W. Va. Supreme Court administrator warns state lawmakers about ALEC, private prison industry

[highplainsdem]

http://www.journal-news.net/page/content.detail/id/567543/New-W-Va--prison-means-politics--lawmakers-told.html?nav=5006

CHARLESTON (AP) - West Virginia is facing an inmate crowding crisis, but building a new prison may not be the answer, state Supreme Court administrator Steve Canterbury told lawmakers Tuesday.

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"When the state commits to spending $100 to $200 million - and this will be closer to $200 million, mark my words - for building a prison, it takes a political life of its own," Canterbury said.

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The private prison industry, meanwhile, will press West Virginia to change its stringent legal standards that have so far kept their facilities out of the state. Canterbury said that industry is why the conservative American Legislative Exchange Council helped write Arizona's tough new immigration law.

"They sensed that this is a growth opportunity," he told lawmakers, while also saying that the industry "will lobby pretty hard for more customers. And how do they get more customers? Enhancing penalties, and jailing more people."

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It's encouraging to read about a state official giving this sort of warning about ALEC to state legislators.

More on the damage being done by this group in the compilation topic on the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).

[Leonardo Da Biker]

1. I think I just threw up

a little in the back of my mouth. Of all the corporate bullshit that is allowed to go down upon humanity I think that prison-for-profit is the most fucking depraved business model possible.

Corrections, IMHO, are the responibility of government (the people) to oversee and administrate.
Am I wrong or is the whole idea actually corrections like they say it is? To prepare those who are serving time for crimes to re enter society after they have been reformed. I don't belive that business is capable of doing that. They have no interest in that human being beyond him or her being a money making commodity for them. They will make money of every shred of toilet paper that prisoner uses, every bedsheet, shirt, etc. etc. etc. and of course have a lot invested in training that prisoner to perform a job in some prison industry producing products for the owners to sell and profit from that labor as well. They will have no incentive to "reform" or "correct" prisoners. They will be inclined to keep them locked up for as long as possible so as not to lose them as a money making asset.

I don't want to hear any arguments about the prison companies not having any say over sentence duration, etc. because that's bullshit. They absolutely would have plenty of leway over a prisoner's length of stay and cultivate no shortage of graft and corruption to support their intersts.

This is slavery. There is no other way to describe it.

[highplainsdem]

2. I agree. It's a horrifying business model.