private prisons

[gazza]

What are your views on private prisons
mine are they dont work for the reason they think there is a profit in prisons..yeah right..they use less staff for more profitability there by decreasing security, we have allready taken one back here, and we are now in the process of taking the courts back to the govts hands, which had been privatised by the previous govt for whatever reason,How many have been returned to your govt or taken back by them

[JKT]

Funny you should ask.....

Yesterday, I spoke with supervisor at one not too far from here. He was a Captain, and is now a Lieutenant. Seems like their population is down and the corporation is "downsizing" to compensate.

According to him, their population is down about 40%.

There are several is this area, mostly State level, but there is one Federal, and from what I have heard (from former employees that now work for us), I don't think you could pay me enough to work there.

I don't know of any that the State has taken back, but I also think it's only a matter of time.

[Guard Dog]

A few years back there was a TV new magazine special regarding the private prision corporations. They were having a very hard time keeping help and the guards were sometime hard to pick from the inmates.

There were also some major use of force violations.

[shooter1201]

Several years ago, I taught GED classes in a CCA(Corrections Corporation of America) facility. CCA is the largest privately-owned and run penal company in the world. IIRC, their largest facility is in Australia, however.

Being an LEO, one of the first things I did was a mental rundown of the security situation. The facility I was employed in was SUPPOSED to be a MINIMUM security facility. Here is what I observed:

* The security was MINIMAL...at best.
* Inmates had free range over much of the facility.
* Inmates were ALLOWED to bring large drink cups into the mess hall, and leave W/O being searched. 'Julip' was a BIG problem at this facility, as were knives disappearing from kitchen area.
* Inmates were allowed free access to recreation equipment. In one case, 2 inmates 'checked out' 2 baseball bats and beat another inmate to death.
* One inmate was found to have a .25ACP pistol, loaded, and 2 spare mags in his bunk area.
* Walk-offs from the 'work-release' section were UNreal.
* During startup, TDOC reclassified some of its 'trouble makers', and sent them to this facility. It was MONTHS before the administration caught on to what had happened.

Did I mention this WAS a PRISON???

I worked there 3 months and gave my supervisor 2 hours notice I would NOT be back the following Monday, after receiving a BETTER job offer during lunch break. :rolleyes:

[Guard Dog]

I don't have any jail experience but do know the problems they have occassionally. I was talking with one of the jail Lt's and they said they had a problem with one Church group trying to smuggle in contraband to some inmates. They though our rules were too restrictive. It's just lucky they were not arrested.