Relatedly, a number of immigrant rights activists are pushing now for more attention to be paid to the "bed quota."
Probably in an attempt to provide more predictability to government contracts, Congress mandated that the federal government maintain a daily average of at least 34,000 people in custody.
Hi, crony capitalism! I see you over there!
I think that's right. One thing I omitted from the post is noting the spread of this "detention-land" mindset. These are "detainees," just like those folks at Guantanamo, so you don't mind if they don't have the rights they're claiming, do you? You know how detainees are.
The one time I can remember ever being convinced by a political argument was on this issue. Within a day I went from hearing about prison labor and thinking "Oh, that's nice, they're keeping busy", to realizing that prisoners are literally slaves. I hope the anarcho-punk merchandise table guy who was arguing with people realizes he had an effect.
My favorite comments on the nyt site were the ones saying that it takes tax payer money to detains people the detainees should have to work to offset that. Guy's this money isn't being sent back to the government. We pay these people to detain them, then "they " make extra money from the labour.
The federal authorities say the program is voluntary, legal and a cost-saver for taxpayers.
Asteele, are you saying that even the last of these three claims is false? Because I was dubious about the first and not sure about the second, but I was fully prepared to believe the third.
Given the way contracting works, it's possible some of the labor cost savings are being passed on to the federal government through the contacts, but I bet at least a portion of it is being pocketed.
The cheap labor, 13 cents an hour, saves the government and the private companies $40 million or more a year by allowing them to avoid paying outside contractors the $7.25 federal minimum wage.
In other words, illegal immigrants are taking American jobs.
I assumed that the savings to government come from the overall bid by the private prisons being lower because they get the labour.
Every detail in that article is sickening.
So the federal government knows exactly what it would cost to pay regular rates to get the same work done and is able to perfectly structure contracts so that every penny of the savings reduces the contract amount? Kind of doubt it.