Re: the news that @GavinNewsom signed a bill to phase out private prisons and privately-run immigration detention facilities in California... a friend of mine did six months in a minimum security private prison years ago. Quick (interesting!) thread: sfchronicle.com/politics/artic…
When my friend was driven from court to the minimum security prison he was sentenced to, the car detoured to the (private) high security facility next to it. He was told there was a problem with his paperwork. He was placed in solitary confinement and asked if he wanted a Bible.
Confused, he said no. And he sat there for two days, treated like a violent criminal. Meals through the slot in the door. You know: solitary. Third day, he was told to turn backwards and put his hands through the slot to be cuffed. He was taken to a smiling corrections officer.
"Good news! Your paperwork's fixed. I'm taking you to the other prison." She drove him over to the minimum security place with no fences, tennis courts, a couple friendly stray dogs, and guys playing guitar. Some prisoners greeted him. "Did they put you in solitary?"
They explained that the company that ran both prisons billed the government a higher nightly rate for guys in solitary than guys in minimum security. So anytime someone was being processed, if there was an open cell in solitary they'd claim a "paperwork problem" and fill it.
The company had just made a couple thousand extra dollars off my friend. "You should've taken the Bible," they told him. "At least you would've had something to read."
And for the next six months, my friend saw how the private company used prisoners to grind out revenue.
And for the next six months, my friend saw how the private company used prisoners to grind out revenue.
Any service he received, he had to sign a receipt so that it could be billed. Those could be anything from a dvd he borrowed or art class he took to a medical checkup. The medical ones were especially insidious. Everyone got an annual medical and dental checkup.
Those were cash cows, because they were cursory and could be billed at exorbitant rates. As my friend explained it, the prison wanted to give checkups; they just didn't want to *find* anything. Actual treatment had lower margins.
So when another prisoner complained of severe abdominal pain, he was ignored. He'd already had his annual checkup. One night, he disappeared. Jailbreak. The prison went into lockdown.
Turns out he walked off the property and staggered across the desert to the nearest town, where he went to a hospital and was told that his appendix had burst. My friend was told the guy and his family got a big settlement from the prison company.
Anyway, imagine that's not an adult who can walk miles to a hospital. Imagine it's an asylum-seeking kid sleeping in a warehouse ($400/night), wrapped in a foil blanket ($60) with a tv playing 'Frozen' on the wall ($75), being told to drink some milk ($10) for her stomach ache.
Or imagine it's a foster kid in LA whose state housing is subcontracted to a company that, with no warning/explanation, moves him four times a year. (My wife, who volunteers as a Court Appointed Special Advocate, is dealing with this now.) How much do they charge for each move?
The most vulnerable populations are being used and abused to boost quarterly earnings for private contractors, because prisoners, immigrants, and foster kids are *terrible* lobbyists. Obviously there's much work to do, but I'm proud of California for trying to correct this. /end
