a rush of business from people trying to spend out their FY budgets. There is no real incentive to be economically efficient. The budget-setting people cold do a better job, but it's really, really hard to say exactly how much something ought to cost. Considering most of the budget-setting people are not accountants or business owners or whatnot, they don't really have a lot to base their budgets on beyond what it cost last year to do the same thing. Even for big agencies who do have the substantial oversight of GAO, it's not always easy to see how much something ought to spend... and the more money you spend on the GAO, the more money you spend.

I am not saying it always works out, nor that the non-efficiency reasons to not do it are necessarily wrong nor overpowering in many instances. I totally understand the moral arguments against privatizing prisons. I just think that the arguments made that governments should be, or are, more efficient than outsourcing them to the private sector are really confusingly wrong.

[Sava]

I don't understand why this is difficult for people to understand. There are (lots) of valid arguments for not privatizing things. Almost none of them are related to efficiency. People (as human beings) work based on incentives. You find out what the incentive is to do something, you find out what people do. Government agencies are incented to accomplish their task, and secondarily to ensure their jobs remain and the jobs of their friends/coworkers. You don't get a bonus at the end of the year if you come in under budget. Anybody who's worked for a government contractor knows this - at the end of the FY you get a rush of business from people trying to spend out their FY budgets. There is no real incentive to be economically efficient. The budget-setting people cold do a better job, but it's really, really hard to say exactly how much something ought to cost. Considering most of the budget-setting people are not accountants or business owners or whatnot, they don't really have a lot to base their budgets on beyond what it cost last year to do the same thing. Even for big agencies who do have the substantial oversight of GAO, it's not always easy to see how much something ought to spend... and the more money you spend on the GAO, the more money you spend.

I am not saying it always works out, nor that the non-efficiency reasons to not do it are necessarily wrong nor overpowering in many instances. I totally understand the moral arguments against privatizing prisons. I just think that the arguments made that governments should be, or are, more efficient than outsourcing them to the private sector are really confusingly wrong.

Efficiency also means different things to different people. For me? I just want the best service for the price... best bang for the buck. These right wing dip****s? They just want lowest cost. If that means slave labor in China? Great.