Should private prisons be outlawed?

[Tetro Kornbluth]

with public ones being outlawed.

Why?

     Maybe I am mistaken, but wouldn't it be cheaper for the government to just make sure that they treat their prisoners in a respectable fashion than it would be to actually run your own prisons?

Almost certainly not.

     Oh? I wasn't aware that regulation was typically more expensive than operation, it seems.

Running a prison isn't quite the same as running (say) a sweet shop.

Ah, but are you sure that is the right metaphor, perhaps you were trying to say, sweat shop, perchance?

[Tetro Kornbluth]

     Oh? I wasn't aware that regulation was typically more expensive than operation, it seems.

Running a prison isn't quite the same as running (say) a sweet shop.

Ah, but are you sure that is the right metaphor, perhaps you were trying to say, sweat shop, perchance?

I chose my words with care

Because, of course, you can't run a prison as a sweat-shop (not one profitable enough to cover the huge costs of housing and feeding the inmates, anyway) and also run a prison in an "acceptable fashion".

I don't think you understood my oblique reference (not any more) to private prisons, at least some that I have read about.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

http://uk.reuters.com/article/oddlyEnoughNews/idUKTRE51C0EP20090213

U.S. judges admit to jailing children for money

PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - Two judges pleaded guilty on Thursday to accepting more than $2.6 million from a private youth detention centre in Pennsylvania in return for giving hundreds of youths and teenagers long sentences.

Judges Mark Ciavarella and Michael Conahan of the Court of Common Pleas in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, entered plea agreements in federal court in Scranton admitting that they took payoffs from PA Childcare and a sister company, Western PA Childcare, between 2003 and 2006.

Whoa. This should get a thread of its own. (And those Judges should be forced into 10 years hard labour - 20 years for the youth detention centre staff).