The Free Zone Board

[ergo sum]

Well it has been a while since I thought about this. I understand your point but I don't really agree. I think the nature of the beast is such that it can not be localized. That being said I do think it needs to be returned to local control.

" With 2.2 million people engaged in catching criminals and putting and keeping them behind bars, "corrections" has become one of the largest sectors of the U.S. economy, employing more people than the combined workforces of General Motors, Ford and Wal-Mart, the three biggest corporate employers in the country. Correctional officers have developed powerful labor unions. And most politicians, whether at the local, state or national level, remain acutely aware that allowing themselves to be portrayed as "soft on crime" is the quickest route to electoral defeat. "
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A43362-2004Jan23.html

More and more the Wackenhut Corrections Corp. is playing a larger and larger roll in this country. This is not even an American corporation. I see this as the by-product of deregulation. Getting the government out of the functions of government. The Cato Institute and the rest of the Libertarian movement are at least partially to blame for this.

While it might be nice to think that privatizing certain functions of government would be good, all I see is that it leads to more corporate profiteering. Halburton becomes the Army Corps of Engineers and buys Kuwait oil at extravagant prices while their employees take bribes. Nothing is gained in this except the graft and fraud now lie further from the governments control.