Monday, February 16, 2015

Prison population quotas


This infographic is a few years old, and there are now more prisons that have signed contracts with the government in which they are guaranteed high prisoner populations or the government must pay fines. According to April M. Short for Alternet, there are currently three prisons in Arizona that have been guaranteed 100% populations. This actually touches my life because one of my penpals is a prisoner of the State of Califorina, but has been leased out to Arizona to fill a bed there. Presumably Arizona was willing to pay more for him than California would lose for leasing him out.

This sounds bad enough even before you realize that this means the governments involved in these contracts can be held liable for high fines and even lawsuits if they fail to produce or they choose to reduce a prison population for any reason, including the prison being swept with a highly contagious disease, or found to be routinely torturing inmates. 

In 2013 a private prison in Arizona sued the state for $16 million for not meeting it's occupancy quotas. There had been a decision not to send the facility additional inmates after they were labeled "dysfunctional" following the 2010 escape of three inmates convicted of murder, two of which then went on a crime spree.  The state negotiated a 3 million dollar settlement.

When having people in prison makes money for a few private prison owners, and reducing prison populations costs local governments money, this system is not benefiting us. At the cost of our communities going bankrupt we could theoretically have our people back. But while people are incarcerated at wild rates our municipalities can keep some of the money they need to run while the owner of CCA or GEO Prisons amasses enough money to have as many corrupt and dangerous prisons as they may fancy.

I would love to use this paragraph to tell you how you can make it all go away. We all need to pay attention to what's going on in our government and vote or protest or petition or do whatever is needed before things like this happen, and research the people on the ballots before voting. What I do is I send books to inmates, be their penpal and take their phone calls. I also give speeches on the subject and write this blog. Admittedly, I chose this as a priority that you might not choose. But you can write an inmate. You can mindfully vote. You can read this blog and my sources and talk to people about it. Choose the way that makes sense for you to help and do it. Thank you.

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