[Flash Walken]

Originally Posted by PsYcNeT

This is also why you are likely to never see decrim happen in states that contain mostly Private prisons. The War On Drugs makes or breaks those places.

EDIT: This is also why the PCs are ramping up their anti-pot campaigns, as Harper has been courting Private prison contractors to Canada, but needs to get the public on the side of increased drug incarceration rates to make it more attractive to them. :tinfoil:

Put away that tinfoil hat:

OTTAWA -- The Harper government has been quietly studying private prisons in other countries as a possible model to save money in federal penitentiaries, CTV News has learned.

The government hired the consulting firm Deloitte & Touche to examine prisons in seven countries aimed at building an “understanding of various models, approaches and experiences,” according the 1,400-page report obtained by CTV News under the Access to Information Act.

The massive report was kept secret from Canada’s Correctional Investigator Howard Sapers, who expressed concerns about for-profit prisons in Canada.

“This study came as a surprise. I wasn’t aware that they had commissioned this study,” Sapers said. “I’m always concerned when Corrections is treated just like another business. It’s hard to find profit in that kind of enterprise.”
Deloitte studied in detail 10 prisons in Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, Spain and Belgium -- providing an assessment and recommendation on each prison’s “relevancy to Canadian market” and their “relation to Correctional Services Canada.”

Some of those prisons in the Deloitte study were fully operated by private firms, while other institutions hired companies for basic services such as cleaning, laundry and food preparation services.

Public Safety Minister Vic Toews acknowledged he discussed the idea of private prisons with his British counterpart in a meeting in May, but said he ended up ruling it out.

“Britain indicates . . . that there were benefits. I’ve examined that myself, but I don’t see there are sufficient benefits to change over an entire system,” Toews said.

“I didn’t feel there was any benefit to going toward a privatization model, that is the private supervision of prisoners,” he said. “We have no interest in going to a private model which would put the supervision of prisoners in private hands.”

But critics question why the government commissioned the reports, which were completed between October 2011 and this March.

http://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/feds-...money-1.967126