Those who hate government (i.e., Republicans and their tea party base) always argue that government services like schools, roads, prisons, etc., should be privatized, because, in their view, private industry will naturally be more efficient than gummint.
Well, private industry will certainly pay their employees less in salaries and benefits, and maybe governments will save some on that, even after paying for the privatizers' profits and seven-figure executives.
But when saving money on prisons affects public safety, as it has in Arizona this week, it should provoke a debate about the wisdom of putting profit-focused companies in charge of keeping convicted violent criminals where they belong.
Especially after two murderers and an attempted murderer escaped from a private prison in Arizona.
One of the murderers was quickly caught, but the other murderer and the attempted murderer have, allegedly, murdered two more people, so far.
Details, below.
The media will obviously focus on the murders evidently committed by the escapees, and not on the privatization issue, for now.
But the security incompetence of Management and Training Corp. (MTC), which runs the Kingman prison for the state of Arizona, should also be newsworthy.
The three felons escaped after a woman friend tossed wire cutters over a fence, and they used them to get through the fence.
The three killers/attempted killers were serving suitably long sentences at the medium-security (!) Kingman prison operated by MTC.
Two of them are suspected of killing and burning an Oklahoma couple in New Mexico.
On its website, MTC claims about Kingman:
When the facility first opened it primarily served DUI and substance abuse offenders.
As the facility was expanded to house more inmates, and as needs changed for the Arizona Department of Corrections, a larger pool of inmates has been incarcerated at the facility. These inmates are still all minimum and medium security.
So an outfit that used to confine drunk drivers and potheads over time has had to deal with killers. And does not have the basic security to stop someone from throwing wire cutters over the fence to convicted murderers.
The "patriarch" of Utah-based MTC told the Salt Lake Tribune (before the New Mexico murders):
This is the first major glitch we’ve had, and I pray they pick the two guys up and nobody gets hurt.
Privatization, whether it's for Social Security, charter schools, toll roads, parking meters in Chicago, or prisons, rarely provides greater public benefits in the long run.
The privatization profiteers, their connected lobbyists, and the politicians they've bought off, make out well.
But the rest of us, aka the overwhelming majority, end up paying more for less.
UPDATE -- Here's more detail about how they escaped, from the Arizona Republic:
Department of Corrections Director Chuck Ryan said a preliminary investigation indicates that McCluskey's fiancee, Casslyn Welch of Mesa, parked in the desert near the prison sometime Friday evening and walked to a berm on its eastern end.
Investigators believe the three inmates left their dormitory-style housing through a door that apparently did not have a functioning alarm and were standing in an area used to house dogs, where they communicated with Welch that no corrections officers were around, Ryan said.
"We think staff were predictable in their movements and performance of their duties," he said.
Investigators believe Welch climbed over the berm and threw tools to the inmates. The prisoners climbed out of the small yard, which had no barbed wire, and used the tools to cut through two fences before crawling out.
Ryan said an alarm sounded at 9 p.m., indicating activity between the prison's interior and exterior fences, but investigators do not know if staff members checked it out.
Prison-staff members notified DOC officials of the breakout after 11:30 p.m. Friday.
An escape alarm sounded at 9 p.m., and the prison privateers waited more than TWO AND A HALF HOURS to notify real law enforcement!?
Hopefully, this criminally incompetent BS will have an effect on future prison privatization plans.