Talk:Private prison/Archives/2016

Introduction

The introduction neeeds attention on 4 points:

1) the payment method referred to is common in the USA but not the UK or (I think) Australia or NZ), where payment is mostly made per place available whether occupied or not.

2) the word 'privatis(z)ation' has the particular meaning of the irreversible transfer of an asset from public to private sectors, as when British Airways or the utilities were sold off. It does NOT mean the same as 'outsourcing' or 'contracting out' a continuing service, which may be (and sometimes has been) brought back in house at some point. I think the broadening of the meaning of a word in this way is pointless and to be resisted, especially in circs such as here where we need to be able to distinguish different types of private sector involvement in public servcies, which raise different issues and have different implications.

3) the text does not explain what is 'unique' about privately run prisons. 4) nor is the case made that such contracts constitute 'subsidization', nor is it even clear what that means here.

I have made amendments accordingly.Unraed (talk) 19:03, 19 January 2016 (UTC)unraed

Reverting deletion on UK prisons by Activist 12:41 16 September 2016

I am reverting the deletion by Activist at 12:41 on 16 September because it is unjustified and removed valuable material for no good reason. Eg it is about UK, yes, precisely, thus it is in the section on the UK. Not a 'peer reviewed article', no, not an article, a book, so what? Not 'normal editorial oversight', what does that even mean - this was published by a well known UK university press. And so on. This is the only study of its kind in a controverisal field and is extremely relevant. Unraed (talk) 15:11, 25 September 2016 (UTC)unraedUnraed (talk) 15:11, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

@Unraed:The book or POV you're promoting is ludicrous. There are hundreds of studies that have been done on the "controverisal" (sic) for-profit prison sector, and none but industry-sponsored crap (i.e., the eminently mendacious and corrupt Dr. Charles Thomas) comes to the same conclusion that this obscure author has done. The "study" you claim was done by the book's author isn't a study at all. It might be a travelogue, but a poor one at that. The U.S. Department of Justice came out with a decision about a month ago after considerable analysis (replicating the same by many other entities, such as the state of Arizona) announcing that it would phase out all contracts with the for-profits because they do a terrible job and don't save any money. What they do accomplish is to corrupt government and endanger the public safety. The Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement seems ready to follow the DOJ's lead. Wall Street took delayed note once again and the stock of by far the two largest for-profit operators in the world lost about a billion dollars worth of book value overnight. While you're preaching the virtues of, say, G4S, please be advised that to paraphrase yourself, "England is not the world," and the whole world observed the spectacular failure of G4S in providing "security" for the '12 London Olympics. G4S Securicor in the U.S. recently failed to recognize that they had armed a terrorist by a.) failing to do adequate, or perhaps any background screening. b.) faking his psych workups c.) ignored for years the numerous reports by his peers about his persistently threatening behavior. d.) ignored his verbalized allegiance to ISIS. e.) ignoring his homophobic self-loathing rants f.) Ignoring complaints from actual law enforcement that he lacked any competence at his job g.) transferred him out of the critical public eye and turned him into an underqualified rent-a-cop in a subdivision kiosk, and finally, surprise: He murdered 49 people in two hours in cold blood, probably more than every terrorist in England since the IRA shut down their operations decades ago. There have been U.K. experts (i.e.) Steven Nathan , with whom I have met with, corresponded with for years, discussed the subject with, and monitors, i.e, Anne Elizabeth Owers, DBE was Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Prisons, who had the (sub-cabinet?) role of monitoring these abominable operations for years, whom I've ditto, met, corresponded with and spoken to at length, and they and I have no disagreement at all.

Now to the silly points your wanker puts forth:

Assessment[edit] According to a recent comprehensive assessment published by Julian Le Vay in "Competition for Prisons: Public or Private?", the impact of competition for prisons: 1) Neither public nor private sector have consistently outperformed the other on quality of service.

• (In the U.S.): There are about 20x as many escapes, per capita, from the private vs. the public sector. In for-profit transports, there are about 50x as many. People in for-profit immigrant prisons in both countries are dying like flies, due to lack of medical attention. I don't think LaVey has read anything. (We used to have Anton LaVey/Levey over here, but he's passed on, thankfully.)

2) Rather, both sectors experienced very serious operational problems in the 1990s and early 2000s, both improved in the 2000s and both deteriorated in the 2010s, due to sharp budget cuts.

• That deserves some quantification. Surely in the U.S. they started badly, stayed bad, and continue to be awful, to this day. What they're good at is fraud, corruption and externalization of costs.

3) Privately run prisons run at much lower costs, perhaps as much as 30% cheaper, though the mechanics of the PFI and of the public sector pension scheme make it impossible to say with any precision. The cost gap has narrowed but is still substantial.

• They may run at lower costs since they hire scabs and the government, including Labor, fails to adequately monitor their performance, and they cover up their ineptitude because it's all about profits. Repeated peer reviewed studies in the U.S. say higher costs, less performance. (The industry touted a law journal "note," as a "study," but what their hired stooge wrote was miles from any such thing and they knew it.)

4) Under PFI, the private sector built new prisons twice as fast as the public sector and for half the cost, though the public sector has since much improved.

• In the U.S., the most powerful and most highly capitalized operators, GEO Group and CCA, and their inferiors, have built junk, steaming dungpiles that contribute to excessive riots and escapes. CCA tried to build an immigration prison in Southwest Ranches, Florida, and didn't break ground for five years, but sued the local government (and lost). At the same time they tried to build in Illinois and struck out for years, abandoning the effort to GEO (in Hobart and Gary, Indiana) in metro Chicago, with the same result, after four years of getting nowhere. Cornell Corrections tried to build in Alaska for ten years, got nowhere, except that 10 of their partners, lobbyists, legislators and contractors, went marching off to prison themselves for corruption.

5) There has been innovation by the private sector, but its impact has been marginal overall.

• What "innovation?" Not a smidgen, in the U.S., except that they've invented new ways to fail, badly.

6) The threat of competition has played a significant part in driving up performance in the public sector and in weakening the power of the Prison Officers’ Association to obstruct change and improvement.

• Now that's a contention in the absence of data, drawn no doubt straight out of your writer's bum. That's what peer reviews do. They consign nonsense like this to well deserved tips.

7) Government has often handled competition badly and has failed to carry out or publish adequate assessment of the comparative costs and performance of the two sector, or of the overall impact and value of competition.

• You've got that half right. When governments that are not kowtowing to millionaire lobbyists and their campaign contributions, and they do studies, they find the private sector compares poorly.
• Now I know you think that things are different in the UK and the US, but water boils at 212F, objects fall at 32 feet/per second/per second, and horse manure isn't even good for fertilizer, on either side of the pond.

A researcher colleague of mine, Dan Waldorf, once produced a study that contradicted the hopes of penological managers in the U.S. He quoted the following from that great analyst of British culture and the foibles of humanity, W._S._Gilbert in his naval libretto.

Things are seldom what they seem; Skim milk masquerades as cream.

Unless you can produce some reliably sourced, peer reviewed actual studies, please don't stink up the virtual pages of Wikipedia with this non-RSS crap.Activist (talk) 19:35, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

References

Renewed deletion by Activist

Activist please deal with the issues on this page not by private message.

On your message :it is irrelevant that 'in GB there are a very small number of for profit facilties': the section is, explicitly, about experience in the UK, which for many reasons differs from that in other jusridictions. (But, in fact, the UK has a higher proportion of prisoners in privately run prisons than does the US.)

I dont think you can have read the book in question, which you dismiss as personal views. It quotes extensively from all relevant research on UK prisons such as that by the Cambridge Institute, contains a lot of data analysis and the bibliography is extremely lengthy, it is published by an academic press (University of Bristol). You cannot know what editorial process it went through. There is, in fact, no work which has so comprehensively reviewed the subject. It is simply not possible to dismiss it in the way you do and I question why you are so intent on doing so - you appear hostile to privately run prisons to the point that you dont like any other analysis being aired and are set on supressing it. Not acceptable. ~~unraed~~ — Preceding unsigned comment added by Unraed (talk • contribs) 17:14, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

I can't read the book on line, and I damn well won't buy it. It defies the imagination that he could come to some of the conclusions he adopts. I've done extensive research in the field. I've seen other complete nonsense from academic sources, and it usually has to do with their funding, like Charlie Thomas' millions. Two economists from Fox Business School, at Villanova, who've been looking at the sector for two decades, predicted that there would be a "1,000 flowers" (Maoist sarcasm alert) as the result of capitalist competition. They're still praising them to the skies, one assumes because they imagine they're working at the Grand Academe of Ladoga. Any Econ 101 would know that there were a 100 car manufacturers in the U.S., 100 years ago, and 100 motorcycle manufacturers, too, many very innovative. Then there were Ford, GM and Chrysler. Hello Pinto! Hello 7mpg Hummer! Hello Corvair! (Which I liked, but wasn't for the average driver.) Hello Hardley Ableson. Then there's the George Mason Kochbot, Alexander Tabarrok. I bought his "Changing of the Guard." Whew. Big Stink! Activist (talk) 20:27, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

@Unraed:Wow! Published!! In a book!!! Just like Immanuel Velikovsky. I'm impressed!!!! Let me suggest this. I'll go ahead and revert it and you look for some consensus here to keep. I can't imagine you'll find enough folks dense enough to do that, even if you canvass, unless you create some sockpuppets. If you do? I'll be even more impressed. Activist (talk) 21:41, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

Well, unfortunately for you, there's more. I noticed for instance, that Money Week on April 9th had written much of a commentary almost verbatim from what you wrote. I suspect their writer got it from the same source that you did, their writer tweaking it slightly and you possibly not bothering at all. The text is at: should-we-scrap-private-prisons/

Here's a comparison of part of it, with the exact copying bolded:

Neither, public, nor, private sector, have consistently outperformed, the other, on quality of service Rather, both sectors, experienced very serious operational problems in the 1990s and, early 2000s, both improved in the 2000s and both deteriorated in the 2010s, due to sharp budget cuts

"Nice try, Charlie" It's outta here. Activist (talk) 11:09, 26 September 2016 (UTC)

Third opinion question

• Which information in the article is under dispute? I can't tell. (BTW, Activist, quasi-suggesting that Unraed start canvassing or engage in sockpuppetry kind of smells like WP:DFTT, so you might want to redact that statement.) Erpert ^{blah, blah, blah...} 20:50, 1 October 2016 (UTC)

• The information is gone. It seems to have been plagiarized as I'd painstakingly indicated, likely from some promotional material. I'd found other slightly tweaked versions of its marketing, including the same, verbatim information. Although the book was published by Public Policy at the University of Bristol, they solicit manuscripts from the general public, charging their customers for giving submissions a more marketable appearance. What they do essentially appears to not be an academic enterprise at all, but a slightly polished up version of self-publishing. What was placed by the Wikipedia editor in the article was at first of an odd format, since made more conventional. You mistake my sarcasm for "quasi-suggesting," canvassing or "sockpuppetry." Not in a million years. I did by the way, consult with an editor who is a well known, long time expert on British corrections, and was told that the book had been on order by that professional editor for quite some time, without delivery to date. The book was not peer reviewed. A peer review would have trashed it for "cherry picking," and absence of rigor. Having extensive references is not the same as being an objective assessment. It is most definitely not remotely a Reliable Source. Activist (talk) 15:23, 2 October 2016 (UTC)

The material in dispute is '1.3 Assessment' whiich can be viewed here: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Private_prison&oldid=741125915 which has been deleted and reinstated several timesUnraed (talk) 06:04, 2 October 2016 (UTC)unraed

• This is still rather confusing, so I'm going to see if any other 3O editor wants to take this. Erpert ^{blah, blah, blah...} 19:21, 2 October 2016 (UTC)