Ah Britain, you used to be Great. Now you're just following the US down the spiral into the crapper.

More than likely they "lost" the keys temporarily to fark with the prisoners.

My wife lost her keys this morning, so I'm getting a kick...

There are very few things that I oppose more strongly than private prisons. No good can come of it. Period. The private sector insists upon growth as an indicator of health. They will only ever lobby for stricter laws of all kinds and longer sentences. You'll see jaywalkers getting hard time in the long run if that's what it takes to make their investors happy.

They probably got traded for a pack of menthols.

Chinchillazilla: Wow, only one set of keys.

What do they do if there's a fire in a prison? Just abandon everyone in the cells?

Mmmmmm.......no.

I suspect you will find that when they realised a set of master keys was missing they decided to disable the locks on all the doors so that whoever had the keys could not simply let themselves out of the prison. The prison still had access to keys that would open the doors, and I'm sure could have released all the doors in the event of a fire or one by one if necessary.

gshepnyc: There are very few things that I oppose more strongly than private prisons. No good can come of it. Period. The private sector insists upon growth as an indicator of health. They will only ever lobby for stricter laws of all kinds and longer sentences. You'll see jaywalkers getting hard time in the long run if that's what it takes to make their investors happy.

More and more prisoners will only make society safer and safer!

Chinchillazilla: Wow, only one set of keys.

What do they do if there's a fire in a prison? Just abandon everyone in the cells?

Ah, I see you've heard of our plan for lowering overheads costs!

cyber_slacker: They probably got traded for a pack of menthols.

I read that as 'mentos' at first.

Have they not paid any attention to how well that worked in this country?
Anytime you privatize public functions, you get corruption.
When you have corruption in the justice system, your society is doomed.

cyber_slacker: gshepnyc: There are very few things that I oppose more strongly than private prisons. No good can come of it. Period. The private sector insists upon growth as an indicator of health. They will only ever lobby for stricter laws of all kinds and longer sentences. You'll see jaywalkers getting hard time in the long run if that's what it takes to make their investors happy.

More and more prisoners will only make society safer and safer!

Also, fewer people who can vote and you know how messy fair elections can be,

Chinchillazilla: What do they do if there's a fire in a prison? Just abandon everyone in the cells?

Why not? They're just criminals. Makes room for private prisons to profit off re-filling the prison, not to mention government funds for "security upgrades"

This is going to end well.

The entire concept of private prisons is fundamentally immoral without exception. There is no right way to do it and it must not be done, ever.

Every supporter of the concept at best has a huge ethical blind spot in failing to recognize the negative social effect of there being a profit motive in incarceration.

I wonder if Alabama has seen this.

Chinchillazilla: Wow, only one set of keys.

What do they do if there's a fire in a prison? Just abandon everyone in the cells?

It's not that they *couldn't* unlock the doors... i.e. the prisoners were not trapped in their cells. But with a master key to the whole prison missing, they had to keep the prisoners on lock down until they recovered it or figured out what to do. Going about business as usual could have been deadly (seriously) with a key like that possibly in a prisoner's possession.

gshepnyc: There are very few things that I oppose more strongly than private prisons. No good can come of it. Period. The private sector insists upon growth as an indicator of health. They will only ever lobby for stricter laws of all kinds and longer sentences. You'll see jaywalkers getting hard time in the long run if that's what it takes to make their investors happy.

Agree 100%. The lure of money is always a corrupting influence. Similarly, one of the reasons we can't get rid of the ridiculous War On Drugs is because your local cops get a piece of the action with asset seizure laws.

Those who believe "the free market" will always provide a cheaper alternative need only look at the cost of health care in the US vs. the cost other countries pay for socialized medicine.

macadamnut: I wonder if Alabama has seen this.

I was born in the Black Country. Lenny Henry does quite a good sketch about why his family decided to stay in Dudley when they first came to the UK......

"The Black Country? Look like de Queen has put aside some land for me already.....Hun-pack de dominoes!"

Real reason?

" It is popularly believed that the area got its name because of pollution from these heavy industries that covered the area in black soot. There is an anecdote (of dubious authenticity) about Queen Victoria ordering the blinds lowered on her carriage as the royal train passed through and remarking 'This is a very black country'. However, historians suggest that it is more likely that the name existed even before the Industrial Revolution; outcroppings of black coal scarred the surface of the local heath, and the presence of coal so near the surface rendered the local soil very black."

Link (new window)

Nem Wan: The entire concept of private prisons is fundamentally immoral without exception. There is no right way to do it and it must not be done, ever.

Every supporter of the concept at best has a huge ethical blind spot in failing to recognize the negative social effect of there being a profit motive in incarceration.

The fact they started out as "workhouses", featured (or maybe still do) chain gangs, etc. should poke some consciences. Curse the whitewasher who first called them "penitentiaries", as if guys trapped in a continual tough-man contest were going to spend most of the time worrying their rosaries.

1. give people life hardly worth living
2. illegalize anything that helps take away the pain, unless profiting from it yourself
3. incarcerate persons who break the law
4. turn prisoners into slaves
5. sell prisons to your rich old white buddies

INSTANT SLAVERY JUST LIKE DEM OLD DAYS!

So GB is trying to out fail the good ole USA we got a fail war brewing!!!

Did anyone else notice that the article stated that there were 1400 prisoners and 650 employees at the prison. What the heck. Why do you need almost one employee for every two prisoners. No wonder it costs too much.

Quinzy: Did anyone else notice that the article stated that there were 1400 prisoners and 650 employees at the prison. What the heck. Why do you need almost one employee for every two prisoners. No wonder it costs too much.

The same political wankers who would see no problem with this are also the same people who think it's AOK to pack in 35 - 40 students per classroom.

Came here thinking subby wrote some anti-privatization trolly tagline just to get a green, but sadly, he just wrote the truth.

It might be worth pointing out that the prison is privately managed, not owned. It is still Her Majesty's Prison.
/doesn't excuse this
//typical Tories... finding ever more creative ways to fark us over

Are we getting closer to a future where some time in prison or caught up in the threat of it becomes an expectation for most regular people? I mean, it sounds far-fetched, but can you honestly assume that a prison industry will not find ways to feed itself in the very same way that health care reform was just a way to feed customers to the insurance industry?

We'll get to a point where a family of 4 with no one in jail will be seen as suspicious. How are they getting away with it? And if the prisons use prison labor, won't it be seen as a way to pay back any government assistance that family may have received?

/putting on tinfoil hat.

Free market capitalism IS more efficient that government-regulated social programs!

Jixa: This is going to end well.

[myillusion.net image 335x480]

What Manga is that?

Cythraul: A private prison, in Britain? Come on Britain, I thought you were cooler than that.

If there are any British Farkers in this thread, listen to this guy. Private prisons have been nothing but trouble in the US; they're ill-run, more abusive, more expensive, and whatever profits they generate(typically through the healthy application of taxpayer money as subsidy because, like most public goods, imprisonment is not a naturally profitable endeavor) they use to lobby for more laws, harsher punishments, and less government oversight. Do not repeat the mistakes we have made in this regard; let your MP know you don't support this.

thelordofcheese: Free market capitalism IS more efficient that government-regulated social programs!

Corruption is terribly efficient. The Mafia does not accept waste on penalty of death.

rev. dave: Have they not paid any attention to how well that worked in this country?
Anytime you privatize public functions, you get corruption.
When you have corruption in the justice system, your society is doomed.

This is an ideological issue, like schools and healthcare; not one of practical policy. The Republicans don't acknowledge the abject failures of our own experiments with private imprisonment and you shouldn't expect the Tories to either. To these people, it is ALWAYS better to have the private sector do something, and they'll always find some unprincipled academic somewhere (typically in one of the dozens of think tanks that hand out scholarships and sinecures for precisely this purpose) to contort the numbers into agreeing.

gshepnyc: Are we getting closer to a future where some time in prison or caught up in the threat of it becomes an expectation for most regular people? I mean, it sounds far-fetched, but can you honestly assume that a prison industry will not find ways to feed itself in the very same way that health care reform was just a way to feed customers to the insurance industry?

We'll get to a point where a family of 4 with no one in jail will be seen as suspicious. How are they getting away with it? And if the prisons use prison labor, won't it be seen as a way to pay back any government assistance that family may have received?

/putting on tinfoil hat.

DUI laws could do that.

gshepnyc:
Also, fewer people who can vote and you know how messy fair elections can be,

Why would a criminal record stop someone from voting in an election? Indeed, why would being in prison (private or otherwise) stop you from voting in an election?

/Postal votes and all that.

sarah_t_s: gshepnyc:
Also, fewer people who can vote and you know how messy fair elections can be,

Why would a criminal record stop someone from voting in an election? Indeed, why would being in prison (private or otherwise) stop you from voting in an election?

/Postal votes and all that.

sarah_t_s: gshepnyc:
Also, fewer people who can vote and you know how messy fair elections can be,

Why would a criminal record stop someone from voting in an election? Indeed, why would being in prison (private or otherwise) stop you from voting in an election?

/Postal votes and all that.

Felons cannot vote in the US. Some can eventually get their right to vote back but not all and definitely not while IN prison. People convicted of misdemeanors are another story but "prison" implies felon in the US. Misdemeanor offenses for less than 1 year are sent to "jail" not "prison." A weird distinction but a distinction nontheless.

gshepnyc:

Felons cannot vote in the US. Some can eventually get their right to vote back but not all and definitely not while IN prison. People convicted of misdemeanors are another story but "prison" implies felon in the US. Misdemeanor offenses for less than 1 year are sent to "jail" not "prison." A weird distinction but a distinction nontheless.

So... huh. Ok. That's kind of knocked me for six as that'd mean a percentage of the US can't participate in the democratic process. Fair enough if you're convicted of high treason you can't vote here in the UK (death tends to have that knock on effect) but yeah, over here everyone, criminal or otherwise, has the right to vote.

So this is one of those differences between a Republic and a Democracy yes?

G4S... Again...
Losing prisoners during transport, putting ankle monitors on fake legs...
Now this.

Why are they still up and running and working for the government?

sarah_t_s: gshepnyc:

Felons cannot vote in the US. Some can eventually get their right to vote back but not all and definitely not while IN prison. People convicted of misdemeanors are another story but "prison" implies felon in the US. Misdemeanor offenses for less than 1 year are sent to "jail" not "prison." A weird distinction but a distinction nontheless.

So... huh. Ok. That's kind of knocked me for six as that'd mean a percentage of the US can't participate in the democratic process. Fair enough if you're convicted of high treason you can't vote here in the UK (death tends to have that knock on effect) but yeah, over here everyone, criminal or otherwise, has the right to vote.

So this is one of those differences between a Republic and a Democracy yes?

Figuring out ways to prevent groups of people from voting has become a little industry for the Republicans in the US because that party tends to do best in low-turn-out elections. And once you consider that ex-felons have a tendency to lean Democratic, you can see the interest that the Republicans have in denying them the right to vote. It's very, very hard to gin up support for felons so it's a losing battle for the Democrats.

Hell, we have the Republican Sec'y of State of the state of Colorado trying to prevent ballots from being sent to our troops overseas because the math indicates that the more troops that vote, the more likely an Obama re-election becomes. If they are THAT willing to disenfranchise active duty military, how can you expect them to let felons vote?

/doesn't like being stuck in his cell.
//at least he had b'rer rat to eat.
///obscure?