Jails for Jesus?

Those stats you linked to at the end there were pretty interesting, however, they’re pretty old too. Does anyone have anything more recent?

“They don’t have to go to church, or Bible study, but they have to participate in the curriculum, which is Christ-centered,” Robinson says.

Sounds like Jesus Camp — with armed guards. Not a pleasant thought.

~David D.G.

Another major problem with running prisons with private firms. You see, we taxpayers still fund this thing and we might as well just send the money to jesus.

Talk about cruel and unusual punishment.

“The staff, being all suni Muslims, will see this as a mission,” [founder of Sharia Corrections Inc. Mahmood Al-Jabbar] says. That, he says, is “about changing criminals into citizens.”

“They don’t have to attend Mosque, or Quoran study, but they have to participate in the curriculum, which is Allah-centered,” Haiffa says.

I don’t know the details in this particular case, but if the commenter is only noting that the government would pay the prison to let them lock people up there, then that’s a pretty weak argument. They’d pay the same to any privately owned and operated prison. As long as the pay scales are the same, it shouldn’t be an issue. Using a public-funded bond to create a privately-owned prison is a more serious problem, perhaps even a worse problem than using public-funded bonds to create government-owned prisons (although given its track record I have to admit I’d feel safer with privately-owned prisons than with government-owned ones).

A) Hiring only right wing christians? Wouldn’t that violate the labor laws in all 50 states?

B) Isn’t this a case of the state making a contract with an establishment of religion, and thus a violation of the first amendment?

C) Even if the state offers this as merely an option for prisoners, isn’t it violating their rights by offering a religious prison choice for only one religion, not others? Where’s the special jewish prison, and the special muslim prison, and the special pastafarian prison? Somebody tell Bill Donohue they’re discriminating against catholic prisoners!

A) No. If any state did have such a law, it would quickly be struck down as a violation of the Free Association clause of the 1st Amendment.

B) The state isn’t allowed to establish a religion, but it’s certainly allowed to enter into contracts with religious organizations. If a minister gets a driver’s license, the state has entered into a contract with a religious organization. The problem comes when the state enters into a contract with a religious organization that it wouldn’t make with a secular organization. As long as the state is offering private prison contracts to any interested organization, the fact that one such organization has a religious affiliation is not a de facto Establishment Clause violation, although it’s worth watching to see what happens in practice.

C) Offering people extra choices can’t possibly violate their rights. It might violate the rights of the taxpayers by forcing them to fund it, but it certainly doesn’t violate the rights of the prisoners (any further than imprisoning them does in the first place). As far as violating the rights of taxpayers, as long as they avoid any issues in (B), they’re probably okay there too (at least in a legal sense; I do realize that any form of taxation at all is a clear violation of the rights of the taxpayers, but I doubt that the courts will begin protecting such rights any time soon).

I don’t think the ACLU should be “keeping an eye” on this, I think they should be preparing the lawsuit.

They won’t, though. The ACLU protects civil liberties; they don’t serve as the lapdog of anti-theists.

Meant to say that the problem with funding privately is there is no incentive for these prisons to reduce prisoners. You see, the more prisoners the more taxpayer money they get.

As opposed to government-owned prisons, which have strong incentives to reduce the number of prisoners. That must be why prison-guard unions are such strong advocates of laws to re-legalize drugs. *checks empirical data on the subject* Oh wait, scratch that.

Checks and balances are a good thing. When you let the government take the profit from the prisons, you can expect the government to create all sorts of crazy laws against victimless “crimes,” to make sure lots of people end up in prison. Looking at incarceration rates, this is exactly what is happening in the United States. If prisons are run by private interests, the government loses the incentive to do this, which is a very good thing. Plus, private businesses have different incentive structures that governments, primarily because private businesses need to maintain a certain level of goodwill. Thus, they are accountable to the public in a way that governments aren’t. If a private firm had been running Gitmo, it would have been closed down a long time ago, probably with millions of dollars of restitution paid to those unjustly imprisoned there.

I’m not advocating privatizing prisons, per se, as I’d much rather get rid of them entirely. And, even if we’re not going to do that, there are certain risks such as Christians trying to monopolize the prison market. But we shouldn’t forget that there are severe dangers in letting the government run the prisons too.

Does anyone else find it curious that prisons can be privately run? That has never occurred to me. It seems… I don’t know, off. I was under the impression people don’t really have a choice where they serve their prison sentence.

Whenever fundamentalist christians are put in charge of anyone’s well-being, someone gets tortured. If this somehow passes Constitutional muster, I can guarantee appalling mistreatment of prisoners at the hands of the pious. It will start with exorcisms.

I wonder what brand of Christianity(tm) they’re going to endorse. It reminds me of that joke:

—
I was walking across a bridge one day, and I saw a man standing on the edge, about to jump off. So I ran over and said “Stop! Don’t do it!”
“Why shouldn’t I?” he said.
I said, “Well, there’s so much to live for!”
He said, “Like what?”
I said, “Well…are you religious or atheist?”
He said, “Religious.”
I said, “Me too! Are you Christian or Buddhist?”
He said, “Christian.”
I said, “Me too! Are you Catholic or Protestant?”
He said, “Protestant.”
I said, “Me too! Are you Episcopalian or Baptist?”
He said, “Baptist!”
I said, “Wow! Me too! Are you Baptist Church of God or Baptist Church of the Lord?”
He said, “Baptist Church of God!”
I said, “Me too! Are you original Baptist Church of God, or are you Reformed
Baptist Church of God?”
He said, “Reformed Baptist Church of God!”
I said, “Me too! Are you Reformed Baptist Church of God, reformation of 1879,
or Reformed Baptist Church of God, reformation of 1915?”
He said, “Reformed Baptist Church of God, reformation of 1915!”
I said, “Die, heretic scum”, and pushed him off.
—

I mean, seriously, how do you pick the lesson plan? (salvation by faith vs. salvation by works, for example) Or do you make the program so religiously generic that it defeats the underlying purpose? And who picks the inmates? Does a judge decree where the prisoner serves his time? This thing has disaster written all over it.

The entire idea of privately operated prisons is a little scary to me. It seems to me a little too much like indentured servitude or legalized slavery. I used to wonder why the US imprisoned so many people, but I guess it’s a little more obvious now. 🙁

Miko, your claims (A-C) may mesh well with your libertarian philosophy, but they are all incorrect as claims about actual American law. (A) The freedom of association does not include the right to discriminate on whatever grounds you wish (although organizations can discriminate on the basis of religion for jobs for which religious beliefs are a relevant job requirement, such as priests). (B) States cannot enter into whatever contracts with religious organizations they wish; there are many cases (primarily involving schools) where courts have held that such contracts cause excessive entanglements between the government and the church. (C) Offering people extra choices can indeed violate their rights, both because offering people choices can be coupled with other incentives that make that choice hard for them to reject, and because the way in which those choices are offered may be discriminatory. Perhaps you meant to say that you have to problem with these private prisons, because they mesh well with your libertarian beliefs. However, actual American law is entirely different than what you have claimed.

OH let them do it, letthemletthemLETTHEM! This is RIFE with problems waiting to emerge! This is EXACTLY the kind of rope they should be given plenty of. Just waiting for the discrimination lawsuits and abuse allegations is making foam at the mouth!

Sigh. Will I ever see a time I’m not forced through my taxes to support other people’s organized religion? Sadly, I don’t expect to see it in my lifetime. I have a dim (very dim) hope that my grandson may in his.

I hope this gets nipped in the bud because I don’t give a flying fig if it is privately run. It violates rights all around of both the citizenry at large and the prisioners. Failing that, let the lawsuits begin.

Oh, go to motherjones.com and check out their stories on the prision system if you want a chill up your spine.

I hate all this privatization. Government should be government, not run by private interests. We are too ruled by corporate interests even when the daily workings of government doesn’t turn the reins over to them.

Anybody watch the series “Max Headroom” in the ’80’s? Basically, a dystopia where there were only the very poor (living on the streets with TV’s everywhere constantly mandating, brainwashing) and the very rich and the corporations were the government. I loved that show and even then thought I could see that scenario (unfortunately minus Max). Now adays, it seems to be creeping ever closer and closer to reality.

I am curious about the low relative proportion of atheists incarcerated. Being locked up has racial inequalities, but they could be accounted for by looking at poverty in the communities of origin.

Has anyone found statistics of how atheism correlates with poverty?

If there isn’t an external factor, then wouldn’t it make more sense to try to reduce the recidivism rate by converting the convicts OUT of religion?