Mike Harris wants to close down Ontario’s prisons. They are expensive and inefficient.
Whenever someone from a conservative political party says “expensive and inefficient” you know he has friends waiting to make a lot of money with a backroom deal– and he is about to announce a new privatization scheme. Sure enough, Harris wants to privatize Ontario’s prisons. He wants to pay private companies to incarcerate Ontario’s criminals.
Don’t we all believe that private companies are more efficient and effective than government? There’s something to the idea. Most private companies exist in a competitive environment. If they are inefficient or lazy or slow, they get squashed by those powerful rivals. In theory, this means that most private companies are smarter, quicker, and more responsive to changes in the marketplace than governments are.
Unless you happen to be Microsoft.
This is the simple myth that America lives by. It’s partly true. It’s also partly untrue. The U.S. has a private health care system in which hospitals, insurance companies, and doctors all compete for your business. Canada has a government-run monopoly on health services. Which system is more competitive, efficient, and cheap? Surprise! The Canadian system is at least three times more efficient than the U.S. system. Why? Because there are some advantages to a government-run monopoly. First of all, the government is able to control costs by negotiating the rates for medical procedures with the doctors. In the U.S., the market is supposed to keep doctors prices low. Right. Like you’re going to go shop around for a cancer treatment and see if you can get a discount from that “big box” medical centre out near the highway. Yes.
Secondly, there is much less duplication of services. Some U.S. cities have five or more Magnetic Image Resonance machines, each of which cost millions, and each of which sits idle most of the time.
Thirdly, the Canadian system is actually run quite well, thank you, by people who know their jobs.
Fourthly, the Canadian system doesn’t have to skim off a certain percentage of profits for greedy corporations.
Anyway, back to the prisons…
Privatizing prisons is quite popular in the U.S. there are thousands of them, run by several companies. Unfortunately, they haven’t reduced costs quite as much as expected. In fact, some studies show that they haven’t reduced costs at all. And when you think about it, why would they? A privately run prison must provide all of the same functions that a state run prison provides, plus, it must provide a profit for the owners. Now there is only one way for the owners to create that profit: and that is to run the prison more cheaply than the state does. That means less staff, less training, less programs for the incarcerated, and less medical care. Less food. Cheaper food. Smaller cells. More over-crowding. Less control.
In fact, this is what is happening to the publicly owned prisons as well. State after state is going to court to try to reclaim control of their prisons. Wait a minute… reclaim control? That’s right. They no longer control their own prisons. Why not? Because about 20 years ago, lawyers for the inmates began filing lawsuits against various state governments alleging that the prisons were so badly run, so decrepit and vermin-infested and dominated by sadistic long-term convicts that sentencing any person to spend time in them constituted “cruel and unusual punishment”. The courts investigated and agreed and seized control of the prisons. Many states still did nothing about the horrendous conditions.
Now, not only do state governments want to treat criminals like animals, they want to contract out the service of treating criminals like animals.
Unless you really believe that these corporations that own these prisons are seriously interested in rehabilitation and whatever.
The truth is this. Governments find it unpopular to treat prisoners too, too badly. Sooner or later, some muckraking journalist comes along and uncovers the dirt and then those liberals will demand reform. Or, as we have seen, the courts will step in and order expensive improvements. Some idiots actually think that prisons should have some rehabilitation programs. Some real idiots actually think that prisoners should be treated with some kind of dignity and respect, even though they have committed awful crimes.
You have to remember that when rich people commit crimes, they don’t go to prison. So when rich people privatize prisons, they know very well that no matter what, they themselves are never going to end up in one of those prisons.
So the goal of privatization is to append a flattering objective to a contemptible practice.
Now, wait a minute. If a private citizen or company locks me up in a room and threatens me and forces me to eat disgusting food and prevents from leaving…. isn’t that kidnapping? You bet. So why is not kidnapping when a private company does the same thing, even if it’s with permission from the state? How can the legal government assign rights that are normally only given to duly-constituted civil authorities to private individuals employed by a for-profit corporation?
Would it be legal for a state government to allow the mother of a murder victim to decide on and execute the punishment of the offender? It certainly would not be. But then again, never over-estimate the intelligence or ethics of twelve years of Republican-appointed judges. The Republicans have shown, over and over again, that they are willing to appoint relatively unqualified people to the position of judge if they share the “correct” ideology. Clarence Thomas, a manifestly undistinguished jurist, immediately comes to mind. And these judges, who were appointed too late to have an influence on the earlier court-ordered prison reforms, have been trying to undue their effects piece by piece. And they have ruled it is legal for a private company to hold people prisoner on behalf of the state.
I’m lazy so I don’t want to write a hundred pages about why this is a stupid idea. It just is. Sorry. I’d love to spend a week in the library so I can refer to you specific documents that show what a stupid, sorry mess the U.S. prison system is, but I have a job, so I can’t. But there’s one thing readily apparent to everyone: the Americans love to punish criminals. They love to see them suffer. They love capital punishment. They love long, long prison terms. For everyone who commits serious crimes, except the rich.
The Americans are on this vindictive schtick and it’s pure barbarism. It makes me wonder if you can even call the U.S. a civilized society. It certainly calls into question the intelligence of the average American voter. For about 30 years now, the U.S. has been throwing scores of people into prison and lengthening prison terms all in the name of being “tough on crime”. I would like just one of these people to give me an objective measure that will show us if and when this program is succeeding. When does the crime rate go down? When can you show me that it is having some positive effect? Can you show me that the benefits outweigh the costs? When will we finally see the slightest indication that we are winning the war on drugs?
They can’t and won’t because they are wrong. Longer, tougher prison sentences do not reduce crime. If they did, the U.S. would be the most crime-free nation on earth, and Canada and Europe would be infested with criminals. Instead, it is quite the opposite.
Privatizing prisons is a very bad idea. Mike Harris thinks it will save money and provide more “efficient” services to Canada’s justice system. I think it will result in scandals and abuses as these private companies try to cut costs to make bigger profits. Harris thinks, so, who cares? They’re criminals. They don’t deserve to be treated with respect or dignity.
The net result will be an increase in man’s inhumanity to man.
