This comes from the ACLU’s Prison Voices, Episode 1: Private Prisons: Continue readingIn my view, the worst thing is that they have normalized the notion of incarcerating people for profit. Basically commodifying people, seeing them as nothing more than a revenue stream….
If you incarcerate more people and you put more people in your private prisons you make more money. Which provides perverse incentives against reforming our justice system.
And increasing the number of people we’re putting in prison, whether they need to be there or not, just to generate corporate profit. I think that’s incredibly immoral and unethical, I think that’s the worst aspect of our private prison industry.
Tag Archives: Profit
Calculate how much Vogtle is costing you —Mandy Hancock
For those of you concerned about nuclear energy, here are some quick, meaningful actions you can take today. Maybe you aren’t concerned about nuclear energy. I bet you ARE concerned about $$$$.Learn more about how Georgia Power is getting your money at the state and federal level. All US taxpayers all over the US are basically cosigning a loan for $8.3 B for the Vogtle reactors. Simultaneously, Georgia Power is raising your electric rates to fund the pre-construction costs by pulling the same advanced cost recovery scheme as SC and FL. You can learn more about the controversy surrounding the loan guarantees here
Calculate how much Vogtle is costing you on your monthly bill
(Look for “Nuclear Construction Cost Recovery Rider:”)
-Mandy Hancock
He is in the business of selling energy, not saving it. —Michael G. Noll
Thanks for posting this John!Continue readingMr. Bowers’ visit and his comments are almost comical, particularly his quote that “the government is stimulating for renewables to give them a running chance but, when you remove them, the question is can they run on their own two feet?”
A good question! Fact is that neither coal nor nuclear would be able to “run on their two own feet” if it wasn’t for the large subsidies both have received for decades. Now these are nicely hidden subsidies so that the average consumer thinks he is getting a bargain, without realizing that it is us, the consumers, who have actually paid for this “inexpensive rate”.
At the same time truly renewable and clean energies
Georgia Power forges ahead with expensive nukes
Today in the VDT David Rodock wrote, Georgia Power discusses nuclear, solar, energy costs
Yet another dignitary visits without telling the public first.Georgia Power president and CEO Paul Bowers visited Valdosta late last week to talk nuclear energy, solar and what the company has been doing to cut energy costs for their customers.
Anyway, much of the story is about how cost-effective and safe Continue reading
“We may face community opposition to facility location” —CCA
In CCA’s 2010 Annual Report to the SEC:
CCA doesn’t like community opposition, because it reduces CCA’s ability to site prisons, which adversely affects their bottom line. Funny how that happens because a private prison company’s main goal is profit, not rehabilitation, public safety, or justice.We may face community opposition to facility location, which may adversely affect our ability to obtain new contracts. Our success in obtaining new awards and contracts sometimes depends, in part, upon our ability to locate land that can be leased or acquired, on economically favorable terms, by us or other entities working with us in conjunction with our proposal to construct and/or manage a facility. Some locations may be in or near populous areas and, therefore, may generate legal action or other forms of opposition from residents in areas surrounding a proposed site. When we select the intended project site, we attempt to conduct business in communities where local leaders and residents generally support the establishment of a privatized correctional or detention facility. Future efforts to find suitable host communities may not be successful. We may incur substantial costs in evaluating the feasibility of the development of a correctional or detention facility. As a result, we may report significant charges if we decide to abandon efforts to develop a correctional or detention facility on a particular site. In many cases, the site selection is made by the contracting governmental entity. In such cases, site selection may be made for reasons related to political and/or economic development interests and may lead to the selection of sites that have less favorable environments.
We don’t have to accept a private prison in Lowndes County, Georgia. If we tell the Industrial Authority and CCA no, CCA will probably go away.
And the more communities that tell CCA no, the less profitable they will be.
-jsq
Time to divest from private prison companies
There’s no need to speculate that private prison companies have incentive to keep more people locked up: CCA says so. Kanya D’Almeida wrote for IPS 24 August 2011, ‘Profiteers of Misery’: The U.S. Private Prison Industrial Complex:
What’s this got to do with Georgia? Continue readingCCA’s 2010 annual report states categorically that, “The demand for our facilities and services could be adversely affected by the relaxation of enforcement efforts, leniency in conviction or parole standards and sentencing practices or through the decriminalization of certain activities that are currently proscribed by our criminal laws — for instance, any changes with respect to drugs and controlled substances or illegal immigration could affect the number of persons arrested, convicted, and sentenced, thereby potentially reducing demand for correctional facilities to house them.”
CCA continues, “Legislation has been proposed in numerous jurisdictions that could lower minimum sentences for some non-violent crimes and make more inmates eligible for early release based on good behaviour, (while) sentencing alternatives under consideration could put some offenders on probation who would otherwise be incarcerated. Similarly, reductions in crime rates or resources dedicated to prevent and enforce crime could lead to reductions in arrests, convictions and sentences requiring incarceration at correctional facilities.”
Who wants to live in a prison colony?
![](http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5235/5914904127_4c54d06abf_m.jpg)
“The very first contract for the first private prison in America went to CCA, from INS.”Hear her in this video Private Prisons-Commerce in Souls by Grassroots Leadership that explains the private prison trade of public safety for private profit:
A local leader once called private prisons “good clean industry”. Does locking up people for private profit sound like “good clean industry” to you? Remember, not only is the U.S. the worst in the world for locking people up (more prisoners per capita and total than any other country in the world), but Georgia is the worst in the country, with 1 in 13 adults in the prison system. And private prisons don’t save money and they don’t improve local employment. As someone says in the video, who wants to live in a prison colony?
We don’t need a private prison in Lowndes County, Georgia. Spend that tax money on rehabilitation and education.
-jsq
PS: Owed to Jeana Brown.
Georgia Power wants taxpayers to take profit risk for new nukes
Kristi E. Swartz wrote in the AJC today, Georgia Power trashes regulatory staff’s financial proposal for Vogtle cost overruns:
The PSC deal sounds fair to me, or actually rather generous.Georgia Power officials told state regulators they never would have started to build a new multi-billion-dollar nuclear power plant if they knew the company might be on the hook for certain potential cost overruns.
The company, they said, would be building a natural gas plant instead.
Georgia Power, which is the largest stakeholder in a partnership building two new reactors at Plant Vogtle, is responsible for $6.1 billion of the $14 billion project. The Georgia Public Service Commission’s staff wants to cut into the utility’s allowed profit margin if the project runs more than $300 million over budget. Profits would similarly get a boost if the reactors come in under budget by the same amount.
But not to the big-company socialists at Georgia Power:
At a PSC hearing Wednesday, company executives said the proposal could drive up financing costs of the project, potentially damage the ability to raise capital and eventually increase customer bills.Privatize the profits; socialize the risks! That’s the ticket!“As a member of the management team of the company, if this mechanism had been part of the original certification, we very likely would have not proceeded [with the project],” said Ann Daiss, Georgia Power’s comptroller.
They could spend less money building distributed solar farms and wind generators and get them built a lot faster with very little risk of cost overruns. Why isn’t Georgia Power interested in that?
“Even under the most adverse outcomes, the units remain highly profitable with very limited risk for investors,” [PSC staff member Tom] Newsome said. “We’ve been talking a lot about investors in this hearing and I think we need to be talking about [customers].”Profits paid for by customer rate hikes and taxes from you, the taxpayer. You’d have a better deal if Georgia Power built solar and wind plants.
-jsq
PS: Owed to Mandy Hancock.
Farmers complain about labor shortage due to Georgia immigration law
Migrant farmworkers are bypassing Georgia because of the state’s tough new immigration enforcement law, creating a severe labor shortage among fruit and vegetable growers here and potentially putting hundreds of millions of dollars in crops in jeopardy, agricultural industry leaders said this week.Who could have predicted such a thing?
Anyway, how is it going? Continue reading
Who will pick Vidalia onions now that immigrants are scared away?
AP wrote May 20, 2011, Immigration crackdown worries Vidalia onion county:
Signs point to an exodus in Vidalia onion country. Fliers on a Mexican storefront advertise free transportation for workers willing to pick jalapenos and banana peppers in Florida and blueberries in the Carolinas. Buying an outbound bus ticket now requires reservations.
While most states rejected immigration crackdowns this year, conservative Georgia and Utah are the only states where comprehensive bills have passed. With the ink barely dry on Georgia’s law, among the toughest in the country, the divisions between suburban voters and those in the countryside are once again laid bare when it comes to immigration, even among people who line up on many other issues.
Guess who wanted this crackdown even though rural south Georgians didn’t:
The crackdown proved popular in suburban Atlanta, where Spanish-only signs proliferate and the Latino population has risen dramatically over the past few decades. Residents complain that illegal immigrants take their jobs and strain public resources.That’s right: Atlanta, not content with lusting after our water, now scares off our workers.
Do immigrants really take jobs from locals?
Such claims never seem to have data to back them up.
I tend to agree with
Carlos Santana:
“This is about fear, that people are going to steal my job,” Santana said of the law. “No we ain’t. You don’t clean toilets and clean sheets, stop shucking and jiving.”In south Georgia local people won’t pick Vidalia onions for the wages immigrants will, and the wages locals want the farmers can’t afford.
Remember who profits from this crackdown, at the expense of Georgia
farmers and taxpayers:
private prison companies and their investors.
We don’t need a private prison in Lowndes County. Spend those tax dollars on education instead.
-jsq
PS: Vidalia onion story owed to Jane Osborn.