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| A proposal to privatize New Hampshire's prisons raises concerns |
| By sentinelsource.com |
| Published: 05/11/2012 |
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A proposal being mulled by New Hampshire officials to hand over the state’s prisons to private companies has been churning quietly along for several months. It began during the state’s biennial budgeting process in 2011, when the N.H. Department of Corrections’ budget was cut by $4 million over two years and agency officials were told to seek bids from private companies interested in running the state’s prisons. Now a committee of state officials is reviewing bids received this spring from four out-of-state companies interested in building and running a new men’s prison or a hybrid facility to house male and female inmates. A legislative committee is simultaneously drafting a plan for privatization, an idea Gov. John Lynch has supported looking into as a possible option to meet the state’s future correctional needs. Those in favor of the idea, which was previously floated in New Hampshire eight years ago, say private companies can run prisons more cheaply than the state. The men’s prison in Concord is aging and overcrowded; communities stand to gain jobs and taxes where new prisons are built, they say. Hinsdale, a 4,046 population town just a stone’s throw from Vermont and Massachusetts, was named by one bidding company as a possible new prison site. The head-scratcher in this reasoning is that for prison companies to make money it’s in their best interests for more people to be locked up for longer periods of time. And the lower companies keep operational costs such as security, employee salaries and rehabilitative programs, the higher their profit margins. Opponents claim private management raises the risk of prison riots and jailbreaks. Others still say that when incarceration rates were climbing steadily several years ago, private prison companies created a prison building boom by swooping into western states promising tax revenue and jobs — only to skip out when nationwide anti-recidivism efforts quelled the rising number of prisoners. Thirty states have private prisons. Read More. |
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