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View Full Version : Sequestration Would Do Too Much Harm to the Prison Industrial Complex




Lucille
02-27-2013, 03:56 PM
Because putting more and more people in prison is good for the economy.

Eric Holder and Prison Guard Unions Agree: Sequestration Would Do Too Much Harm to the Prison Industrial Complex
http://reason.com/blog/2013/02/27/eric-holder-and-prison-guard-unions-agre


In a letter sent earlier this month, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder made an argument you don't hear much from the Obama administration: automatic cuts to the Bureau of Prisons budget would be bad news for towns and private companies that rely on prisons for income.

In addition to reducing man power at prisons and reentry programs for prisoners, Holder warned Senate Democrats that sequestration would slow the "activation" of new prisons and prisons that are nearing completion. In turn, "communities surrounding the prisons would not benefit from the significant economic activity that a prison engenders. We estimate that sequestration will mean over 3,800 fewer jobs related to [new prison] activations that would be foregone, (including an estimated 1,500 private sector jobs)."

There's simply no other way to spin this: At a time when the U.S. has the highest prison population on the planet and a federal prison population that is a) roughly half drug offenders and b) expected to continue growing for the next decade, the Obama administration is extolling the benefits of "activating" more prisons...

coastie
02-27-2013, 04:00 PM
Prisons for Profit...what could possibly go wrong?

Judges Plead Guilty in Scheme to Jail Youths for Profit
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/13/us/13judge.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0


At worst, Hillary Transue thought she might get a stern lecture when she appeared before a judge for building a spoof MySpace page mocking the assistant principal at her high school in Wilkes-Barre, Pa. She was a stellar student who had never been in trouble, and the page stated clearly at the bottom that it was just a joke.

Instead, the judge sentenced her to three months at a juvenile detention center on a charge of harassment.

She was handcuffed and taken away as her stunned parents stood by.

“I felt like I had been thrown into some surreal sort of nightmare,” said Hillary, 17, who was sentenced in 2007. “All I wanted to know was how this could be fair and why the judge would do such a thing.”

The answers became a bit clearer on Thursday as the judge, Mark A. Ciavarella Jr., and a colleague, Michael T. Conahan, appeared in federal court in Scranton, Pa., to plead guilty to wire fraud and income tax fraud for taking more than $2.6 million in kickbacks to send teenagers to two privately run youth detention centers run by PA Child Care and a sister company, Western PA Child Care.

While prosecutors say that Judge Conahan, 56, secured contracts for the two centers to house juvenile offenders, Judge Ciavarella, 58, was the one who carried out the sentencing to keep the centers filled.