A dumb idea

Let us consider what I believe to be a truly dumb idea – private prisons. The United States has more people incarcerated than any other country in the world. This is true in absolute numbers and is almost surely true in terms of percentages also. For a number of reasons there have been so many people sentenced to jail over the past couple of decades that state prisons became overcrowded. One result of this is the rise of private (for profit) prisons. Private companies agree to build a prison and accept and oversee inmates usually for so much per inmate per day (or week, or month, or whatever). I don’t know the details of this business (there is a very substantial literature if you are interested) but I don’t have to know much about it to realize that it is, indeed, a really dumb idea.
Actually, this is not a completely new idea. Back in the 1800’s there were private jails for a time. As these proved to be so vile in a variety of ways laws were passed making them illegal and putting the burden of prison care on the states. Why were they so vile? Because in order to make a profit it was necessary to scrimp on food, facilities, numbers of guards, health care, amenities, and so on. As there was little oversight back in those days these private enterprises could get away with truly terrible conditions. When they finally became intolerably bad the government finally intervened.
Why would anyone think that private prisons nowadays would be much better? It is pretty clear that in many cases they are not much better. But as we now live in a time when the powers that be think privatization is the answer to everything, we once again have private, for profit, prisons. Some, of course, are better than others, but as profit rather than any kind of humanitarian motives is involved there continue to be problems. Even so, this is a growth industry with more and more private prisons popping up here and there. And just as before most of the same problems exist: inadequate health care, not enough guards, questionable food, lack of amenities, little or no attention to rehabilitation, and so forth. This is not at all surprising. But it is another problem that I think may be even more important.
Private prisons cannot exist without inmates. To survive and make a profit they have to have a constant supply of prisoners. Thus it is in their best interest that there be laws guaranteed to provide inmates. They have lobbyists and some influence on our government. And as our politicians all want to appear to be tough on crime it is not too difficult to get them to pass new laws or keep existing laws that may not be in the best interest of either the inmates or the nation. So now we have ever increasing penalties for lawbreaking, three strikes your out, automatic sentencing guidelines, and so forth.
Marijuana laws, I believe, are the best example of this. Our prisons are overcrowded by people who either possessed or sold marijuana, in some cases even possession of relatively minor amounts. If all the inmates incarcerated for marijuana possession were released the overcrowding would quickly disappear and the need for private prisons would dissipate. As marijuana is not really very harmful, certainly not as harmful to society as alcohol, one can only wonder why we continue to enforce such absurd laws. Notice that in the Netherlands drugs are legal and have been for some time. They have not had many problems with this. Other countries do not punish people for marijuana smoking or possession and they continue to survive. Even Canada has recently changed their laws to make possession of small amounts of marijuana permissible. So what makes us so backward in this respect? While you cannot blame this entirely on the private prison movement, they certainly would not want to see this rich source of income removed. And they have clout. The medical profession and the pharmaceutical industry also do not want to see marijuana legalized. There are studies that claim marijuana is harmful but there are other studies that claim it is not. I know from years of personal experience that if it is harmful it is nowhere near as harmful as alcohol.
I first encountered the “weed” in 1946, before it was “fashionable.” When it became fashionable in the 1960’s I knew dozens of people who indulged. These were not all hippies, but included University Faculty members, graduate students, businessmen and women, psychologists, and even policemen. For a time virtually everyone I knew smoked marijuana. Then it fell out of favor, more or less, and they abandoned it. They did not go to cocaine or other drugs, they went back to alcohol which is where they are now (those that are still around, that is). None of these people, as far as I know, was ever in trouble with the law. Some of them might still light up a joint once in a while but certainly not like “in the good old days” of the 1960’s.
The existence of private prisons, along with completely stupid laws, guarantees we will be able to keep our prisons full for a long time to come. We might even be able to eventually fill up the concentration camps Bush/Cheney are building, "for emergencies,” unless they are already reserved for "politicals."