Profiteering from Prisons is Immoral and a Privatisation Too Far.
I have been on the campaign trail for three days meeting members of the party and trade unions in Sheffield, Leeds and Blyth in Northumberland. In meeting after meeting the same concerns are raised about the direction of Government policy. One of the key worries expressed is the Government's obsession with privatisation.
Members quote example after example as they share their experience of what privatisation, PFI and outsourcing are like on the ground. It is the same story of cuts in the wages and conditions of the workforce and cuts in service for the people using the service.
Sometimes though you come across a Government privatisation policy proposal which politically goes beyond anything you ever imagined.
When the Guardian revealed that the Government was actually considering a proposal for members of the public to be offered shares in new prisons under a "buy to let" scheme even I was astounded at how far New Labour had travelled from basic decency.
The scheme is meant to be attractive to small investors because it is predicated on a dividend from rental income being assured by rising prison numbers.
I share a distaste for those who seek to profit from the incarceration of fellow human beings with Jack Straw, who in opposition described as immoral the process of earning income from the Tory's policy of privatising prisons.
In the light of the Harmondsworth experience I would also expect a responsible government to review the whole role of the private sector in prisons and to reject any further attempts to profiteer from the misfortune of those who are imprisoned.
Members quote example after example as they share their experience of what privatisation, PFI and outsourcing are like on the ground. It is the same story of cuts in the wages and conditions of the workforce and cuts in service for the people using the service.
Sometimes though you come across a Government privatisation policy proposal which politically goes beyond anything you ever imagined.
When the Guardian revealed that the Government was actually considering a proposal for members of the public to be offered shares in new prisons under a "buy to let" scheme even I was astounded at how far New Labour had travelled from basic decency.
The scheme is meant to be attractive to small investors because it is predicated on a dividend from rental income being assured by rising prison numbers.
I share a distaste for those who seek to profit from the incarceration of fellow human beings with Jack Straw, who in opposition described as immoral the process of earning income from the Tory's policy of privatising prisons.
In the light of the Harmondsworth experience I would also expect a responsible government to review the whole role of the private sector in prisons and to reject any further attempts to profiteer from the misfortune of those who are imprisoned.
posted by John at 1:16 AM
7 Comments:
"the misfortune of those who are imprisoned"? A slightly contentious phrase there. Whilst Archer and Aitken might have been unfortunate to have been found out, I don't imagine even a Labour left-winger would feel a great deal of pity for them.
I don't see why it's fundamentally immoral to make money from prisoners, as it goes a little way to paying back their monetary debt to society (cost of legal process and imprisonment, wasting funds which might be otherwise directed to worthier causes).
I do agree that privatising the prison service is a bad idea though. The state should be directly responsible for the treatment of prisoners. And based upon the wonderfully well written PFI contracts showered across our sceptred isle, I very much doubt that this privatisation scheme would actually save much money.
To anonymous:
I don't consider the funds used to try, sentence and convict a criminal to be a waste of money, quite the opposite as it brings justice to the victims of crime as well as serves a very important function of society.
I believe a criminals debt to society is not supposed to be a financial payment but a change in their behaviour and a realisation that what they have done is wrong so that they come out of prison able to be a fully rehabilitated member of society that can then contribute the same as everybody else.
I don't think there's any reason we -should- earn money from them, but if they aren't treated any differently I don't see the issue. Though as I said, I'm not convinced that we can trust the private sector to do that. Especially given your use of the word "rehabilitated". I agree with that. As Plato writes in Gorgias, justice should be to wickedness what medicine is to ill health.
(noting that if justice does perform that role, then the phrase "the misfortune of those who are imprisoned" is even more wrong).
But the prison service is heavily underfunded, and therefore, if it was practicable to earn money from the prisons to put back into the system, with no losses to anyone, it would be madness not to act upon it, and indeed, if it led to a better rehabilitation service, would clearly be a moral right.
In ancient Greece doctors were paid to keep people well
Hm? By that, do you mean...the prison service isn't paid? Or probation officers (or someone) should be paid to stop people from falling into bad ways and commiting crimes?
With apologies, I'm tired and slow.
I was too tired to explain it any further yesterday, I meant it as a euphemism for what the Blairite government should be doing just very generally i.e. prevention is better than cure in that instead of trying to reduce crime by fixing up the prison and probation services with these terrible privatisations where human misery is not only increased but people are going profit from it which is as sick as people profiting form war etc which of course also goes on; they should (as they previously talked about actually I remember) put money into preventative measures such as drug treatment so that there aren't so many prisoners there in the first place, things like courses for parents separated from their children I've heard on Radio 4 are held as well as more traditional education for prisoners so that they will be able to be there for their kids when they come out even if they haven't been here before and that sort of thing. I find the Blairites have such a negative approach but also they always have to have a complicated answer for everything and say they are doing things to fix whatever it is (it was education today, haven't we been here before at the beginning of Blairism?...) and they persist in telling people (such as schoolchildren) or institutions (such as prisons ) that they aren't good enough which only serves to destroy morale an dhood winks some people into thinking there's no choice but to accept their narrow and negative agenda (sounds like the Tory approach dosen't it with the climate of fear etc). (Too long sentence so I will stop it! )What I mean is that they are starting from the wrong standpoint, instead of pandering to the conservative agenda of prisons and schools being in crisis and thus slagging off the civil service as "scars in my back" etc etc they should start from a positive viewpoint and celebrate all that's goign right in the public services for example when I heard the sheer size of the caseload of one probation officer at a fringe meeting I was amazed that they make so few people slip through their monitoring net, nnd that many more "mistakes" aren't made; we should be starting from such a point of strength and take any improvements from there, have the courage of our convictions as a Labour government to such an extent that I'd like to see professions such as these plus the emergency service workers etc raised in status to surpass the respect our society can give to business people who may be just trying to sell us as much as possible without care for whether they use child Labour etc -Tesco was recently found to have employed an eight year old in one of its' clothing factories abroad.....
Well everyone can see that "causes of crime" is a more useful target than "crime" itself, but they do put some money into preventative measures though. I don't have figures but I'm sure they put in more than the Tories used to. The way you talk seems to take profit to be fundamentally evil, which is not true: money is not an evil in itself necessarily, the problems are when people need money too much, want money too much, or misuse it. The fact that someone profits from a war doesn't actually bother me, so long as the motive for the war wasn't profit and its conduct is not affected by considerations of profit.
But you can't ignore crime which actually happens. There has to be a prison service.
We don't actually have proof that "human misery will increase" under a privatised probation service; though obviously one expects standards to fall in some respects.
Complicated answers for complicated problems.
They keep telling children that they're not good enough? Every year they defend the standard of A-level results. It's the newspapers who carry the (hysterical) reports about how literacy is dying out and the A-level is equivalent to a year 6 SAT, etc. Though I must say on that subject that I personally found A-levels too easy, especially English Lit. Far too many people at my school got As, so there should be an A* grade to stop the top people losing momentum during 6th form.
Meanwhile, they aren't telling the probation service they aren't good enough. They're telling them they cost too much and they can't afford it :) The probation service is basically underfunded and they can't keep it up because they have no money left. Big tax hikes and they'll lose the next election, even John McDonnell wants to cut tax in the lowest boundary, those people would not be happy with a tax hike. The only question is whether privatisation will maintain the same standards, remain directly accountable to the government, and at the same time deliver a cost saving. I'm sceptical on all three points.
There *is* a serious problem with prison space, problems in education are exagerrated I agree. Still, always room for improvement. Though obviously there has to be an improvement on offer, not a change for the sake of doing something.
Celebrating what's going right - what does Blair do every PMQs? "More hospitals, doctors, nurses, teachers" - a government's job isn't to rest on its laurels. It's taken as a given that some things are going right!
Tesco and clothing factories - not to say Tesco is a particularly ethically run company, but its chief executive probably wasn't personally responsible for that, if only for fear of the headlines he probably would've stopped it.
Rise in status - what do you mean by that? I sort of vaguely imagine that everyone respects doctors and teachers and so on. I mean, doctors and teachers especially - intelligent and qualified people performing a valuable public service. More or less ideal. With more respect for teachers than doctors because they're paid less, despite probably being intelligent and qualified enough to get a job earning more. On the whole the teachers at my own school were excellent and very admirable. I preferred the few older teachers at the school because they'd been at the school most of their careers. Some of them I can't imagine going into teaching now, they'd be lecturers at the least.
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