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TechnoratiA Blow to Privatization in Israel (and Perhaps Beyond)
Is there something inherently wrong with entrusting a private company to run a prison? Might this even be unconstitutional? As far as I'm aware, no court in Europe or the United States has entertained this question. When and if one does, there will now be a precedent to cite: a potentially historic 8-1 ruling just handed down by the Supreme Court in Israel that overturned a 2004 Knesset amendment permitting the establishment of such prisons.
In an opinion rightly hailed as a "bombshell" in Haaretz, Israeli Supreme Court President Dorit Benisch did not deny that privatizing prisons might potentially save money. She simply determined that incarceration infringes on such fundamental liberties that only the state should carry out this function, not least since the alternative is to turn prisoners into a means of extracting profit. "Economic efficiency is not a supreme value, when we are dealing with basic and important rights for which the state has responsibility," ruled Benisch.
The ruling is not without its ironies, among them the fact that Israel doesn't actually have a written constitution, only a set of Basic Laws that are supposed to serve as a guideline for legal rulings. There is also the fact that, as Yonatan Preminger noted in this fine article in the magazine Challenge a year ago, the conditions in Israel's state-run prisons have often been abysmal, with prisoners and security detainees (mainly Palestinians) crowded into cramped, squalid cells bereft of adequate beds and toilet facilities.
But the proper way to improve conditions in squalid prisons is to expose the shortcomings and demand that the state address them, not to contract out responsibility to for-profit companies that will then be responsible for authorizing whether adequate bedding might hurt the bottom-line. For several decades, the ideologues (and special interests) singing the virtues of privatization have gone largely unchallenged. It's about time this changed, and that the terms of debate shift from what is efficient to what is right and permissible.
14 Comments so far
Show AllPrivatization of a jail? Hell what nonsense is this? Is this part of the rebranding of that filthy den of zionists that Naomi Klein speaks of?
Boycott the entity known as "Israel", have nothing to do with that pariah state. Does anybody care about the crimes against the Human Race that have been committed by the racist bigots of that rogue state? All paid for by USA taxpayers. Absolutely disgusting. Israelis are not fit company for pigs.
We don't make up to baby killers.
Sophie Scholl-The Final Days
Boycott Divest and Sanctions (BDS) Just like with Apartheid South Africa
Israel is a racist Apartheid state yes, but just remember that without the Empire, Israel could not exist as we know it. Therefore the US Congress and President are also not fit compnay for pigs. That goes for Rs and Ds both.
In fact, the US Empire arms, funds and cheerleads war crimes and Apartheid and is perhaps even more guilty than Israel itself.
Will you care to teach us some more about filth and bigotry, two areas in which you are evidently an expert? What a disgrace to the White Rose group.
Sorry, what are you on about?
senator lamar alexander promoted private prisons in tennessee. at his side was honey, his wife, who owned all these shares in cca. cca stands for corrections corporation of america, probably the largest for-profit prison in the u.s. anyway, lamar would give press conferences in the morning extolling the virtues of prison privatization,; by afternoon, honey would have sold her cca stock for a healthy profit. no surprise, then, that lamar's parents over in alcoa wouldn't even pay their paperboy on time! amazing what goes down in tennesse, where what is downright corrupt is most often legal.
In the USA one of the fastest growing industries is private for-profit prison. the Correctional Corporation of America is one of the big players.
We are seeing the destruction of public education in California and elsewhere. We can close the schools and give working-class kids a direct choice: the military or prison, either that or wage slavery at Wal-Mart et al. That way we can save money and make more profit.
Both prisons and the MIC produce lots of private profits.
I would not be so optimistic about any legal challenges to private prisons in the USA. Does anyone really believe the Supreme Court would not support private prisons? Even if it was a 5/4 split decision.
When profit is the top priority, everything it touches gets corrupted. Healthcare, infrastructure, energy, transportation, product quality, etc. The perfect way to fix this is to put the common good first, and profit second. If this were done, we would still see good profits, but the welfare of the people would have precedence. Think about the world that would emerge, if this system were put in place. We would finally have a democracy of the people, by the people, and for the people.
Can anyone explain:
How is 'for profit' privatization cheaper that 'break even' government run? It makes absolutely no sense to me.
The way this is usually figured is interesting.
If corporate agents bribe a government, they are working for the good of the corporation; therefore the bribe is an investment as viewed by the corporation, and the government agents are corrupt, whilst the corporate agent is competent because he or she creates profit for Master.
If a government negotiator overpays for military hardware -- this is all hypothetical, right? -- the government is inefficient, but the company is efficient, since the payola goes into the pockets of the stockholders, where somebody thinks it should go (and who might that be?). Naturally, they might award their negotiators something for that action to get them over any qualms they might have, but that is considered a bonus, whereas delivering the same money to the government agent for the same accord is considered a bribe.
If a government or a union agent skims money off the top of transactions, that is called embezzlement and may be prosecuted as such. If a corporation or the owners thereof do so, it is called profit.
..
A similar dynamic derives from the concept of economic "growth."
Need does not generally increase or decrease with production. As long as the population is fixed, total need remains fairly fixed, despite the variance in various artificial ways of measuring it.
Therefore, an economy can grow a bit as it turns to care for its poor, but the growth potential for that remains fairly limited. Everyone needs frijoles, tortilla, veggies, clean water and a roof, but outside of education-communication, a chicken on Sunday for the carnivores, and some system to handle emergencies, there remains little left to do.
So almost all economic growth amounts to diverting resources from satisfaction of need to distractions. And by distractions, I don't mean genuine artistic presentations, which I see as part of the whole edu-communications continuum.
Just for a single simple stereotype, let's try the hot-car-AKA-tin-dick-AKA-conspicuous-consumption as an item to establish social status and marriageability. Since the item itself (the hot car as opposed to just the car) serves no other function, once the marriage has been set and the partners satisfied that they no longer have to establish sexual viability in that way, the item becomes superfluous, often even a liability (Why's he still driving that car when he's married and has two kids?)
The reason the consumption can grow and continue is that the product purchased has only the most ephemeral relationship to the circumstances desired. The consumer wants love, acceptance, marriage, family, ultimate acceptance and understanding, approval from Mommy and Daddy --- maybe a woman or man or something in that horrifically broad quadrant, but purchases a car. What is desired is not really the ownership of the product purchased. Therefore, the purchase does not quell desire. Therefore, the consumer purchases and purchases over and over --- given sufficient confusion.
Now, all the time, energy, money, natural and economic resources that go into this were better burnt in a public square where the loss would at least be straightforward and educational.
Well said. I'd like to add that to 99.99999% of the people, privatization is horrible failure and always will be. If you privatize something you are essentially auctioning it off. So, without exception, the price goes up. Well, when the price goes up and you remove any rights on collective ownership you can only use that resource if you have the money to match the market price. Many people will go from having a small share of something like everyone else to being priced out of access. So the only people who benefit are those who aren't priced out (a portion of these people are rich enough that they never have to worry about this) and those who own the resource or service. It is "efficient" only because you allow the right wing economists to define efficiency in very narrow and extremely ideological ways. It is not efficient. If you need an example of this, look at the model for pension privatization Chile. The "fees" associated with their privatized pension (along with administrative costs, profits, executive pay, marketing costs, etc, all waste as far as the delivery of social services) system were horribly high and the system was overall a disaster, so bad that the right wing candidate for president said it had to fundamentally change and more people had to be put on a public plan ran by and administered by the state. Recent polls show that over 3/4's of those in the country want the pension system taken over by the state. Agree or disagree with that, it has been a failure. "Efficient" largely is doing something for as cheap of cost as possible while making as large of profits as possible. So it is "efficient" to reduce costs by not covering people as far as needed health care service and it increases profits, so it is "efficient". Why should we call that "efficient", unless all we care about is the highest possible profits? Are higher administrative costs efficient? Profits, especially those that emerge out of monopolistic economies? Marketing costs? Executive pay? Divident payments?
Excellent. Also an argument for renting stuff instead of buying it.
Sioux Rose
BARDAMU: You just offered a crash course in Public Relations/Marketing 101. Well-stated. I always noticed the same dynamics operating. I like the way you defined the strategy so directly.
This is excellent! "... incarceration infringes on such fundamental liberties that only the state should carry out this function"
Exactly right.
Bill Maher asked Why does everything have to make a profit?
""Economic efficiency is not a supreme value, when we are dealing with basic and important rights for which the state has responsibility," "
Basic and important rights for which the state has responsibility should take priority over economic efficiency aka profits.