Debate Over Private Prison

Re “Private Prison Has Everything but Prisoners,” July 13:

Let’s see now. A private company with a dubious track record would happily take 2,300 inmates currently housed in overcrowded government facilities and save the state $10 million a year.

Why not offer prisoners vouchers? Unhappy campers (from Corcoran, perhaps?) could take their business elsewhere. They could shop around for kinder/gentler guards, exciting rehab programs, well-appointed gyms, libraries stocked with books-on-tape and big-screen TVs. Not to mention attractive recidivism rates.

Sound ludicrous? It is.

Society (government) has a responsibility to both the prisoner and the public, not to stockholders of a for-profit enterprise. It’s not about saving money by passing the buck to some correctional corporation, it’s about accepting that responsibility and bringing in the people and resources necessary to do the job right.

EDWARD KANIA

Upland

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Considering that a private prison corporation can build a facility for half the amount of inmates (2,300 versus fewer than 5,000) but at less than a third of the cost ($100 million versus $335 million) than a plan proposed by state government and the fact that some state prisons haven’t been very cooperative in investigations of inmate abuse at them, perhaps the idea of privately run facilities isn’t all that bad.

The facts that the state Board of Corrections found the facility’s (California City) bunks to be too narrow, while it doesn’t find a problem with two inmates sharing a cell designed only for one at state facilities; that Gov. Gray Davis doesn’t think a privately run prison can act more “professional” than state facilities at Corcoran or Pelican Bay; and that the state Legislature is considering curbing local governments’ choice to house inmates at privately run facilities (to ease the cost of running their own), go to show that the $4.1 million the state prison guards’ union spent in politics last year is really “hitting the spot” for them now.

MICHAEL ZACHARIA

La Mirada