David Cameron take note PRISONS ARE NOT FOR PROFIT

David Cameron take note PRISONS ARE NOT FOR PROFIT

Fact sheet Prison privatisation
PRISONS ARE NOT FOR PROFIT
Prisoners are part of the community
(hastily adapted from the Australian sheet on privatisation.)
The National Coalition Government has proposed privatisation of NZ prisons following the
defeat of Labour in 2008. The Select Committee on Law and Order will receive submissions
about it until Friday May 22. The address is: Committee Secretariat, Law and Order, Parliament
Buildings, Wellington. You can email off the website too. www.parliament.nz/en-
NZ/SC/SubmCalled/
The Maori Party shares power with National and has been offered a separate 60 prisoner new
jail by the government. The multinational corporation GEO previously known as Wackenhut has
previously controlled Mt Eden remand prison. They also run Junee prison in NSW amongst
others. NZ community organisations and prisoners asked for assistance for a consultation with
NZ prisoners and brought a Justice Action Coordinator from Australia to help. The consultation
occurred on May 4. Prisoners, prison officers, the union and administrators were all involved.
Opposition to privatisation was clear and unequivocal. NZ Corrections agreed to put up a
negotiated notice informing prisoners of the issue so they could respond.
In Australia last year the Government attempted to privatise electricity but was confronted by its
own party at the ALP Conference, and both the Premier and Treasurer were dismissed. Despite
that history and global corporate collapses, significant government figures are committed to the
market rather than managing core government functions as stated in its own policies.
The NSW Parliament is holding an Inquiry into plans to privatise Cessnock and Parklea prisons.
It received 452 submissions including every major community organisation. Only 11 are for it
including the corporations and the Department. After widespread community opposition the
Government partially reversed its decision.
The Commissioner said that the multinational corporations could run prisons cheaper. It would
be easier to manage. But in fact the new jails like Kempsey are a similar cost.
Points to consider:
* In a democracy only the state, if anyone, should totally control a citizen and their family. It is
the ultimate, non-transferable state power. Prison isn’t like a hospital responsive to consumers.
* Increased profits require more fear of crime, more crime, more prisoners and longer
sentences.
* Rehabilitation reduces profits. Thus privatisation makes everyone less safe.
* Prisoners are part of the community – not slaves to offload onto a multinationals’ balance
sheet
* It is immoral to profit from the pain of others.
* Overseas experience is clear. Ten out of the eleven private prisons in the UK are in the
bottom quarter of the performance register.
* Cutting costs means even less services. Teachers and health would come from the cheapest
outside providers, not linking properly to the rest of the system.
• More secrecy – the corporation reports what protects their profit.
MORALLY OBSCENE
It’s quite simply wrong to make profits from the misery of others. Prisoners are not chattels to
generate profits for shareholders. They are fellow citizens to be treated with respect and not
exploited for financial gain.
In a democracy, it is the responsibility of the State to manage and control the enforcement of its
laws. The State must be accountable to citizens for their most fundamental right – their liberty.
It is a fundamental attack on the democratic social compact between citizen and state. It is a
move from the Penal Colony to the Corporate Colony with loss of accountability and transfer of
judicial power to corporations.
PRIVATISING CORRECTIONS IS CONTRADICTORY
Corporations have a legal obligation to their shareholders to grow their profits. For prison
corporations this means more crime, more prisoners for longer periods of time without
rehabilitation.
Stephen Nathan, a leading prison privatisation expert, in the March 2008 edition of the
Independent Monitor, says that means privatising prisons ‘requires more people in the criminal
justice system for longer and is squarely at odds with the public good’ (page 26).
Corrective Services has already given up correcting. Now their failure is to be corporatized. To
the Inquiry: “Recidivism may have more to do with what happens to a person before entry to
prison and subsequent to their exit from prison than anything else. Measuring "recidivism" can
never be an absolute measure by which we can evaluate the quality of correctional services
provided. Sub 258 p.17
Prisoners, who are psychologically scarred by their time in prison, will not reintegrate into
society easily. Already NSW has the worst recidivism rate in the nation.
SLAVERY
ILO Convention 29 declares it is slavery to operate prison labour programs in privatised
prisons. Legal advice: “the operation of prisons cannot comply with international labour
standards unless there are no prison labour programs in those prisons.’ PIAC Sub 106 p.9.
Both Parklea and Cessnock prisons run industry programs with labour provided by prisoners.
There is no intention to dismantle these programs after privatisation. The profits made from the
prisoners’ labour will belong to the jail corporation –based on this convention, that amounts to
slavery.
ECONOMICALLY FLAWED
To justify its decision to privatise Parklea and Cessnock prisons, the NSW government relied
on the conclusions of a report commissioned by the Legislative Assembly ‘Value for Money
From NSW Correctional Centres’. Jane Andrew from the School of Accounting and Finance at
the University of Wollongong and Damien Cahill from the University of Sydney, attacked the
Report’s conclusion that ‘the privatised model of prison management delivered superior value
for money.’
In their paper, ‘Value for Money? Neoliberalism in NSW Prisons’, Australian Accounting Review
2008, they concluded that ‘the report is fundamentally flawed on its own terms’ (at page 3) and
‘is driven by concepts of ideology rather than any cost data evidence of financial savings’ (at
page 24).
The interesting thing is that the paper attacks the report from an economic perspective (since
they are both accountants), rather than a moral perspective which we believe has just as much
authority.
COST CUTTING
Inherent to the privatisation aim of maximum profits is the certainty that prison corporations will
only provide minimum standards. To do otherwise and incur anything more than the minimum
expense in generating profits for shareholders, is arguably in breach of a corporation’s
obligation to its shareholders.
Maximum profits mean lower standards of prisoner programs, care and services. The profit
motive ensures that corporations will only spend as much as they have to when running
prisons. That means they will not have the necessary regard to moral considerations of human
decency, which are so important in a prison system.
ACM was caught taking clothes from charities to avoid purchasing them for
prisoners, until St Vincent de Paul discovered the scam. Then they tried the Uniting Church
who refused when they realised what was happening. (Andrew p.891);
A study conducted by Biles and Dalton found that in Victoria, the privatised prisons of Port
Phillip, Deer Park and Arthur Gorrie all have higher rates for all deaths and suicides than the
Australian average. (Andrew p.886)
By imposing minimum standards in our prisons, not only are we imposing a cruel and unusual
regime on our fellow citizens, we are also contributing to the breakdown of our society through
an unsustainably high rate of recidivism.
AN INTERNATIONAL FAILURE
The overseas experience is that privatisation of prisons has been shown to provide
unacceptable outcomes in the management of offenders. Stephen Nathan in the same article
above, disclosed that a recently leaked report placed 10 of the 11 private prisons in the UK in
the bottom quarter of the performance register of all UK prisons ‘and showed they are
consistently worse than their publicly run equivalents’ (page 24)
The leading multinational company GEO, ex Wackenhut, manager of Junee, was started by
three FBI agents and uses military and CIA personnel.
CORRUPTIVE INFLUENCE
In the USA, in March 2009, 2 judges pleaded guilty to receiving bribes from prison corporations
for falsely imprisoning children to increase the numbers (and hence the profits), of those in jail;
Also in the United States, it has led to prison corporations being accused of joining with and
funding right wing media ‘shock jocks’ to ramp up the law and order debate so that they can
have more people jailed to grow their profits. The more frightened the public is, the more they
will pay.
JUSTICE ACTION P.O. Box 386, BROADWAY. NSW 2007 Australia.
www.justiceaction.org.au ja@justiceaction.org.au 612 92830123