Another Opinion: Risky plan: Privatizing state prison system
Another Opinion: Risky plan: Privatizing state prison systemFrom the Las Vegas Sun Arizona officials, trying to save money, are on the verge of seeking bids from private prison companies, which would share the job of managing the state's 40,000 inmates.The state will likely come to regret passing this critical function on to the private sector.It is a government responsibility to arrest, charge, try and sentence those who are found guilty of crimes. It follows that it should be the government's responsibility to oversee those persons sentenced to jail or prison.Trying to dodge accountability to the public for such responsibilities as jail and prison conditions, security, the training of corrections officers and the treatment of prisoners could end up costing the state more money in the long run.Hiring a less-accountable private company - on the provision that it spend far less money on all of those jobs than the government is spending - incurs high risk. And it does not, in the end, save money, as has been proven.In 2001, for exa