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Sheriff Michael Page of Hernando County, Florida, is the latest in a line of Sheriffs to inherit the headache that is the county jail. After being operated by CCA for 22 years, the facility had fallen into exceptional disrepair, after CCA had neglected to perform millions of dollars worth of required maintenance. The county took over the facility a little more than a year ago and started the long process of upgrading the security, staff, and conditions of the jail.
Initial projections by then-Sheriff Richard Nugent hypothesized that the county could save up to $200,000 compared to what CCA would have charged. It turns out that de-privatizing the jail has actually saved Hernando County taxpayers more than $1,000,000 this year. Maybe Ric Scott and JD Alexander ought to reconsider their bullheaded push to privatize half the state’s prison system.
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So CCA strips the asset clean, murders unknown numbers of people in the process then tosses the facility back to the state to deal with. I am sick of the criminal principals behind these corporate shells. This should have never happened in the first place and should never happen in the future. I think CCA should be shuttered and its principals prosecuted and barred from doing anything other than washing windows so they aren’t free to continue their criminal ways in any country ever again.
Doesn’t he understand? It’s not about saving public money it’s about fleecing the public.
I’m sure you meant a snark tag on that but a lot of the public was unjustly imprisoned, tortured and murdered in the process. Running a private Bastille is immoral and criminal no less than the public ones that are in operation inside and offshored from the US.
That headline sounds just like the targeted ads running in the margins: “Florida sheriff saves $1,000,000 using this one simple trick.”
The problem with private prisons is that more incarceration means more profits e.g. Arizona’s immigration law pushed by politicians corrupted by CCA, et. al.donations
What’s worse than private prisons is the new entertainment industry (that’s you, MSNBC) that’s popped up to focus on violent criminals and nice guards.
So government does things cheaper and better than the free market. Just like National Healthcare and drug price controls is cheaper and results in longer lifespans than the freemarket:)
America is the only country in the world where the healthcare system sucks so bad that poor hispanics immigrants live longer than the richer people with healthcare.
They saved $1M while spending hundreds of thousands on deferred maintenance & upgrades, future savings will be even higher. Everyone writing to their reps or speaking at public hearings on ANY privatization issue should tout these results.
Private Charter Schools have the same problem they don’t produce the results.
Lets face it a well funded well run government program in the Real World is more efficient than a free market program you can focus on getting the job done right vs making a profit.
In a world where everyone wants to make a profit and lowest cost determines who gets the contract corners will be cut and the job gets done half assed.
But if you focus on getting the job done right you either allocate enough funds to do the job right or you don’t do the job.
The Right says the Private sector produces innovation but big companies focused on cost don’t innovate look at GM for decades they ignored fuel efficient cars and for decades they lost market share.
Look at Microsoft they stopped innovating a while ago the x-box was a copy of the Sony Play Station, Zune was a copy of the I pod.
We should break up large companies to encourage innovation and discourage putting profit now over the costs to innovate for the future.
NASA produced how much innovation and inventions? Al Gore got the funding for the internet and that resulted in Google and how many other internet companies?
if you want innovation the government can lead the way. The Private sector can build on that innovation later.
Funny how everything is less expensive when you remove the profit motive from it.
Don’t you understand: CCA is a pipeline of cash into politicians’ pockets? Just as overpriced stuff that DOD buys probably is used to fund illegal operations, or the money is a way to funnel money to CIA. Remember overpriced toilet seat on B2 bombers and hammers? As they say: one hand washes the other, and both wash ass.
This Florida Sheriff better watch his back. Jeb Bush and his proxies Ric Scott and Marco “Batista” Rubio aren’t going to like this turn of events.
I think the mime of “private industry can do it cheaper” comes from the fact that they probably do….BEFORE PROFITS. The cost of what they do without executive pay is most likely cheap, at the expense of the people that actually do the work. When Government does it, they pay the workers for the work first. Like it should be.
“Ohio sells state prison to private contractor for $73 million” (RawStory.Com , Sept. 2, 2011)
And now, of course, Michigan is talking about privatizing….teachers.
No, they won’t learn from this example. They aren’t about doing it cheap, that’s just the excuse they give to the rubes, er taxpayers, while implementing the actual plan, to allow their buddies to get rich.
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