Posts by Idiot Savant
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I likethe sports section. It means that I never have to worry about which section of the paper can be used for wrapping rubbish.
If I didn't get the Manawatu Substandard, I'd need to start accepting junkmail again...
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<I>Elected representatives NEVER fix anything.</I>
Abolition of the Death Penalty Act 1989
Fixed that, didn't they?
(OK, substitute the rlevant clause of the Crimes Act 1961 if you really want to be picky)
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Can public execution and being burned in the hand be far behind?
You are aware that Garrett is an unashamed death-penalty advocate, right?
pre-election, hide said he was absolutely against the death penalty. i wonder if he's changed his tune to suit his nutjob backers?
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I'd like to see these places reinstated, and intentionally run at a financial loss, rather than the current plan that is to wait till addicts/alcoholics and otherwise ill people become prison inmates. Because using prisons as a convenient way of dealing with mental health problems in the community, is like credit card debt. It will compound and grow, ignoring it wont make it go away and sooner or later someone will want payback.
Especially if you underfund drug and alcohol rehab in your prisons - which we've been doing for years because it's "soft".
Around 80% of prison inmates apparently have drug and alcohol problems. More rehab places would do wonders to prevent reoffending. But we seem to be just too stupid - and too angry, vicious, and sadistic - to do it.
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I'm guessing that the profit comes from saying it costs, say $50k (why does that number keep popping into my head? Was there an article sayingthat was how much it cost to house a prisoner for a year? Hmm) and then trying to do it for $40k. Or less. That sounds like... fun.
Oh yes. Fun which includes:
* skimping on "costs" such as rehabilitation, drug and alcohol treatment, healthcare, recreation and even food.
* using untrained staff and paying them rock-bottom wages, creating an incentive for incompetence and corruption.
* understaffing, with a consequent effect on safety.
* dumping expensive or troublesome prisoners back into the public system.
* externalising costs such as riot control back onto the public system.
* and if that fails, overbilling and fraud.Wackenhut - sorry, "the Geo Group" (or whatever they're calling themselves this week) have been caught doing all of the above; it's just their normal business practice. Which makes the screwups at Corrections look good by comparison to everyone except a politician cruising for a "donation".
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The prisons don't get a choice as to who's sent there
They do in the US, and its one of their other scams: dumping expensive or troublesome prisoners who might ruin their stats (and hence their bottom line) back into he public system. As with private hospitals, profitability comes from externalising costs...
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An interesting point that Clayton Cosgrove just mentioned with respect to privatizing the prisons, was that once it is done, there is no one accountable as there is now, and the Minister would not be able to scrutinize a private business.I mean how many CEO's do you see with rolling heads?All I see is a few golden handshakes and the next up for the job.
Not just CEOs. Here's another Wackenhut example, from the same article I was talking about earlier:
Right after the prison opened, a pack of guards repeatedly kicked a shackled inmate in the head. You might conclude these guards needed closer supervision, but that they had. The Deputy Warden stood by, arms folded. The company fired those guards and removed the warden -- to another Wackenhut prison.
No accountability, even for serious assault.
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See! The devil is in the details. And the more detailed the contract / incentives are, the more expensive compliance and monitoring is Monitoring costs are never properly accounted for in outsourcing, and they can seriously cut into expected savings. Which either means very few savings, or improperly monitored prisons.
Case in point: googling around yesterday for the dirt on Wackenhut - now known as the Geo Group, the government's preferred bidder (that's funny, I thought contracts were supposed to be publicly tendered, not worked out in the Minister's office) - I learned of the case of one Wackenhut facility where the company made its savings by packing prisoners in two to a cell while providing only half the number of guards. naturally, there were riots - so many, in fact, that the state government had to establish a special ready response squad just to clean up their mess. Which more than ate up the cost "savings" of privatisation...
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*sigh* Perhaps you could enlighten us all on which schools and hospitals you'd like to see "run into the ground" instead
Why do you think its "instead", rather than "as well as"?
I remember the 90's, even if you don't.
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I'm not sure which "industries" were "renationalised" either
ACC - which National is busy reprivatisating for the benefit of its insurance industry donors. Air New Zealand, which they seem content to hold on to for the moment. And the railways, which they're going to run into the ground and ruin to save the private sector the bother.