Rap music and private prisons

[HairOfTheDog]

A Supreme Court case could determine whether thousands of inmates in privately run prisons have the same rights to sue in federal court as prisoners in facilities run by the U.S. government.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424...68514.html


MIAMI—Florida's Senate is expected to vote Tuesday on a controversial plan to privatize state prison facilities in southern Florida, a move that would create one of the largest private prison operations in the nation.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424...20102.html


Prison companies are preparing for a wave of new business as the economic downturn makes it increasingly difficult for federal and state government officials to build and operate their own jails.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122705334657739263.html


In recent years, the trend toward privatization, both among state governments and at the federal level has been part of an attempt to address serious budget troubles and crisis-level prison overcrowding by outsourcing more and more corrections operations to private companies.

The move has translated into big business for industry leaders like Corrections Corporation of America (CXW), The Geo Group (GEO) and Cornell Companies, Inc. (CRN) (just last week, The Geo Group and Cornell finalized a merger valued at $730 million).

According to research firm IBISWorld USA, private corrections is a $22.7 billion industry with an annual growth rate in the last half-decade of 4.7%. While growth slowed from 2009 to 2010, projections for the industry remain largely optimistic.

"The prison population continues to grow regardless of what the economic conditions are," says George Van Horn, senior analyst at IBISWorld.

http://money.cnn.com/2010/08/17/news/eco...agazine%29


DENVER (MarketWatch) — The more children judges locked away, the more money owners of a for-profit juvenile detention center could make slamming the bars.

Federal prosecutors called it “Kids For Cash.”

An owner of a private detention center, Robert Powell, was sentenced to 1 ¹⁄₂ years in prison Friday for allegedly paying kickbacks to two county judges in Pennsylvania. Powell got off relatively easy after cooperating with prosecutors.

Earlier this year, Luzerne County’s former president judge Michael Conahan was sentenced to 17 ¹⁄₂ years, and Judge Mark Ciavarella, a.k.a. “Mr. Zero Tolerance,” was sentenced to 28 years.

The case is a testament to the effectiveness of economic incentives, getting county judges to incarcerate kids just for doing what kids sometimes do:



—A 10-year-old girl reportedly got a month in a detention center for accidentally setting her bedroom on fire.

—A 13-year-old boy reportedly got 48 days for throwing food at his mother’s boyfriend during an argument.

—A 16-year-old girl reportedly got a month in a boot camp for creating a Web page making fun of the assistant principal of her high school.

—A 17-year-old boy reportedly got five months for drug paraphernalia — not drugs themselves — and it was his first offense.

The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania had to dismiss 4,000 juvenile cases because of the compromising kickbacks.

http://articles.marketwatch.com/2011-11-...nty-judges

I'm not arguing with you about the existence of private prisons and kick backs. I'm saying that I don't believe any music industry decision makers were solicited to proliferate rap music as a means to increase crime in order to fill prisons, any kinds of prisons. I don't think anyone organizing such a conspiracy would approach a bunch of music industry strangers and brag about getting government funding to fill prisons as a result of inciting crime; that's a crock and would be a sure way to fuck their (imaginary) governmental partners and funding. Shout it from the rooftops - not believable.

The story is bullshit, imo. You can post articles about private prisons and kick backs, but the story is still bullshit, imo. Completely unrelated.