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Originally Posted by Tully Mars
Not sure I buy all that. Most state prison systems privatize in order to save money. Private companies tend to offer less health care, pensions and honestly training. I was on a board considering privatizing some facilities in Oregon. Several bids were reviewed and the cost per prisoner per day dropped around $25-$30 a day depending on the bid. Times that by the number of inmates and you stand to save millions.
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Private prisons don't allow maximum-security prisoners, death row prisoners, female prisoners, juveniles or prisoners with serious mental health or medical conditions, and they're by far the most expensive, so they seem less expensive but are actually just shifting part of the cost to public facilities. (I'll find a link for this when I can, the information is from a friend of the family that retired from the Cal prison system a few years back). They're hiding the true cost of for-profit prisons, in other words.
Not only that, but non-union private prisons more often have issues of abuse, neglect, and such, because there's less oversight and less training. Those costs, like the ones above, are hidden but eventually do find their way back to society.
The main problem with California's prisons system, though, is judicial. Mandatory minimums, the failed war on drugs, excessive jailing for non-violent crimes, and prosecutors wanting to build a strong conviction rate instead of pursuing justice all lend themselves to a broken and overcrowded system. That's the main reason I'm fighting so hard for the legalization of marijuana, as it would remove a huge burden on the state's budget for our prisons.