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Heard about this last year and was disgusted nothing had been done.

Many of these kids got sent to the prison with overly harsh sentences and forgotten...effing pissed me off.

But now we have justice.

http://www.allgov.com/news/controversies/judge-sentenced-to-28-years-in-prison-for-selling-kids-to-private-prisons?news=843116

From this wiki.

On August 11, 2011, Ciavarella was sentenced to 28 years in federal prison. With good behavior, he could be released in less than 24 years, when he would be 85

That's a life sentence. As a judge in prison...yeah.

This is a truly horrible story.

I wish he had gotten the death sentence for his crimes, and it's pretty rare I say that.

So many homes, broken, so many lives ruined. What a reprehensible pile of gak.

On a lighter note....Devil Advocate here for the Judge...may he burn in that special place.....

"realistically, he's going to jail. And then, he's going to hell!"

LOL!

Wow,
Another reason i do not like those types of prisons.
Seriously, We outsource stuff like that

Yeah, I've been using this as an example of what is so very wrong with the privatization of prisons in America.

I hope -HOPE- that all his new neighbours hear about his exploits, too.

He's a judge, that alone will put his life in danger, no matter the actual crime.

azazel the cat wrote:Yeah, I've been using this as an example of what is so very wrong with the privatization of prisons in America.

I hope -HOPE- that all his new neighbours hear about his exploits, too.

B-but the free market fixes everything! Glenn Beck said so! All we need is privatize everything, and we'll become a magical libertarian paradise like Somalia!

I'm glad this monster is finally being put away, and for a long time at that. There are very few things I would consider to be objectively evil. What he did is one of them.

 Fafnir wrote:
I'm glad this monster is finally being put away, and for a long time at that. There are very few things I would consider to be objectively evil. What he did is one of them.

Agreed... if he goes in the prison's general population... he won't last long.

I don't want this to devolve into a 'captalism caused this' thing... but where was the oversight? If government is going to offload some services to a private business, then it's incumbent that the government has oversight over said service.

This wasn't an issue with privatization. It's an issue with corruption of a government official. It just happened to involve a privatized prison.

If not this he probably would have done some other crooked thing.

 whembly wrote:
If government is going to offload some services to a private business, then it's incumbent that the government has oversight over said service.

And this is the real problem with privatization of critical services: you now have a situation where all the profits are privatized, but the oversight apparatus and cost still are subsidized by the taxpayer.

There are some things that simply should not be privatized, period. I'd count jails pretty highly on that list. Jails too expensive to run? Then obviously you're not actually willing to pay for all the laws we wrote that led to so many jails to begin with: either roll some back, or accept that's the cost of our stupid-ass war on drugs. We can't have both.

 Ouze wrote:

 whembly wrote:
If government is going to offload some services to a private business, then it's incumbent that the government has oversight over said service.

And this is the real problem with privatization of critical services: you now have a situation where all the profits are privatized, but the oversight apparatus and cost still are subsidized by the taxpayer.

There are some things that simply should not be privatized, period. I'd count jails pretty highly on that list. Jails too expensive to run? Then obviously you're not actually willing to pay for all the laws we wrote that led to so many jails to begin with: either roll some back, or accept that's the cost of our stupid-ass war on drugs. We can't have both.

Yup... agreed.

 Ouze wrote:

 whembly wrote:
If government is going to offload some services to a private business, then it's incumbent that the government has oversight over said service.

And this is the real problem with privatization of critical services: you now have a situation where all the profits are privatized, but the oversight apparatus and cost still are subsidized by the taxpayer.

There are some things that simply should not be privatized, period. I'd count jails pretty highly on that list. Jails too expensive to run? Then obviously you're not actually willing to pay for all the laws we wrote that led to so many jails to begin with: either roll some back, or accept that's the cost of our stupid-ass war on drugs. We can't have both.

Or we could start cutting back all those things that are eating up the funding and are not necessary. No more luxuries in prison like TV. Nothing beyond very basic healthcare.

IE: make prison a very bad place to go, even without worrying about the other prisoners.

What a laughable premise. Do you think the big cost drivers in prison are TV (which, btw, prisoners usually have to pay for anyway), or that they get anything other than very basic healthcare now?

Come on. It's the 330,000 nonviolent drug offenders. 48% of all federal prisoners are drug offenders. Either we raise taxes to pay for housing all of these people, or we stop passing laws that lock so many of them up. It's not fundamentally different than any other of the things we decide we want to legislate and then pay for as a society.

Never said it was the only expense, but prison does have many unnecessary frills. After cutting those we can talk about cutting other stuff.

What exactly do you think are all the unnecessary frills that jack up the costs of prisoners? The ones you wish to cut, presumably before we talk about the other stuff (so, like, guards, infrastructure, electricity, food, etc).

whembly wrote:

 Fafnir wrote:
I'm glad this monster is finally being put away, and for a long time at that. There are very few things I would consider to be objectively evil. What he did is one of them.

Agreed... if he goes in the prison's general population... he won't last long.

I don't want this to devolve into a 'captalism caused this' thing... but where was the oversight? If government is going to offload some services to a private business, then it's incumbent that the government has oversight over said service.

He won't go into gen pop. That much is a given. However, that's really no better for him (good).

And this isn't a "capitalism caused this" thing. While there are capitalist principles at the root of this, capitalism is not the alpha and omega of this problem; rather, it is endemic to any necessary institution when there is a conflict of interest. Because...

Grey Templar wrote:This wasn't an issue with privatization. It's an issue with corruption of a government official. It just happened to involve a privatized prison.

If not this he probably would have done some other crooked thing.

No, this was most definitely an issue with privatization. There is a massive conflict of interest created anytime profit becomes the driving force of an authoritarian institution, because that profit entirely changes the very purpose and motivation behind the prison institution. Generally speaking, you can view the goal of the prison to be threefold (the weight to each element will vary in any given society): rehabilitation, punishment, and deterrence.

The vast majority of First-World (sorry, Ratbarf) countries now focus on rehabilitation, for various reasons, which are not necessary to get into just now, but if you're legitimately curious I'd be happy to explain either via PM or another thread. Deterrence is another element, in both specific and general forms: that is, it is a specific deterrence in that the individual offender is locked away and thus unable to harm society further, and it is a general deterrence in the sense that it serves as a warning to others not to repeat the offender's bad actions. And then finally, there is punishment. The punishment aspect of prison has all but been abolished (at least as an intentional effect) in the vast majority of Western prison institutions, because other than a malevolent feeling that is mistaken for justice, it serves no purpose other than cruelty. In other words, two wrongs do not make a right; and the heinousness of a prison institution has very little effect on its ability to serve as a deterrent; sometimes even having the opposite effect for various reasons which are also not pertinent at this time, but I would be happy to explain as well via PM or separate thread.

Now, when a prison institution becomes based around a profit model, these three traditional motivations behind the institution fall to the wayside in favour of profit maximization, which creates several conflicts of interest. The most prolific of these being that of the traditional roles of the prison (rehabilitation, deterrence and punishment), two of them are principally concerned with keeping people out of it. That is, rehabilitation is designed to help re-integrate the offender into society in a productive fashion, which is a binary of being in prison as a result of prison's very nature. Likewise, the deterrent effect's entire purpose is to essentially scare the offender into not performing actions that will result in becoming a subject of the institution. Only punishment is concerned with actually transforming offenders into subjects to the institution; but as I stated, almost all Western prisons no longer consider punishment to be one of the roles of the prison institution.

Now, the conflict occurs when we recognize that the for-profit prison makes its money based on offenders being subject to the institution. Therefore, it is in the prison's best economic interests to ensure that it is always full, which is in direct contention with the only two principles of the prison that are actually recognized in civilized society. This is the most glaring conflict of interest, and by far the strongest reason to never, ever have a for-profit prison system. However, it can get even worse:

Oftentimes, the profit model will result in another conflict of interest: that of profitability versus quality of service. In other words, the only way to maximize profits is to ensure that as little money as absolutely possible is spent on overhead costs, such as guards, food, etc. Think of it like McDonald's: it's the cheapest because it's the worst quality. Now, this issue actually compounds with several other issues, such as the safety of guards and overcrowding, but that's not one I'm going to get into at this juncture. What I will point out is that the desire to maximize profits at the expense of the service provided will almost always inadvertantly create horrible conditions within the institution, thereby emphasizing, perhaps not by intent although definitely by design, the role of the prison institution as a punishment. As I said earlier, this compounds the first conflict of interest: without the emphasis on rehabilitation, the institution's subjects are almost garaunteed to return to it; which is exactly what society does not want, and exactly what benefits the prison institution the most. As a result, the entire role of the prison system becomes undercut by the desire to turn a profit, rather than act as a benefit to society.

Again, if you want to discuss this specific element, we should do so via PM or else in another thread; and then I can tell you all about the prison-industrial complex and the creation of a new slave-labour economy. But for now, I'll leave it with just this very brief overview of the systemic problems associated with the privatization of prisons. And all of these problems -they're not even caused by corruption! They're actually just the base function, twisted by design.

Grey Templar wrote:Or we could start cutting back all those things that are eating up the funding and are not necessary. No more luxuries in prison like TV. Nothing beyond very basic healthcare.

IE: make prison a very bad place to go, even without worrying about the other prisoners.

I honestly cannot stress enough how wrong you are.

Your statement is indicative that you honestly have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. At all.

I'm not saying you shouldn't give you opinion or ask questions, but I do want you to know this, and please take this from someone who has put in thousands of hours into the subject: you could not be more wrong. Every small piece of your statement is incorrect, from empiric statistical results right down to core philosophy. In fact, your sentiment is almost the polar opposite of what a correct answer might look like.

Again, if you want to engage in that discussion, we can. But prior to such, I do recommend some light reading beforehand. I strongly recommend you read the following books by two key authors, Foucault in particular:
Discipline & Punish by Michel Foucault
Punishment and Modern Society David Garland

Anything that's not very basic food, water, cleanliness, electricity, and healthcare. Along with security.

And by basic I mean very basic. We are giving way more treatment than these people need. I'm really just saying that prison should not be a desirable place to go, even if that fact doesn't act as a discouraging factor. it should at least be a major punishment.


And thanks for the links Azazel. Maybe I'll see if these are in the library sometime.

Grey Templar wrote: it should at least be a major punishment.


And thanks for the links Azazel. Maybe I'll see if these are in the library sometime.

Why would you think that?


and you'r welcome.

 whembly wrote:

 Ouze wrote:

 whembly wrote:
If government is going to offload some services to a private business, then it's incumbent that the government has oversight over said service.

And this is the real problem with privatization of critical services: you now have a situation where all the profits are privatized, but the oversight apparatus and cost still are subsidized by the taxpayer.

There are some things that simply should not be privatized, period. I'd count jails pretty highly on that list. Jails too expensive to run? Then obviously you're not actually willing to pay for all the laws we wrote that led to so many jails to begin with: either roll some back, or accept that's the cost of our stupid-ass war on drugs. We can't have both.

Yup... agreed.

Holy gak. Myself, Ouze, and Whembly agree on something. This is beyond actual understanding.

 Ouze wrote:
And this is the real problem with privatization of critical services: you now have a situation where all the profits are privatized, but the oversight apparatus and cost still are subsidized by the taxpayer.

There are some things that simply should not be privatized, period. I'd count jails pretty highly on that list. Jails too expensive to run? Then obviously you're not actually willing to pay for all the laws we wrote that led to so many jails to begin with: either roll some back, or accept that's the cost of our stupid-ass war on drugs. We can't have both.

Yep, and also - if you need government to oversee the private companies... then where is the efficiency savings of privatisation? The whole idea behind privatisation is that a private, profit motivated companies have a greater incentive to keep costs down and are more flexible and less tied up in bureaucracy. But if those companies hold some kind of position of trust so that we need to maintain a constant review of their operations... then they're still tied to a bureacracy and the savings can't really happen.

It's just, you hear this stuff all the time when they talk about privatising stuff like public transport. "Oh don't worry, we'll still require them to follow government safety practices and they won't be able to close unprofitable services"... so what's the point?

 sebster wrote:

It's just, you hear this stuff all the time when they talk about privatising stuff like public transport. "Oh don't worry, we'll still require them to follow government safety practices and they won't be able to close unprofitable services"... so what's the point?

The point is the govenment is protected from losses when it all gose wrong and can point and say "well, its not the system thats at fault but the company. It's not the private sector, just this company, that is wrong" and the company say "Well, if we were able to run how we want rather than with all this "government wanting to know what we are doing with there money" stuff we could run much better" and "we did what we could, but we were underfunded".

In my expirince private companys add costs by adding more layers of work and more oversite overall, then try and save it by cutting wages, workers benefits and increasing hours whilst the bosses take more an more away.

There is a place for private companys taking public work. Some services that work well on a public market (e.g. telephone, gas, anything that works as profit making), short term contracting. Anything that requires critical infrastructure (power distribution, rail) or fundamentaly is not selling anything and is for the public good (prisons, most schools) dose not work. Basicly anything where people do not have a choice. It attracts companys that want minimal input, take as much as they can, and run. They push for more and more govenment money until the facilitys are falling appart, pointing to these to show how they need more money, then cut and run.

 ProtoClone wrote:
Heard about this last year and was disgusted nothing had been done.

Many of these kids got sent to the prison with overly harsh sentences and forgotten...effing pissed me off.

But now we have justice.

http://www.allgov.com/news/controversies/judge-sentenced-to-28-years-in-prison-for-selling-kids-to-private-prisons?news=843116

Indeed, you don't sell them to prison. Everyone knows you get the best price for kids at mines. . .


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Grey Templar wrote:

 Ouze wrote:

 whembly wrote:
If government is going to offload some services to a private business, then it's incumbent that the government has oversight over said service.

And this is the real problem with privatization of critical services: you now have a situation where all the profits are privatized, but the oversight apparatus and cost still are subsidized by the taxpayer.

There are some things that simply should not be privatized, period. I'd count jails pretty highly on that list. Jails too expensive to run? Then obviously you're not actually willing to pay for all the laws we wrote that led to so many jails to begin with: either roll some back, or accept that's the cost of our stupid-ass war on drugs. We can't have both.

Or we could start cutting back all those things that are eating up the funding and are not necessary. No more luxuries in prison like TV. Nothing beyond very basic healthcare.

IE: make prison a very bad place to go, even without worrying about the other prisoners.

Chain gangs baby. We need chain gangs.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Ouze wrote:
What exactly do you think are all the unnecessary frills that jack up the costs of prisoners? The ones you wish to cut, presumably before we talk about the other stuff (so, like, guards, infrastructure, electricity, food, etc).

Food, clothing, shelter. If we just had some gladitorial games they would be unnecessary. And the savings go direct to you!

This judge is a heinous pile of gak.

 KalashnikovMarine wrote:
This judge is a heinous pile of gak.

Well, we all agree.

The problem here is that, while our prison discussion is obviously dragging the topic OT; I'm not clear how much room there actually is for discussion. Obviously this was a nice followup to read to the original story, I'm glad it was posted - I'm just saying, I don't think we're going to have anyone come in here with the counterpoint that it's OK to sell children to for-profit prisons for kickbacks that would be required for a good argument.

One thing that I do wonder, however, is will there be anything done to follow up on the prisons and the people who gave him the money in the first place?

 Fafnir wrote:
One thing that I do wonder, however, is will there be anything done to follow up on the prisons and the people who gave him the money in the first place?

Most likely?

Not very much. These "juvenile" oriented private facilities tend to make me veeeeeeeeeery skeptical when you start seeing specific judges funneling offenders to them.
That's not to say that every instance will be exactly like this one, as in some cases the judges might be fond of an alternative facility due to some kind of specific program that they have (a drug rehabilitation program, work oriented programs, etc) but it has a high potential for abuse especially in the case of juvenile offenders where there's an air of frustration surrounding the parents of the child.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Fafnir wrote:
One thing that I do wonder, however, is will there be anything done to follow up on the prisons and the people who gave him the money in the first place?

Most likely?

Not very much. These "juvenile" oriented private facilities tend to make me veeeeeeeeeery skeptical when you start seeing specific judges funneling offenders to them.
That's not to say that every instance will be exactly like this one, as in some cases the judges might be fond of an alternative facility due to some kind of specific program that they have (a drug rehabilitation program, work oriented programs, etc) but it has a high potential for abuse especially in the case of juvenile offenders where there's an air of frustration surrounding the parents of the child.

Kanny I've not heard about this before. What is this?