I believe less than half of what I post and I post less than half of what I believe.

I can't comment upon other occupations, but Dept of Justice lawyers earn comparable salaries to most in private practice. Clearly they don`t earn as much as commercial lawyers, but neither do most non-commercial lawyers.

Excuse me, we are discussing plastic guns, alcohol and economic philosophy. Did you not read the thread title?

I happen to know a bit about this. What woeful record and which prisons? This was debated by the instructors when I went through my training. One of them said that there was little concern that he had that private prisons would be run any worse than state one. His exact words were "It would be impossible for them to do any worse"

My apologies, I have been away for some time.

As you all know, I have recently moved out of the City of Calgary. In Calgary, the City does an appalling job of clearing roads. Major routes (that are the responsibility of the City) are rarely clear. Deerfoot Trail (the main route through Calgary and which is the responsibility of the Province, is cleared by a private firm and, invariably, its cleared much faster and much better than the ones the City is responsible for.

Now I live in the boonies, I am amazed at how well the local routes are cleared. I was discussing this with a local who informed me that it is cleared by a private firm. I propose that clearing neighbourhoods in the City should be much easier than those in the boonies as a result of the distances. I accept that rural roads are designed very differently to City ones.

I accept that the private companies may pay their staff less than the City does and they may have to work shitty hours and have days when, as they aren`t required, they aren`t paid. Which is better for the taxpayer?

Private is always cheaper.

I don't think that's true (e.g. Virgin train tickets are not less than tickets on BR were) and, in any case, cheaper doesn't mean better. Private is only clearly better for the owners of the private companies and, in a Canadian context, the politicians they bribe to get the contracts.

"Private" enterprise in industries where the profit is private but losses public, for example banking, car manufacturing, steel production plainly aren't cheap for the public. A glaring example is American sports leagues; the NHL doesn't build the stadiums, the taxpayer builds the stadiums, the teams just take the profits from operating the team.

In short, real world nuanced. Post, simplistic silliness.

An example of the type of things that can happen when a private company is charged with delivering a public service:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/20...ctor-999-calls

Serco stops the clock on ambulance dispatch in order to not mess up it's dispatch KPI - that would not be good business!

Here's one outrageous one for starters, where the blame can be laid squarely at the feet of greed and profit.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kids_for_cash_scandal

Numerous US studies have found that the proposed savings from private prisons simply never occur, and thats not even getting into the higher incidences of violence and escapes at private prisons where profit motives generally result in lower staffing levels.


In the UK Wolds had problems from the start and has recently reverted to the public sector and Ashfield and Buckley Hall are hardly the gold standard either.

Yes, I remember that one (Wiki). Absolutely outrageous and tragic. I'm all for free-market and profit motive, but there have to be constraints in some domains.

Ah, the US. I do apologize, I was discussing the UK.

You may be interested to know that, when the discussion with my instructor referred to above occured, it was during a session on transporting and escorting inmates outside of the prison. He stated that the State prison service lost an inmate a day. I have never heard of any private prison or the private prison service at large losing such a percentage of inmates during such circumstances. I would imagine that if there was, it would be all over the media. The POA would make sure of that


Bullingdon had massive problems when it first opened. There are huge problems in individual State run prisons in the UK too. What about the State prisons that are in the bottom 25%?

The main problem with prisons (if those objectives journos at the DM are to be believed) is that they are more like holiday camps these days. Quality canteen food, Playstations, access to the internet. Hardly a deterrent, indeed for some an incentive. Bring back shackles in a cold stone cell I say. At least for the worst criminals.

I have no issue with that as the loss of liberty is enough for me.

When I was a Prison Officer, each inmate had their own cell, access to a gym that had equipment that your local "top" gymnasium could only dream about, access to the most up to date movie videos (DVDs were not available then) and a choice of 5 different meals each lunchtime (a list was sent around the week before and they choose what they wanted).

Some of the more trusted inmates attended a local swimming pool each week.

The food was good enough that a very large percentage of the Prison Officers would eat any leftovers for their meals.

It wouldn't surprise me to hear that inmates now have access to the internet and games consoles.

As I said, I have no particular problem with any of the above as being inside would not be something that I would wish to experience.

But is it enough for some of these criminals? Loss of liberty is meaningful if you have a contented life on the outside (house, family, career, etc) but there must be many scraping by on a miserable existence for whom prison is not a bad lifestyle?

That's a completely different question. I recall many that were involved with drug dealing, laughing at how pathetic their sentences were in comparison with how they were able to live once their sentence was served. IIRC the starting salary of a Prison Officer was in the region of 16,000 pounds at the time and they laughed at that.

They said that the 36 months or so was worth the money they were able to make, particularly in light of the fact that, without crime, they were only likely to be able to earn minimum wage.

I don't know of any inmate that ever took the receipt of a "Dear John" letter well, so loss of liberty did affect them all, just to differing amounts. Unless you are going to kill them, what alternative is there? For the most part, they would refuse to perform community service and, while they are locked up, they cannot commit crimes against the general public.