I thinking you guys don’t have any responses but you could at least try.
Why do you think you think corporate prison lobbies are more successful than other corporate lobbies, despite having less money and less influence than most of them and having goals which are more difficult to obtain?
And there’s no surer path to re-election than being able to brag how you increased government spending and raised taxes.
Why do you think all those other lobbies are so unsuccessful? You seriously don’t think lobbying has any effect on legislation?
Several people have already answered you. If you had bothered to read the previous NPR report you would see that
[QUOTE=NPR Report]
Campaign records, however, show much of the funding to promote and push for the passage of the laws [3 strikes] came from a political action committee the union created. It is run out of a group called Crime Victims United of California.
Its director, Harriet Salarno, says the committee is independent from the union. But a review of the PAC’s financial records shows the PAC has not received a donation from another group besides the union since 2004.
[/QUOTE]
and
[QUOTE=NPR Report again]
Most of these inmates here on this yard aren’t here for serious or violent crimes. The number of inmates incarcerated in California’s prisons for murder, assault or rape has been relatively unchanged in two decades. The difference is this yard is now packed with drug dealers and drug users, car thieves and shoplifters who stole something worth more than $500.
[/QUOTE]
So essentially, we aren’t locking up more murders and rapists over the last few years, we’ve just been finding new crimes worthy of incarceration. Add in a little mandatory sentencing, war on drugs, 3 strikes, etc…
When did the debate change to relative success of the prison lobby? And who exactly is lobbying against them for fewer & shorter prison sentences? Maybe you should ask Dukakis how his Willie Horton campaign ads went :rolleyes:. It’s no different than the anti-drug crusades politicians love so much, if there is one thing they can all get behind, it’s boasting about how they are solving critical problems and saving our beloved motherland from the ‘savages’. When someone steps up and asks how we know the problem is really as bad as they say it is and how we know their solutions are what is working, all you get is deflection.
And how exactly are their goals so hard to obtain? More prisoners+ More Days in Prison=More Money. So, find ways to have more prisoners for longer: Mandatory sentences, prison time for more minor offenses, scare the whitefolk, harsher sentencing guidlines, drugs are bad m’kay and don’t bother helping parolees stay out. Reducing recidivism for a private prison would be like a tobacco company making a nicotine-free, dogshit flavored cigarette.
Except that people aren’t forced to buy cigarettes by our “impartial” judicial system.
It is just so wrong. Somebodies living is enhanced by jailing people who should not be jailed and keeping people in jail who should have been let out. It is a system that will result in abuse. the abuse is harming peoples lives for money.
Judges and prison managers are in cahoots to jail kids who should not be jailed . How much more discredit to the judicial system is possible?
Contrary to what the tea party thinks, most people favor government spending on stuff that benefits them. Putting criminals in prison definitely counts. You are correct, though, that they don’t want to pay for it. They’ve got a better solution - screw some more public employees - just not cops - and pretend that privatizing prisons will save money. Win/win.
Pretty logical to me-all the criminals are rotting in prison, thank God.
As for the OP, I can’t see why this isn’t a problem. Criminals are a parasite to the government and citizenry, if they can work as free labour then the criminals actually add something to the economy.
Well, it’s a profoundly stupid point, and I didn’t want to waste my time with it if you meant it sarcastically or something. Can’t blame me for hoping. But it appears you’re seriously asking why, if lobbying is effective, Coca-Cola hasn’t forced everyone to drink their product.
I mean, where to begin?
I guess we can begin by pointing out that there’s an excluded middle here. One extreme is that if you hire a lobbyist, you can force any ridiculous result imaginable; nobody is claiming that. One extreme is that if you hire a lobbyist, it’s a complete waste of money. I desperately hope you’re not arguing that. The middle, rational, position is that lobbyists can influence debate. They can’t force idiotic laws into place out of the blue, but they can bend things in the direction they want to go in.
And now that I think about it, there’s really no reason to waste my time pointing out the other absurdities inherent in that argument, because the excluded middle is so enormous and so obvious that you’re hopefully totally embarrassed to have put the argument forward, now that you can see the excluded middle.
And those who are innocent? That is the point. Are you really not able to understand that?
I wasn’t thinking about people who were innocent per se. I do, however, see the potential for abuse. What I was thinking about, an an IMHO sort of way, was that I have a problem with human trafficking.
It sounds as if you are advocating slavery.
I prefer that ten guilty be imprisoned than one innocent man be hanged but I prefer ten innocent men be imprisoned than one guilty man be freed for that guilty man endangers the whole community.
Interesting. How many years would you be willing for your mother to spend in jail to prevent one grand larceny?
First off, I am against privatizing prisons. I’m sure lobbying has its successes , but I’m not so sure that private companies would be more successful than the groups who lobby to keep the public prisons open, and send more people to the public prisons.
I live in NY. Presently, the state has to give one year’s notice prior to closing a prison. It has nothing to do with potential layoffs- it has to do with giving “prison towns” a chance to fight the closings. When the governor proposed his budget this year, he included a “prison closing task force” which would recommend which prisons should be closed- 30 days after the budget passed. Certain legislators couldn’t stand it- they would have to vote on the budget without knowing if one of “their” prisons would be closed - which was exactly why the governor did it that way. If they knew which prisons were to be closed, politicians representing those districts would hold up the budget. His budget also merged the prison system and parole system into one agency- people were and are against it because they believe the merger will result in people being released or not returned to prison for violations in order o save money.
That NPR report (unless I’m misreading it) is about a public prison system and the PAC that provided the funding to push the “three strikes law” was founded and largely funded by the correction officers union. Publicly run prison systems are by no means immune to the same sort of lobbying as private ones might engage in. It’s just that rather than the prison owners doing the lobbying, it’s the people who live in prison towns , the prison employees , victim’s rights groups and those in the general population who believe in longer prison sentences with fewer opportunities for early release.
A 91% false conviction rate? Now that’s what I call justice!
By any chance would you be opening a for-profit prison?
That is being ridiculous.
I’ll contend that the older NPR story is reporting on a prison guard union that was influencing sentencing laws, but the point remains. It was provided as evidence that our penal system can be and is influenced by people who stand to profit from those changes, as it was argued earlier that this was impossible and didn’t happen.
The PAC is nominally for “Victim’s Rights”, but judging from the huge increase in recidivism, it doesn’t seem like they are doing much to prevent future victims from harm. Mostly they seem to want more people in prison for longer- pretty much the exact same goal of a private prison.
So you think it’s OK for ten innocent people to be imprisoned in order to prevent one guilty person to go free – as long as you don’t know any of the innocent people?
Because that’s what you’re saying.
You might want to consider how you would feel if you were to become one of the ten imprisoned. You see, it really does make a difference whose ox is being gored*
*see Exodus 21:35 KJV
No. It was a hyperbole as is obvious. What I meant is that it is better to be safer than sorry, that we must err on the side of caution.
So what percentage of innocent people should be locked up to make sure you have all of the bad ones locked up as well?