The price rise hit prisoners seeking bottled water as temperatures eclipse the 100 degree mark in unairconditioned facilities. The state vendor asked to raise the price and two state agencies signed off.
I’m definitely no libertarian, but I do have one quibble with this - entirely private prisons are actually very little of the prison space in the United States. However, government run prisons do hundreds of millions of dollars in business with private vendors for things like the commissary and healthcare and phones and etc., and all those businesses gouge taxpayers and inmates for substandard goods and services, because they’re able to negotiate sweetheart contracts with government bureaucrats who don’t give a shit and get lobbied like crazy (vendor salesperson: “Oh, your annual salary is only what? Ha, I’ve gotten commission checks higher than that! Let me get the tab for our lunch today.”).
So it’s a bit complicated but at the end of the day underfunding government services and throwing all of our responsibilities for things like taking care of our prisoners to for-profit companies is what’s caused all of this, so the solutions to these problems aren’t going to be coming out of a libertarian playbook imo.
I will admit that Texas has a lower percentage of private prisons than I thought, but I think any for-profit privatization of prisons is bad.
underfunding government services and throwing all of our responsibilities for things like taking care of our prisoners to for-profit companies is what’s caused all of this
💯
so the solutions to these problems aren’t going to be coming out of a libertarian playbook imo.
I’m definitely no libertarian, but I do have one quibble with this - entirely private prisons are actually very little of the prison space in the United States. However, government run prisons do hundreds of millions of dollars in business with private vendors for things like the commissary and healthcare and phones and etc., and all those businesses gouge taxpayers and inmates for substandard goods and services, because they’re able to negotiate sweetheart contracts with government bureaucrats who don’t give a shit and get lobbied like crazy (vendor salesperson: “Oh, your annual salary is only what? Ha, I’ve gotten commission checks higher than that! Let me get the tab for our lunch today.”).
So it’s a bit complicated but at the end of the day underfunding government services and throwing all of our responsibilities for things like taking care of our prisoners to for-profit companies is what’s caused all of this, so the solutions to these problems aren’t going to be coming out of a libertarian playbook imo.
FYI: the „et“ in etc. is Latin for „and“ so it’s redundant to say “and etc.”.
Oh yeah, I think I knew that at one point and then forgot it, thank you for reminding me
I will admit that Texas has a lower percentage of private prisons than I thought, but I think any for-profit privatization of prisons is bad.
💯
Exactly.