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Old 12-13-2005, 10:54 PM
WillMagic WillMagic is offline
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Aug 2003
Location: Cupertino, CA (formerly DC)
Posts: 250
Default Re: Free Markets and Prisons

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Why do so many people have such a boner for the "free" market now anyway?
Free markets do NOT increase effeciency and reduce costs in many sectors of human interaction.

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Wow...have you actually taken an economics class? Ever? Because this is just silly. Feel free to provide evidence to prove your point.

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Many prison functions now are outsourced to private firms with dismal results

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And you base this assertion on...what? Evidence? Logical reasoning? You provide neither. From what I've heard the case is exactly the opposite, but I freely admit that I'm not super familiar with the subject.

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See, the problem with using markets with prisons is with whom are they competeing? for whose benefit? who gets the service?

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These are questions...not problems. Coherent logical argumentation does not appear to be your strong point.

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And what happens is, since it is the prisoners who are being fed and receiving the medical treatment, and, since they're prisoners, they have no say whether or not their treatment is satisfactory, can do nothing, and therefore have no recourse.

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And this is different from the status quo...how? The prisoners never have a say in how they are treated, regardless of whether the prison is state-owned or privatized.

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Why feed them a full three meals a day when 2 or 1 will do? Does anyone on the outside really care if people are straved and/or not treated for sickness? Why even treat anyone?

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Because, if you are a prison entrepreneur, the state won't do business with you unless your prison provides these services to prisoners.

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The privitazation of the health care in prisons is the primary reason that the Hepatitis epidemic is so out of control in prisons.

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Wow. Another assertion made without evidence or a logical argument. Feel free to refer us to a paper on the subject, or make a logical argument linking the privatization of prison health care to the spread of hepatitis.

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Remeber, the reason why competition works to increase efficiency is that the groups in competition compete to trade their good or service for the customer's money. Such is not the case in prison (they compete for public money and provide a service to prisoners)

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You are contradicting yourself. How is the state not a customer? How are prison entrepreneurs not competing for the state's money?

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...or most things where there is some sort of public good or public interest. The opposite happens, they comepte hard for money to run a prison, and do everything they can not to run it.

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Well, if an entrepreneur won't run his prison effectively, why on earth would the state keep contracting with him? Your argument, like many others you made in your post, lacks logic.

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Privitzation is a big problem, also, with the caring for mentally/physically unfit people. Accros the country states have been closing their state hospitals and giving their patients over to the private sector... well, it usually cost more, while, the employees are not trained properly, and the service costs many people that which remains of their health.

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Yay, yet another assertion made without providing either evidence or a logical argument linking privatization with worse service.

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And Law Enforcement privitized? are you mad? I hope you're joking. If Law enforcement were privately run you would have even more disparity between the justice dished out to different economic classes and different races. The phrase "Equal Protection Under the Law" would be nothing but a farce, instead of just largely one.

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It's funny that you actually kinda get it in this point. Equal protection under the law IS a farce under the status quo, and you realize this. And yet you attack private law enforcement for the same problem. Pot calling the kettle black, anyone?

Will
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