Federal Judges ordered all 52 Federal inmates (all individuals being held awaiting Federal trial) removed from Silverdale Jail, a private facility run by CoreCivic on behalf of Hamilton County, Tennessee and located in Chattanooga. All 52 individuals have been transferred by United States Marshals to two public jails located in Hamilton County that are actually run by county employees, not privately. The Federal Judges further ordered that no Federal inmates be placed in the Silverdale Jail for an indefinite period.
Federal Judges were concerned for the safety of Federal Inmates, as there are credible reports that gang activity has taken over much of Silverdale Jail, putting these detainees (who have NOT been convicted at this point) at serious risk of harm.
I am glad to see Federal Judges are not playing games with these private facilities. It was good that they moved quickly to remove Federal inmates from this substandard facility.
My problem with private prison is that they operate on a perverse incentive and create a perverse incentive.
The more prisoners they have, the more money they make, so they have every incentive to keep their facilities crammed to the very limit with generally inferior quality staff.
They also corrupt the justice system. Think of the “Cash for Kids” scandal in Pennsylvania.
We need to bring back low maintenance penal colonies, finally got around to watching the movie Papillon, very good low cost to taxpayers. I am starting to sound like travisg our resident movie critic.
I am NOT advocating prison should be a cake walk, not by a long shot.
But non-violent, non-sexual prisoners should have an expectation that they will not be exposed to violent or sexual inmates.
The United States Bureau of Prisons does that by segregating prisoners by many factors. If your offense is non-violent or non-sexual, you will not be housed with violent or sexual offenders.
And if your a member of the Crips Gang, you are not going to be housed by yourself in a wing full of Bloods. They mix them up so that no one gang becomes ascendant and violent inmates at least know they have their fellow inmates watching their back.
And even among violent offenders, there must be segregation. The guy that committed a road rage assault shouldn’t be housed with career gang members.
An inmate should expect to survive their sentence without having a knife thrust in them.
Why should incarcerating humans be a for profit business that tries to maximize shareholder value?
I don’t care what the criminals did… having a business model that depends on number of prisoners is ridiculous. It makes it so that these private prisons are lobbying for more punitive laws.
If a private prison were to be paid on rate of recidivism vs. retaining prisoners? Being private enterprise, I guarantee if there were profit to be made? They would be teaching trades, following up on them and making damn sure the cost of doing so was less than a financial ding for being reincarcerated.
low cost to taxpayers. I am starting to sound like travisg our resident movie critic.
They mix them up so that no one gang becomes ascendant and violent inmates at least know they have their fellow inmates watching their back.
