Now that ACC is terrifyingly a major stake holder in Private Prisons, expect to see more and more Private Prison Porn masquerading as news.
Hilariously this is in the business section, not politics or crime and punishment or failed Government policy sections, it’s in business. As if there is no question about the validity of this social experiment, because it’s in the business section.
Apparently this isn’t the warping of imprisonment by introducing a profit margin for private companies, oh no. This is helping track a prisoners “path to freedom”.
Can you believe that?
“Path to freedom”? Path to bloody freedom? Were the spin drs who obviously helped craft this piece of Private Prison Porn doing back flips when they read the Journalist bewilderingly added their farcical double speak spin point in the first sentence? Were they as shocked as we are that it was that easy to have a clear nonsense regurgitated mindlessly in the first sentence?
This private prison at Wiri is an abomination. A huge, horrific, paradigm shifting evil nightmare that must be resisted with every ethical effort we can muster. The State is the only proper authority that should hold people against their will, never a Corporation.
The SERCO contract hasn’t been scrutinized by Parliament and we have little idea what we have signed ourselves up to for 25 years. SERCO told the London Stock Exchange last year that they would be making $29m per year from their private prisons in NZ, over 25 years that’s $725m. That’s on top of the $900m to build this prison.
The argument that this will save us $170m over the life of the contract is optimistic beyond reason.
We have $29m per year for a private prison, but we don’t have that money to feed the poorest kids in the poorest schools in the form of the ‘Feed the Kids’ legislation?
What’s truly awful however is that we will have to pay for 960 beds at Wiri even if the prison isn’t full. That means there will be a never ending thirst for 25 years to make sure that prison is full, because we have to pay for all the beds regardless. The incentives built into this deal favour SERCOs profit margin, they don’t favor the social responsibilities of the wider community.
When Wiri is open, NZ will have the highest proportion in the world of prisoners in private prisons. This has happened with zero consultation over the long term implications of connecting corporate profit to incarceration.
There are numerous examples of abuse at private prisons, and a question this journalist misses asking is that will SERCO be more honest with us than they have been in Britain…
SERCO gave NHS false data about its GP service 252 times
Serco, the leading private contractor to the government, has admitted that it presented false data to the NHS 252 times on the performance of its out-of-hours GP service in Cornwall.
NZ needs honest appraisal of what this flawed public private partnership really generates in terms of incentivizing incarceration for corporate profit, sadly this article is nothing more than spin job fluff.
Watch Eugene Jarelski’s ‘The House I live in’ to see the consequences of private prisons and the war on drugs.
This is where we’re heading New Zealand.
Please wake up. Stop watching the Block and be aware of what’s happening to your country.
Good God . What are we becoming ?
Debtors will be next to be shuffled off to prison . Owe the Government fines , dole over payments , child support etc etc and inside you’ll go to search for your path to freedom . And work off your debt at $1.00 an hour .
Then power bills , phone bills , hire purchases , credit cards , over drafts etc . The good thing will be that at least you’ll be able to starve to death for free .
( Rant alert ! )
To all you lazy , careless bastards ! You dopy , greedy youth . To you too you dumbed down non voter . This is what you get when you don’t care .
This is what a Market Driven socio/economy gives you . Horrors . And the worst is yet to come .
She will not be right Mate .
Sweet as , will not be so sweet .
I must confess , I feel a bit freaked out right now !
I imagine that ‘if’ national get another go at it after the election they will probably announce this as part of their broarder housing policy for Auckland (if not across NZ).
It would give them a great reason to build more of them.
Could fill them up too by making it illegal to question El Presidente and his coven.
Never in this world should prisons ever be run by private enterprise. Pure and simple. Crime is a social problem that has to be dealt with by society at large. I have no problem with the Government contracting out the construction of prisons to private contractors (with the appropriate levels of scrutiny and due diligence, of course). But the actual running, hiring and paying staff, maintaining the prison facilities, catering and what have you… no.
The fact is that private enterprise has this fundamental dichotomy that leaves its involvement problematic in activities involving public utility. It serves two masters. The one: profit to its proprietors, and dividends to its shareholders. The other: society at large, who is the customer if you will. One could argue too that ideally there ought to a species of service to its inmates, ensuring they are clothed, accommodated, fed, and (one fervently hopes) rehabilitated.
The fact is that when and where ever the interests of the ‘two masters’ collide, profit comes first. Ask any businessman why he is in business. Chances are his answer will be ‘To make a profit.’ And it is certainly arguable that that is a reasonable answer. But note the implication: service to the customer comes second. A long way second, as often as not.
Already the prisons industry in the U.S. has thrown up all sorts of scandals: corruption, kickbacks, excessive sentencing (in times of growing poverty it has already been seriously suggested that people be jailed for debt), and State subservience to the prison contractors. An example of the latter: in California, a certain contractor made, as a condition of taking up the contract to run a prison, insisted upon a 98% occupancy rate guaranteed. One infers that the State paid by occupancy (which was a dumb-arsed a scheme one can imagine – doesn’t anyone learn?). What else can we infer? 1. The State of California will be paying top dollar for that prison; 2.Neither the State of California nor the prison contractor will be interested in rehabilitation programmes (which, if there are any, will be run on the cheap anyhow); 3. that the State of California will be much less interested in discretionary sentencing; 4. There won’t be any reduction in the crime rate any time soon.
The State of California ought to have insisted upon a close scrutiny of the manner in which the prisoners are treated, down to the last detail; insisted upon high quality rehabilitation programmes (not that the State has much of a record in that regard in California or New Zealand); and insisted on at least some of the contractors fees be attached to performance on rehabilitation (I don’t know how that would be managed, but that should be their problem). If no private outfit can or will undertake the task under those terms, then the State must. As it goddam should, anyhow.
When you think about it, how can a privately run prison be less a burden upon the State’s funds than a State run prison? Bear in mind that the State has no profit motive to skim a percentage off the top into private pockets. Whatever the costs are, they must be exactly the same, given exactly the same service. Which means that somehow the costs borne by the private contractor are reduced by skimping – staff wages and conditions of work, maintenance, catering, etc. I see absolutely no other way of extracting out of the enterprise any meaningful profit.
I dare say someone will trot out the efficiency thing. But State run outfits are not inherently inefficient just because they are State run. Nor is private enterprise inherently efficient simply because it is private enterprise. It is possible the one is more motivated than the other towards efficiency, but I don’t believe there’s much difference there, neither.
The New Zealand Private Prisons Industry is not merely a recipe for corruption, it is straightforward, in-your-face Government corruption right there for all to see. Not merely jobs for the boys. Lucre for the lads, that’s the caper.
I’ll be interested in seeing when the first scandal will hit in this country. Given that secrecy will surround these installations like a mephitic impenetrable fog of stench, it might take a while. Two years, I give it.
Given the corrupt and illegal practices of Serco in Britain, maybe occupancy of their prisons could be guaranteed by filling them with Serco executives? How can a government sign a 25 year contract with a company which is coming to be seen as more and more of a criminal organisation on an almost daily basis? How much does Serco pay McVicar, WhaleSpew and Farrar to push the lawn order line?
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