Economics and corruption

Uganda RisingMindset Media, Colonialism, in the traditional sense, ended as European countries started fighting over themselves over the world the World Wars and in effect, weakened themselves in the process allowing the United States and Soviet Union to eventually gain in immense power. They would spend another 50 years continuing that fight. Colonized people, the world over, saw their chance to break free as they realized that Europe was not invincible or as civilized as they claimed. Britain could no longer hold on to India, for example.

Outlawed at the beginning of the 20th Century, private corporations are once again owning and operating prisons for profit. A controversial issue which dates back to the days that followed the Emancipation Proclamation, CORRECTIONS examines its re-appearance today amidst globalization and the most awesome growth of prisons in all of modern history, painting a complex portrait of what many are calling the "prison industrial complex.

When the state wants to build a new prison, it traditionally asks the voters to approve the cost through a bond issue. But this time, voters throughout the country began to say no.

By calling new acts crimes, and by increasing the severity of sentencing for other acts, US citizens witnessed a "prison boom. Their plan was to use venture capital to build a new prison and -- like a hotel -- lease their beds to the state in a profit-making endeavor.

The federal government also contracts with them to house a growing number of undocumented immigrants and resident aliens, while some of the companies have facilities in countries outside the USA.

Correctional Corporations have amassed large political influence through government ties, lobbying power and campaign contributions, while attempting to convert the discourse of justice into the language of the marketplace. In this way, they accuse government agencies as having a monopoly on corrections, espouse the need to downsize and cut through red tape.

They claim that they can run prisons more efficiently and cheaper, doing a better job and saving the taxpayers money. This results in a reduction Economics and corruption essential services within the prison -- from medical care, food and clothing to staff costs and security -- at the endangerment of the public, the inmates and the staff.

Other critiques are concerned with the power and influence of for-profit prisons. At a time when much of public discourse is questioning the war-on-crime and the war-on-drugs being fought as wars, critics claim that the incentive of profit skews public discourse away from reasoned debate about viable solutions to social problems.

There are also different ways that those who make the laws profit from the laws they make through prison privatization. The most direct are those who own stock in private prisons, such as former Tennessee Governor and his wife, Lamar and Honey Alexander, who owned stock in the early Corrections Corporation of America.

Radically rethinking the way we fight poverty.

There are also those officials who are on the actual payroll of these corporations, such as Manny Aragon, the New Mexico legislator who Wackenhut hired as a lobbyist for New Mexico when they were trying to begin privatization in that state.

A third way comes from campaign contributions and political action committee moneys, through which the corporations financially reward those officials that allow private prisons in their states or jurisdictions, or who pass laws that will continue prison expansion -- public or private -- thus expanding the resource base of the privatization industry.

Less directly, the privatization of prisons contributes to and buoys the overall "culture" of law enforcement and criminal justice, one that levels our common sense understanding of the causes of our social problems and puts as their solution responses of violence, force and containment.

By expanding the criminal justice system beyond the grasp of elected officials and civil servants, private prisons grow this culture in ways that are both ideological and practice-related. The private sector also serves as a "career alternative" for many, hiring bureaucrats and officials from the public sector who are either looking for a raise and stock options, or are looking to come out of retirement.

These include people from the FBI, CIA, various state and federal departments of corrections, sheriffs, and even former attorney generals. And most importantly, public officials profit from prison privatization as it allows them to act with less accountability to the public, allowing prisons to be built without passing prison bonds for the public to vote on, and not having to worry how one will budget their inflammatory and expensive tough-on-crime rhetoric.

In the public sector, tax money tends to make more of itself, meaning that each public dollar paid through one social service will spend itself four to eight times more elsewhere within the public sector. Once public money goes into private hands however, that money stays there and is gone for good.

This is especially true if we consider that privatization corporations are usually given handsome tax breaks and "incentives," in the form of what some people call "corporate welfare," which means we are even less likely to see that money again.

And finally, if we remember that the people who privatize are generally wealthy, this reminds us of an old story where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer -- where the hard earned tax money from each of us is funneled into the hands of the wealthy few for their own personal gain.

Add this to the fact that prisons do not make us safer and are by far the most expensive way of dealing with what we call "crime," we suffer other costs as well.JSTOR is a digital library of academic journals, books, and primary sources. The Long View: Scenarios for the world economy to Slowing global growth, limited income convergence and rising fiscal pressures – this is the outlook for the world economy in the new OECD long-term baseline projection.

Transparency International is the global civil society organisation leading the fight against corruption.

CORRECTIONS: Prison Privatization and the Prison Boom

Welcome to the Green Economics Institute. [email protected] 00 44 10th- 12th June , 12th Annual Green Economics Institute, 3 Day Green Economics Conference at St Hugh's College, University of Oxford. Corruption. It is an overloaded word often used as the sole cause of the problems in poor countries.

Yet, corruption seems to be everywhere, indeed often encouraged by rich countries and their corporations, especially when it . The Institutional Economics of Corruption and Reform: Theory, Evidence and Policy Corruption has been a feature of public institutions for centuries yet only relatively recently has it been made the subject of sustained scientific analysis.