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: The Justice Gambit

Prison Economics

By Michael Blankenship

Last year, two men showed up in Benson, Ariz., a small desert town 60 miles from the Mexico border, offering a deal. Glenn Nichols, the Benson city manager, remembers the pitch. "The gentleman that's the main thrust of this thing has a huge turquoise ring on his finger," Nichols said. "He's a great big huge guy and I equated him to a car salesman." What he was selling was a prison for women and children who were illegal immigrants. "They talk [about] how positive this was going to be for the community," Nichols said, "the amount of money that we would realize from each prisoner on a daily rate." But Nichols wasn't buying. He asked them how would they possibly keep a prison full for years ? decades even ? with illegal immigrants? "They talked like they didn't have any doubt they could fill it," Nichols said...continue to full post

Full post as published by The Justice Gambit on October 28, 2010 (boomark / email).