Submitted By: Mike Spindell, Guest Blogger
We have had a lot of discussions here about the ever growing private prison system in the United States, where our country has become the world leader in imprisoning its citizens. Many blogs have been written discussing our world prison leadership and the fact that it stems from the failed “War on Drugs”, which has tended to focus on people in poverty and/or people of color. The for-profit prison industry has had a growth spurt that can be directly traced to that aspect of the conservative movement that has disparaged government services and at the same time pushed for privatization of government services using the false concept that private industry can do it better and cheaper. It is an ideas that to me seems nonsensical on its face because of the absolute need that private industry turns a profit and in today’s economic scheme that profit has to continually rise as time passes. Business strategy, which by definition, must focus on profit has focused on cutting costs as a means of building profit. Cutting costs then devolves into hiring less skilled workers, cutting down on services provided and in a business like private prisons reducing the quality of care. When ot comes to reduction of services and diminishing of quality of care when it comes to the prison industry, I’m sure that the majority of public opinion would approve of even more draconian measures. After all those convicted of a crime are generally scorned and feared. Muscular fundamentalist philosophy has discarded the Jesus of turn the other cheek into a Jesus of vengeance and so there is even in some circles moral approval of treating prison inmates harshly. There is now a widespread use of solitary confinement as a tool of prison punishment and that confinement has stretched from weeks, too months and too years. We are after all, a society that has a majority of Americans for torture in our post 9/11 era.
In 2008 we saw the opening of a scandal in Pennsylvania where it was discovered that juvenile court judges were sentencing youths to prison for minor offenses because they had received money from sources in the private prison industry. Two judges were convicted in this case and it was seen that many youths were adversely affected and are now suing for unlawful imprisonment. It is this profiting on the imprisonment of youth that I would like to address broadly in this blog. For the most part my reference links will appear at its conclusion. This is a very disturbing problem that I think cuts to the heart of what kind of society we want to live in and I would hope that others find this as disturbing as I do.The impetus for this blog is a Huffington Post story titled: “Prisoners of Profit” by Chris Kirkham http://www.huffingtonpost.com/chris-kirkham/
Chris wrote:
“From a glance at his background, one might assume that James F. Slattery would have a difficult time convincing any state in America to entrust him with the supervision of its lawbreaking youth.
Over the past quarter century, Slattery’s for-profit prison enterprises have run afoul of the Justice Department and authorities in New York, Florida, Maryland, Nevada and Texas for alleged offenses ranging from condoning abuse of inmates to plying politicians with undisclosed gifts while seeking to secure state contracts.”
He goes on to give specifics about incidents that have occurred in Slattery’s prisons such as a teen dying in a Texas Boot Camp that went untreated by authorities although the boy was vomiting; a Maryland facility that encouraged kids to fight on Saturday mornings as a method of dispute resolution; and in Florida charges that the company failed to report incidents of riots, assaults and sexual abuse.
“Despite that history, Slattery’s current company, Youth Services International, has retained and even expanded its contracts to operate juvenile prisons in several states. The company has capitalized on budgetary strains across the country as governments embrace privatization in pursuit of cost savings. Nearly 40 percent of the nation’s juvenile delinquents are today committed to private facilities, according to the most recent federal data from 2011, up from about 33 percent twelve years earlier.
Over the past two decades, more than 40,000 boys and girls in 16 states have gone through one of Slattery’s prisons, boot camps or detention centers, according to a Huffington Post analysis of juvenile facility data.”
It all returns to the analysis of whether for-profit prisons for youth provide not only cost savings, but actually are effective in reducing rates of recidivism. Study after study has shown that recidivism rates have actually increased with private prisons and that costs have exceeded prisons maintained by public employees. This large and growing industry though has become an investment opportunity for some and a profit point for others, yet the abuses continue unabated.
“Seventeen-year-old Hillary Transue did what lots of 17-year-olds do: Got into mischief. Hillary’s mischief was composing a MySpace page poking fun at the assistant principal of the high school she attended in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. Hillary was an honor student who’d never had any trouble with the law before. And her MySpace page stated clearly that the page was a joke. But despite all that, Hilary found herself charged with harassment. She stood before a judge and heard him sentence her to three months in a juvenile detention facility.
What she expected was perhaps a stern lecture. What she got was a perp walk – being led away in handcuffs as her stunned parents stood by helplessly. Hillary told The New York Times, “I felt like I had been thrown into some surreal sort of nightmare. All I wanted to know was how this could be fair and why the judge would do such a thing.”
It wasn’t until two years later that she found out why. In Scranton, Pennsylvania, two judges pleaded guilty to operating a kickback scheme involving juvenile offenders. The judges, Mark Ciavarella Jr. and Michael Conahan, took more than $2.6 million in kickbacks from a private prison company to send teenagers to two privately run youth detention centers. Since 2003, Ciaverella had sentenced an estimated 5,000 juveniles. Conahan was accused of setting up the contracts. Many of the youngsters shipped off to the detention centers were first-time offenders.
PA Child Care is a juvenile detention center in Pittston Township, Pennsylvania. It was opened in February 2003. It has a sister company, Western PA Child Care, in Butler County, Pennsylvania. Treatment at both facilities is provided by Mid Atlantic Youth Services. Gregory Zappala took sole ownership of the company when he purchased co-owner Robert Powell’s share in June 2008.
In July 2009, Powell pled guilty to failing to report a felony and being an accessory to tax evasion conspiracy in connection with $770,000 in kickbacks he paid to Ciavarella and Conahan in exchange for facilitating the development of his facilities.
The childcare facilities have also been criticized for their costs, which ranged as high as $315 per child per day. Butler County paid Western PA Child Care about $800,000 in payments between 2005 and 2008. Butler County did not renew Western PA Child Care’s contract after an extension of the contract ran out at the end of 2008.” http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/1905:the-corrupt-corporate-incarceration-complex
Now I would be remiss in not saying that there are other studies that laud the use of private prisons, on such is “The Reason Foundation” which is purportedly a libertarian organization. They have a report on private prisons with a conclusion that lauds the private prison industry for providing better services for the prisoners. That report can be found here: http://www.burnetcountytexas.org/docs/6-Segal-Commission-on-PrisonAbuse.pdf Interestingly though the Reason Foundation seems to stretch libertarianism to its breaking point in when it comes to Federal Funding of certain educational tests it supports as shown here: http://www.lewrockwell.com/lrc-blog/the-reason-foundation-a-disgrace/ Finally though comes the fact that the Reason Foundation is one of the front groups funded by the right wing ideologues The Koch Brothers and Sarah Scaife Foundation. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reason_Foundation The family history of both the Koch’s and the Scaifes (Mellon Family) show that much of the wealth garnered came from government and indeed a Mellon was the Treasury Secretary during the Coolidge Administration. Their libertarianism is their philosophy for all but the members of their economic class.
“In Florida, where private contractors have in recent years taken control of all of the state’s 3,300 youth prison beds, YSI now manages more than $100 million in contracts, about 10 percent of the system. Its facilities have generated conspicuously large numbers of claims that guards have assaulted youth, according to a HuffPost compilation of state reports. A YSI facility in Palm Beach County had the highest rate of reported sexual assaults out of 36 facilities reviewed in Florida, the Bureau of Justice Statistics report found.
The state’s sweeping privatization of its juvenile incarceration system has produced some of the worst re-offending rates in the nation. More than 40 percent of youth offenders sent to one of Florida’s juvenile prisons wind up arrested and convicted of another crime within a year of their release, according to state data. In New York state, where historically no youth offenders have been held in private institutions, 25 percent are convicted again within that timeframe.”
In my opinion there are three aspects to the private prison industry that one should ponder upon when judging its efficacy:
- 1. Can a for-profit firm do the job cheaper? In my opinion it is impossible for a private entity to deliver the same level of care as a public entity. Profit is the underlying reason. We must consider that running a prison is in no way similar to manufacturing. In manufacturing the issue is efficiency and economy of scale. In dealing with humans one cannot use economy of scale as a comparison factor since one is not producing widgets. As for efficiency the question is how do you equal performance by increasing efficiency in a prison context. I don’t believe it can be done. Perhaps others might show me good reasons why it can be done.
- 2. In our legal system should we surrender control of custodial care of criminals to private industry? My position is that there are certain functions inherent to any government that needs to be performed solely by government. Among these are military, fire fighters, police and the entire criminal justice system. This is not to say that any of these functions can’t be corrupted if run by government, or that any governmental system cannot be corrupt. Yet in my opinion if government makes the criminal law and if under that law people are incarcerated the ultimate responsibility for the caretaker function of that incarceration should fall to government. We see above that with youth facilities in Pennsylvania run as for-profit institutions a corrupt conspiracy developed to maintain levels of incarcerated youth at a profitable number and due to this judges were bribed and youths sent to jail merely to satisfy the need for profit. Do we really support that in our country, or in our States?
- 3. Should a humane society treat its prisoners inhumanely? This shouldn’t be, but is, a subtle question today. I have little doubt that the majority of Americans believe that whatever happens to people convicted of crimes they deserve. To me that kind of thinking is institutionalized savagery. Yet I anticipate the well worn question of what if something was done to someone I love. The analogy amuses me because it assumes that my beliefs make me merely a passive do-gooder, which is far from the case. If someone I loved were hurt by a criminal I would have little compunction in killing them violently if I had the chance and would gladly accept the punishment for same. The problem is that as a society we almost never know for certain if the supposed guilty party really is guilty, whether if accused by the authorities, or convicted. The police may well accuse someone of murdering a loved one, but there have been too many murder convictions overthrown for a conviction ever to be a certainty. Too many people have been convicted by circumstantial evidence, or by eyewitness accounts proven to be untrue. Because of that uncertainty, my “avenging hand” would be stayed unless the crime occurred before my eyes. Since that is such an extremely rare happenstance the certainly of not killing an innocent is at enough of a level for me not to want to take the chance. By the same token the vagaries of our criminal justice system are such that perhaps 5%, to use a conservative estimate, of criminals are wrongly convicted. That 5% would represent more than 100,000 people and that’s assuming that the legal system gets it right 95% of the time. For those 100,000 innocent people to be brutalized by the system that deprives them of liberty is unacceptable to me. Then again, that’s why I am opposed to the death penalty which to me if it results in the death of one innocent person, has caused one death too many.
I believe that the entire concept of a privatized prison system is an abomination and even more so when we are dealing with the incarceration of youths. What is your opinion?
Submitted By: Mike Spindell, Guest Blogger
http://projects.huffingtonpost.com/prisoners-of-profit
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kids_for_cash_scandal
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/29142654/#.Umq7zhAeNlI
http://abcnews.go.com/US/mark-ciavarella-pa-juvenile-court-judge-convicted-alleged/story?id=12965182
http://sentencingproject.org/doc/publications/inc_Too_Good_to_be_True.pdf
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/1905:the-c,orrupt-corporate-incarceration-complex
http://jonathanturley.org/2011/11/26/the-incarceration-of-black-men-in-america/
http://jonathanturley.org/2013/06/29/obama-and-the-war-on-drugs-hypocrisy-in-action-2/
http://jonathanturley.org/2013/01/19/americas-broken-criminal-justice-system/
Gene H. 1, October 26, 2013 at 6:57 pm
You beat me to it, Elaine. 😀
And who was behind the push to force the USPS into that ridiculous and singular position in the first place? Lobbyists for private carriers like UPS and FedEx. And what possible motive could they have for wanting to destroy the USPS? Hmmmmmm . . .
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Holy conspiracy theory … one only a mother could love.
Lotta,
There you go!
Lost a comment, can someone dig it out?
The pension pre-funding requirement is what is called a “poison pill” and was slipped to the USPS specifically to kill it so it could be entirely privatized or done away with. The USPS is not required to make a profit, it is required to break even.
Funny how the losses mirror the cost of the pre-funding mandate.
From Wikipedia:
“Congressional role
Of related significance is the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006 (PAEA), which obligates the USPS to fund the present value of future health care benefit payments to retirees within a ten-year time span – a requirement to which no other government organization is subject. Thus, in addition to the weak economy and the diversion of mail to electronic means, the mandates of PAEA have had a considerable impact on Postal Service finances. In 2012, the USPS had its third straight year of losses from operations, which amounted to $4.8 billion.”
Gene,
GOP’s newest target: The postal service
The government itself wasn’t enough. Now, led by Darrell Issa, the right wants to go after your mail delivery
By Josh Eidelson
http://www.salon.com/2013/10/02/gops_next_victim_the_postal_service/
Excerpt:
As Monday night turned to Tuesday, the United States Postal Service defaulted on a legally required $5.6 billion payment toward health benefits for retired employees. The failure to make that payment is sure to be cited by those calling for more sacrifice from postal customers and workers – from USPS management to members of Congress.
But make no mistake: Congress, particularly Republicans, is mostly to blame for the problem.
That’s because the Postal Service – unlike any other public or private institution in the United States of America – is bound to pre-fund 75 years of healthcare benefits over a decade. As I’ve reported, that unique requirement – passed on a voice vote, with bipartisan support, in the final days of GOP control of Congress in 2006 – accounts for most of the Post Office’s deficit ever since. Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe testified this month in Congress that the pre-funding made up $32 billion of USPS’ $41 billion net loss since the requirement went into effect. For perspective on that remaining $9 billion, consider that a 2011 study from Accenture, commissioned by USPS, estimated that by diversifying its services as other countries’ mail agencies have, the Postal Service could’ve brought in an additional $74 billion from 2003 to 2008.
But the same 2006 law that saddled USPS with the pre-funding requirement also restricted its ability to offer “non-postal services,” as well as its ability to raise the cost of stamps. And so all sides in the long-running, under-the-radar debate over the future of the post office agree that any resolution will require an act of Congress.
“Let’s be clear,” Sen. Bernie Sanders told Salon in a Monday email. “During the first 11 months of the current fiscal year, the Postal Service has been profitable delivering mail and packages to every household and business in America.” Sanders added that the “sole reason” for this year’s deficit was the “unprecedented and onerous mandate” on pre-funding “insisted upon by George W. Bush.”
The White House, USPS and Rep. Darrell Issa — in many ways the leader of this effort — did not respond to Monday inquiries.
Right now, the action in the Senate centers around a bipartisan bill from Sens. Tom Carper, D-Del., and Tom Coburn, R-Okla., that, while allowing USPS greater freedom to diversify services and raise rates, would also let management reduce delivery and further cut labor costs including workers’ compensation claims. That echoes several of the proposals of Postmaster General Donahoe. Sen. Carper told a Sept. 19 hearing that USPS “needs to be granted the authority from Congress to make decisions similar to those that our auto companies made in recent years in right-sizing that industry and enabling it to succeed despite the challenges it faces in the 21st century marketplace.”
These wouldn’t be the first big cuts: The postmaster noted in his own testimony that already, “The Postal Service’s current career workforce of 492,000 is the smallest it has been in decades and is down nearly 26 percent in the past five years.” Donahoe told Congress that USPS faced an “ongoing decline” due to “migration toward electronic communication and transactional alternatives.” In an interview with Salon last year, USPS CFO Joe Corbett defended USPS’ approach on the grounds that “any financial enterprise would do it.”
Postal unions counter that service cuts will only damage USPS’ viability, and that cutting compensation after union members already negotiated major concessions is unnecessary and unjust. In a Monday email to Salon, National Rural Letter Carriers Association president Jeanette Dwyer warned against “drastic measures that will only harm this great institution, the Americans who rely upon it, and the employees who serve it with determination, integrity, and pride.” American Postal Workers Union executive vice president Greg Bell told Salon that the Carper-Coburn bill represented “part of the agenda toward privatization,” both by driving customers away to private companies and by deepening the Postal Service’s long-term crisis. “From our perspective,” said Bell, “that is what this is all about.”
A USPS plan to end Saturday mail delivery, a concept backed by the White House, was temporarily blocked by Congress earlier this year.
You beat me to it, Elaine. 😀
And who was behind the push to force the USPS into that ridiculous and singular position in the first place? Lobbyists for private carriers like UPS and FedEx. And what possible motive could they have for wanting to destroy the USPS? Hmmmmmm . . .
bfm,
You’ll find some information about why the USPS has a financial problem:
Going Postal in Washington, D. C.: The USPS, the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006, Union Busting, and Paving the Road to Privatization
http://jonathanturley.org/2012/05/06/going-postal-in-washington-d-c-the-usps-the-postal-accountability-and-enhancement-act-of-2006-union-busting-and-paving-the-road-to-privatization/
Excerpt;
Yes, the USPS is experiencing serious financial problems. I’ve heard on the news and read in the papers that drastic measures must be undertaken in order to save this great American institution. I think that it’s important to understand the causes of those problems and to know what could happen to the US Postal Service unless Congress solves them without severely impacting the institution and the services it provides to Americans.
Josh Eidelson’s Salon article Congress’s war on the post office: The Postal Service faces a threat greater than email or economics: Politics (March 14, 2012) helps provide some information on the issue:
The U.S. Postal Service is at risk of defaulting on healthcare obligations or exceeding its debt limit by the end of the year. Last month, USPS management unveiled a “Path to Profitability” that would eliminate over a hundred thousand jobs, end Saturday service and loosen overnight delivery guarantees. The Postal Service also proposes to shutter thousands of post offices. “Under the existing laws, the overall financial situation for the Postal Service is poor,” says CFO Joe Corbett. Republicans have been more dire, and none more so than Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, who warned of a “crisis that is bringing USPS to the brink of collapse.”
Listening to Issa, you’d never know that the post office’s immediate crisis is largely of Congress’s own making. Conservatives aren’t wrong to say that the shift toward electronic mail – what USPS calls “e-diversion” – poses a challenge for the Postal Service’s business model. (The recent drop-off in mail is also a consequence of the recession-induced drop in advertising.)
But even so, in the first quarter of this fiscal year, the post office would have made an operational profit, if not for a 75-year healthcare “pre-funding” mandate that applies to no other public or private institution in the United States.
Warren Gunnels, aide to Sen. Bernie Sanders, calls that mandate “the poison pill that has hammered the Postal Service … over 80 percent of the Postal Service deficit since that was enacted was entirely due to the pre-funding requirement.”
This death hug was part of the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act, which was passed on a voice vote by a lame duck Republican Congress in 2006…
As reported by CNN, the USPS has claimed that a number of its difficulties were caused BY the federal government “– through a law governing how the agency funds workers’ retirement health benefits.” It has also been reported that prior to 2007—when the mandated prefunding of healthcare benefits began—the Postal Service actually generated a small profit.
The act/law referred to above required that the USPS prefund retiree healthcare benefits for workers for the next 75 years…in just ten years (2007-2016). That means the USPS has to continue to cough up $5.5 billion annually to meet the funding mandate for another five years. No other government entity or agency has been required to do the same by Congress. Why has the Postal Service—an institution that provides valuable services to businesses and to millions of Americans—been singled out?
@Nck Spinelli “Their time has come and gone.”
I think you may be right that technology is superseding the USPS. But for a while they do satisfy the needs of people who need to send an envelope at a reasonable price.
And you raise an interesting question: what level of activity is required to support the operations the USPS at a reasonable price?
@Elaine M. “You’ll find some information about why the USPS has a financial problem”
Thank you Elaine. It will take me a minute to work through your article with the attention it deserves.
Nevertheless, I think much of what you write confirms my guess that the USPS has to meet special costs that make a direct comparison with other businesses impossible. There is no simple way to determine if the USPS is doing good, bad or about the same as other businesses.
All this special attention given to the USPS raises a couple of questions: what level of funding should business and government have to put away now in order to meet future obligations? And if it is so vital that the USPS fund its future obligations at this level then why not legislate to require all businesses to do the same?
And finally, as you have already mentioned, why all the special attention for the USPS – is it just concern USPS retirees decades from now?
BFM, The problem w/ Priority Mail was inconsistency. UPS and FedEx are very consistent. I had a biz to run and you keep your clients happy or you go out of biz, a micro example of the macro USPS problem. That’s why companies like Amazon use them. You’ll hear people who love the postal service, probably a union thing, and think the private carriers are bad, but that’s just chattering and political posturing. You have an open mind on this which makes for a good discussion.
Your point about the private carriers not directly competing on product/services is true for the most part. But, the reason is the market has spoken. 30 years ago they did compete, and the privates kicked USPS ass. As we discussed, email, texting, cell phones have hurt them. Electronic bill paying is really hurting them. The only thing that was keeping them alive was Netflix, junk mail, and political junk. Magazine biz is dying and Netflix is streaming. Their time has come and gone. Hell, I’m a dude. I hate throwing away shirts w/ holes in them. But, we adapt or perish. The USPS got competition and they got their asses kicked. The market spoke, loudly and clearly.
The USPS existed before this country was founded. The framers of the Constitution felt it was a function of government. It provides inexpensive postal services and has never failed me, whereas I have had problems with UPS and FedEx. The mythology regarding businesses is that they are efficient. Some are and many are not. With some businesses like Microsoft there is tremendous incompetence, compensated for by great marketing that uses it’s hold on the terrible Windows OS to bludgeon manufacturers. Large businesses are by definition bureaucracies and there is no proof that private bureaucracies are any better than public bureaucracies. However, billion$, if not trillion$ have been spent in clever propaganda and to buy politicians. Hence the myth of the efficiencies of the business model.
BFM, Since the USPS was ostensibly set up as a stand alone entity back in the 80’s they have run huge deficits annually. Last year $16 billion!
I used Priority Mail flat rate envelopes to mail my VHS surveillance videos to clients. Their service was fair to poor. After a few clients complaining, I went to UPS, and FedEx. NEVER got a complaint. If I went regular UPS, it was cheaper, usually ~.25. FedEx overnight was obviously more, about double.
@Nick Spinelli “Since the USPS was ostensibly set up as a stand alone entity back in the 80′s they have run huge deficits annually. Last year $16 billion! ”
I think you have made some interesting points. But I would argue they are a starting point for discussion not conclusions.
I am not sure what is in the 16 billion number. As I indicated, my guess is the PO is underpricing their product. But as I understand it, unlike real businesses, USPS cannot just raise prices according to business judgment, estimates related to elasticity of demand, or competitive situation.
And if you believe the adds of the postal union the USPS has to maintain and fund pensions at levels few other businesses match.
That fact opens up a complex subject. Maybe all business should have to fund pension programs at much higher levels. But the fact that many businesses do not means that it is difficult to make a reasonable comparison of USPS results with other businesses.
As a result, without a careful review I would argue that it is impossible to judge what part of that 16 billion is do to inefficiency and what part is due to required underpricing of their product and the inclusion of costs that other businesses simply do not include on their books.
As for service, I have never had a problem with priority mail. But my use was never time critical in the way that a security tape might be.
Do FedEx and UPS get it their faster – sure. But is that better for every customer – I am not so sure.
I think the cost effectiveness of USPS is a difficult, complex question that has no direct comparison with FedEx or UPS.
I don’t see that USPS has a product that competes directly with FedEx or USPS. And I don’t think FedEx and UPS have a product that competes with USPS. They are really satisfying different markets or different parts of the market and that is a good thing.
People like you don’t want the USPS level of service at any price. And people like me are glad to get USPS priority service at a fraction of UPS or FedEx cost. That is the way the economy is suppose to operate.
The fact that the USPS is doing a lot of things right is demonstrated by the fact that UPS and other rapid services now have inexpensive service levels that let them perform the front end of pick up and transport to a local post office and then let the UPPS handle local delivery.
That 16 billion number is troubling. But without a careful detailed analysis there is no way to tell if USPS is doing better, worse or about the same as FedEx and UPS.
“That 16 billion number is troubling. But without a careful detailed analysis there is no way to tell if USPS is doing better, worse or about the same as FedEx and UPS.”
BFM,
It’s all due to the overfunding of the pension plan which was put in by conservatives to try to destroy it. I would bet that many of those who worked at the overfunding were receiving campaign contributions from FedEx and UPS.
BFM, How about doing away w/ the postal system and have FedEx, UPS, do it. Hopefully Elaine doesn’t read this, she loves the USPS and her letter carrier.
” How about doing away w/ the postal system and have FedEx, UPS, do it.”
Even if you suppose the USPS is not recovering the full cost for delivering an ounce of mail – say the cost of a .43 stamp out to be say $1.50 – do you suppose FedEx or UPS could match the post office in cost?
And if they could match the USPS in major cities, do you suppose they could make their system work for every address in the entire US?
I think FedEx and UPS have great products. I am just not sure those products match and compete against what the USPS does.
And yes, I do think it is a great advantage to have an inexpensive way that everyone in the county can communicate.
As a practical matter broadband and the internet may fill much of what the USPS does in the sense of low cost, reliable communication, easily available to everyone.
But I am not ready to throw out the USPS yet, and maybe not ever.
To get back to your original question, the day FedEx or UPS can deliver an ounce to any address in the country, in 3 to 5 days, for under a buck then I will give them serious consideration to deliver my letters.
And I can tell you priority mail is a pretty good product too, even though it does not match the faster delivery of FedEx and UPS.
My experience is that USPS is a cost effective solution if you do not require next day or second day service. And that would be true even if USPS increased it rates substantially.
nick spinelli 1, October 26, 2013 at 3:53 pm
Dredd, I throw out Churchill quotes just for you. He was, like us all, flawed. But he did stand alone against Hitler and is a big reason you’re not speaking German. So, there’s that.
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So, Churchill was in favor of feudalism?
Germany today is doing quite well even though it is speaking German.
Of all nations of the world, they were number one in exports until just recently when China took over first place.
They are now second, and the U.S. is third.
Hitler quotes are heavily used in the U.S. within the domain of the right wing because they do not know much about German or American History.
You evaded the question.
Dredd, I throw out Churchill quotes just for you. He was, like us all, flawed. But he did stand alone against Hitler and is a big reason you’re not speaking German. So, there’s that.
nick spinelli 1, October 26, 2013 at 2:55 pm
I have no problem w/ most govt. services being privatized. However, prisons are not one of them. We judge our society by how we treat our prisoners is what Churchill said.
…
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Churchill was in favor of most of our current modern feudalistic practices.
Most of the reason for that was based on his fear of The Battle of Armageddon, but I was wondering if you believe as strongly in that battle as he did?
I have no problem w/ most govt. services being privatized. However, prisons are not one of them. We judge our society by how we treat our prisoners is what Churchill said. Make no mistake about it, if you have not worked in a maximum security prison you have NO IDEA what these men are like, and how difficult it is to treat them w/ dignity, no freakin’ idea. And, that is why the employees must be govt. employees and held accountable by the govt.
@Nick Spinelli “I have no problem w/ most govt. services being privatized.”
The promise of privatization was that competition would lead to similar quality of services at lower costs.
That seems to be rarely the case.
What we see now is frequently a mockery of the arguments used to justify privatization
Why would anyone support privatization unless there were clearly documented advantages such as improved service or lower cost.
Blouise: “Although I was aware of for-profit prisons using slave labor from different discussions Elaine has introduced, I was not nearly as”
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I found the below article interesting because the work programs for prison industries are touted as training among other things. In the article below does not state that time-off sentence credits can be forfeited for refusing work or training or education connected with private or prison industries I’m sure that that happens. Slavery is an apt characterization.
“AZ Dept. of Corrections Wants 1,500 MORE Private Prison Beds”
“Under Arizona’s ‘truth in sentencing’ law, prisoners may receive “earned release credits,” allowing them to be released after they have served 85% of their sentence. The Department of Corrections (DOC) has the sole discretion in the award of these credits, and there are many exemptions and opportunities for credits to be withheld. ….
The policy also allows for forfeiture of credits for inmates who fail to “demonstrate a continual willingness to volunteer for or successfully participate in work, education, treatment, or training programs.” This is a highly subjective assessment, often made by guards at the unit level.”
http://tucsoncitizen.com/cell-out-arizona/2013/10/03/az-dept-of-corrections-wants-1500-more-private-prison-beds/
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Arizona’s prisons are a hungry beast (11% of state budget) and Jan Brewer is happy to feed it no matter who she had to take the money from:
“More max-security prison beds makes no sense”
“The $50 million for construction of these 500 beds was originally taken from federal funds designated for victims of the mortgage crisis. Now the governor is asking for $4.5 million more in order to cover operational and staffing costs.”
http://www.azcentral.com/opinions/articles/20130314max-security-prison-beds-sense.html
http://billmoyers.com/2013/09/20/report-low-crime-tax-keeps-for-profit-prisons-profitable/
“The report found that 2/3 of a sample of state contracts with private prison companies have “occupancy clauses” that guarantee the companies’ facilities will remain full. The minimum occupancy requirements varied from 80 to 100 percent, with 90 percent being the most common threshold.”
Oro Lee,
🙄
Caustic remarks on Saturday are against the law.
Tony C.,
I am sorry for your family’s losses.
However, I for one, am not a proponent of capital punishment. I do not see it as a benefit to society or protecting society in any way. I do understand the vengeance issues that Tony C. and Gene have been discussing and if one of my family members had been murdered, I probably would call for blood also. Hopefully, calmer heads would prevail.
With respect to white collar crimes, I think the guilty should be barred from owning any property except for a de minimis amount of personal property and all wages confiscated as restitution; in the meantime, they live on SNAP and medicaid in public housing until restitution is complete.