Five Reasons Why Privatizing Michigan’s Prisons Is a Bad Idea

Both chambers of the Republican-controlled Michigan legislature are pushing to privatize that state’s prisons.  Like a similar bill introduced by Florida Republicans that was narrowly defeated, the Michigan bill would require shifting 1200 inmates to a private prison if 10 percent savings would be gained.   The Detroit Free Press published an Opinion piece by Michigan state Senator Bert Johnson offers five good reasons why savings are both phantom and ephemeral and transferring incarceration to private, profit corporations has both security and political implications.

 

 

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David Morris

David Morris is co-founder of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance and currently ILSR's distinguished fellow. His five non-fiction books range from an analysis of Chilean development to the future of electric power to the transformation of cities and neighborhoods.  For 14 years he was a regular columnist for the Saint Paul Pioneer Press. His essays on public policy have appeared in the New York TimesWall Street Journal, Washington PostSalonAlternetCommon Dreams, and the Huffington Post.