Date: Mon, 4 Jun 2001 09:28:37 -0400 From: freematt@coil.com (Matthew Gaylor) Subject: Emerging Issues of Privatized Prisons To: freematt@coil.com (Matthew Gaylor)
[Note from Matthew Gaylor: Below is an excerpt via the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs June, 1, 2001 online newsletter "Justinfo". I found some of this material noteworthy, especially Justice's own admission of the failure of the correctional system in the US. Quote speaking on private systems: "All such innovations should be directed at reducing the current ineffective correctional practices rather than producing a system that is less expensive but as ineffective as the public-sector system." End Quote. Along with this privatization trend, is the notion of sending ever younger children into the admitted failed adult systems. Despite a healthy drop in the crime rate, we continue to send children who are too young to even legally work at McDonalds to prison. Given the prevalence of prison rape, I don't see how sending a 10 or 12 year old to an adult facility is any less than cruel and unusual punishment. The ACLU ran an ad last year in the Sunday New York Times Magazine that about sums it up. They finally found an answer to overcrowded prisons," the headline reads. "Smaller Prisoners."]
* Emerging Issues of Privatized Prisons
One of the most daunting challenges confronting our criminal justice system today is the overcrowding of our nation's prisons. One proposed solution that emerged was the privatizing of prisons and jails by contracting out, in part or in whole, their operations. To explore the issues pertaining to the privatization of prisons, BJA funded a nationwide study that has resulted in this monograph. The study resulted in some interesting conclusions. It is hoped that this monograph will prove enlightening to those involved with the issue of privatized prisons and promote a greater discussion about it.
"Emerging Issues of Privatized Prisons" (NCJ 181249) is available electronically at:
http://www.ncjrs.org/pdffiles1/bja/181249.pdf
and
http://www.ncjrs.org/txtfiles1/bja/181249.txt.
An excerpt:
The Future of Privatization
Despite these criticisms, privatization still provides a vital function within the correctional system. Although the private sector has been unable to keep its promise of greatly improving prison operations, its mere presence has had a significant impact on traditional prison operations. Gaes and colleagues (1998) acknowledge that privatization has forced the public sector to reexamine how it conducts business. Certainly in those markets where correctional officer salaries and fringe benefits have been excessive, privatization has fostered a reexamination of those costs, which has led to cost savings. In this sense, privatization has served as a catalyst for change by demonstrating other means for doing the business of corrections. As limited as they are, however, these cost-saving innovations should not be the only items on the privatizationagenda.
It would be extremely interesting and productive for the private sector, in partnership with the public sector, to become the vehicle for testing far more substantive changes in correctional policy in a number of areas-not just prisons and jails. For example, an extremely promising strategy would be for the private sector to test the long-term effects of state-of-the-art correctional programming in reducing recidivism in the areas of education, vocational training, and various forms of counseling, both in prison and after release. One could also test the effects of reducing prison terms and other correctional policies using the flexibility of the private sector. Finally, new management techniques, staff training, and facility designs could be tested by the private sector under controlled conditions. All such innovations should be directed at reducing the current ineffective correctional practices rather than producing a system that is less expensive but as ineffective as the public-sector system.
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Would you now ike to... t - Type out (Re-read) this message r - Reply to this message d - Delete this message u - Undelete this message n - Read the next unread message RETURN - Go back to the list of headersEnter Command: T Message #119 (211 is last): Date: Mon, 4 Jun 2001 08:40:42 -0400 From: freematt@coil.com (Matthew Gaylor) Subject: Steve Chapman On The Dangers When Schools Try to Stamp Out Risk To: freematt@coil.com (Matthew Gaylor)
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/stevechapman/sc20010603.shtml
townhall.com
Steve Chapman
June 3, 2001
The Dangers When Schools Try to Stamp Out Risk
Schoolchildren throughout the country begin each day by reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, but school administrators are discovering that this practice has its risks. Many students, it seems, actually believe that stuff about liberty and justice for all -- to the point of assuming they have liberties that may be exercised, even during school.
Heaven knows, countless schools have labored to eradicate this notion. Public school pupils have come to understand that their lockers may be searched, their urine chemically analyzed, their persons and belongings inspected by metal detectors, their backpacks and trench coats banned, and their words scrutinized for any hints of violent intent.
The zero-tolerance approach, also known as the zero-thought approach, has yet to run out of steam, even though it frequently turns school officials into targets of ridicule. Recently, a Maine girl got expelled for taking a Tylenol. The American Civil Liberties Union of Oklahoma went to court last year on behalf of a 15-year-old girl exiled for 15 days for allegedly putting a hex on a teacher. In Florida, an honor student was suspended last month for five days after someone spotted a steak knife in her car in the school parking lot.
Some kids just never learn. They continue to operate under the delusion that in supervising youngsters, school officials will formulate sensible rules and then apply them sensibly. Some students also endeavor to think for themselves, without first clearing those thoughts with responsible adults. When that happens, they are asking for trouble.
The most conspicuous current example can be found in the South, where dozens of districts have adopted dress codes forbidding students from displaying Confederate emblems. The ACLU of Georgia is representing nine students in Seminole County who were threatened with punishment for wearing T-shirts adorned with the rebel battle flag.
Never mind that school rooms across Georgia display exactly the same symbol -- which happens to be incorporated into the state flag. If school officials want to brazenly exhibit a Confederate symbol, they're allowed to. But letting students do the same thing of their own free will is another matter entirely.
Lawyers for the Seminole school district say they have nothing but good intentions. The student body is evenly divided between black and white students, and many African Americans understandably find Confederate emblems offensive.
The district, says attorney Sam Harben Jr., has the right to prohibit any student expression "that is disruptive of schools, or that presents a safety threat to other students." Black students, he notes, have long been proibited from wearing T-shirts with racial slogans or homages to Malcolm X, and for the same reason.
Based on what the Supreme Court has said, it's true that the school district has a perfect right to restrict student speech to prevent riots, brawls, and general unrest. But the school district can't ban any form of expression it wants just on the off-chance that it might generate a hostile reaction. Wearing a slogan or symbol on a shirt is a form of expression that has some protection even in the halls of a public school. And absent some genuine likelihood of significant trouble, administrators are obligated to swallow hard, grit their teeth, and put up with it.
That was the verdict in a landmark 1969 decision known as Tinker v. Des Moines, which involved two youngsters suspended for wearing black armbands to protest the Vietnam War. "There is no indication that the work of the schools or any class was disrupted," noted the justices, overturning the suspension. "Outside the classroom, a few students made hostile remarks to the students wearing armbands, but there were no threats or acts of violence on school premises." Since there were no grounds to think the armbands would provoke unrest, there were no grounds for the school to ban them.
By the Seminole district's own admission, Confederate flag shirts, which were only recently forbidden, have never caused any detectable trouble. The rule was drafted just to head off the simple possibility that someday, they would. Idle anxiety, however, is not enough to nullify the free speech rights that, in this country, even juveniles enjoy.
Confederate flags -- and Malcolm X shirts -- may be vile and loathsome to many people, but then so were anti-war symbols, back when hundreds of American soldiers were bleeding to death in the jungles of Vietnam. The Constitution's free speech clause doesn't include only those who have nothing controversial to say. School officials can't censor certain types of expression just because it's going to make someone mad.
Since Columbine, though, many school administrators would rather create a totalitarian environment than take any risk. Back in 1969, the Supreme Court announced, "It can hardly be argued that either students or teachers shed their constitutional rights ... at the schoolhouse gate." In fact, school administrators make that argument all the time. This time, they may be wrong.
2001 Creators Syndicate, Inc.
Distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
Subscribe to Freematt's Alerts: Pro-Individual Rights Issues Send a blank message to: freematt@coil.com with the words subscribe FA on the subject line. List is private and moderated (7-30 messages per week) Matthew Gaylor, (614) 313-5722 ICQ: 106212065 Archived at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/fa/