I always have to laugh whenever someone touts how much better it would be if the private sector ran everything. Services would be cheaper (to the providers running them to provide, of course, not to the consumers who consume them or the taxpayers who pay for them), operate more efficiently (just look at the bang-up job Keolis does with the Boston metro train system), and altogether offer an undeniable, every day proof statement underscoring the private sector’s superiority to the public sector. (A corollary to this, of course, is that we should have businessmen hold high public office. Ahem.)
Maybe I’m just jaded because so much of my private sector career was spent in companies where the products and services always cost more than those of those offered by the competition, where we were not particularly efficient, and as for effective... Let’s just say most of the places I worked are no longer standing.
Ah, but you might well be thinking, these companies were drummed out of existence – as they should have been – by the ruthless efficiencies of The Market. And that is absolutely true.
But we were never providing necessary citizen services. And when it comes to necessary citizen services, there are plenty of then that should be run by the government, not by profiteers.
The most notable example of this is the prison system, which is increasingly owned and operated by private companies.
Their incentive is, of course, to increase the demand for prisons. Which means increasing the supply of prisoners. So it’s in their interest to collude with the prison guard unions, anti-immigrant groups, and communities where there’s no other viable employment opportunities, to promote “law and order”, three strikes you’re in for good, kick the brown folks out, and schemes to throw people in jail for a $50 unpaid traffic fine that over the course of time manages to balloon into 30 days or $3K.
Not to mention that, in keeping costs down, they feed prisoners even worse swill than they used to get, and have fewer opportunities for anything that might keep them out of trouble in the stir or prepare them for life outside of the stir.
Anyway, the last thing I read about private prisons was a story on a class action suit behalf of ICE detainees – 60,000 of them – who were held in Geo Group, Inc. facilities where they were allegedly forced to chose one of two options: work for free or get thrown into solitary confinement. The plaintiffs claim that Geo was violating the Trafficking Victims Protection Act.
Their lawsuit argues that Geo violated the law’s prohibition on using threats to obtain labor.
“It would be forced labor for someone to say, ‘We’ll arrest you for not working for me,’ ” says David Seligman, who represents the plaintiffs. “It’s similarly forced labor to say, ‘We’re going to remove you from all contact with other people.’ ” The lawsuit also argues that Geo, through an optional work program that pays $1 a day, violated common law against “unjust enrichment,” since extensive use of low-paid detainee labor has saved the company money; it employs only one janitor in Aurora who isn’t in custody, the plaintiffs say. (Source: Bloomberg)
Geo is, of course, pushing back, maintaining that this is “really a public-policy dispute.”
And, yep, there’s some truth to that assertion.
They also claim that, if the suit goes in the plaintiffs’ favor, they’re ability to operate viable and profitably will be jeopardized.
And, yep, there may be some truth to that one, too. To which I say too bad.
I’m a big believer that those in prison should have the opportunity to work, to build their skills, and make a little money. And that money doesn’t have to be what they’d make on the outside. But their pay shouldn’t be anything that approaches zero or looks in any way, shape, or form like slave wages. And they sure shouldn’t be forced into an either-or decision between being a slave or being held in solitary confinement.
Privatized prisons?
Whether the plaintiffs win their case or not, I say bring on the public policy debate!
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