Prison Industrial Complex

Should inmates have to pay the county back for taxpayer money spent on their jail time? This week, Riverside County supervisors unanimously voted yes.

As the Los Angeles Times reports, Supervisor Jeff Stone called jails "prison hotels," costing an average of $142.42 a day.

According to the Press-Enterprise, he said "I think we're blazing a new trail here. In these very challenging economic times, I believe this can be a source of revenue. I believe this can return 3 to 5 million (dollars) a year during these very challenging economic times."

"A plan by the State of Florida to transfer 29 of its prisons to private management is dead, at least for now. Gov. Rick Scott has decided not to appeal last month’s court decision that called the plan unconstitutional. The judge said in the ruling that Florida lawmakers had erred in tucking the measure into a budget bill to get it passed. The judge said the privatization plan — a “substantive” policy change — merited its own debate and should have been presented as a stand-alone bill."

"New legislation allows the department to impose a $25 fee on adults who wish to visit inmates at any of the 15 prison complexes that house state prisoners. The one-time “background check fee” for visitors, believed to be the first of its kind in the nation, has angered prisoner advocacy groups and family members of inmates, who in many cases already shoulder the expense of traveling long distances to the remote areas where many prisons are located."

COLUMBUS, Ohio — A lockup along the shores of Lake Erie has become the first state prison in the nation to be sold to a private company.

Lake Erie Correctional Institution in northeastern Ohio’s Ashtabula County is the only one of five state prisons up for sale that will be sold, state officials said Thursday. Corrections Corporation of America will buy it for $72.7 million, more than the $50 million needed from the privatization effort to balance the state’s prison budget.