Yes and no. While many private prisons do indeed have contractual occupancy levels they don't actually mean the cells need to be filled. What the contracts usually say is that no matter what the government will pay the prison as if it we're 90% (or whatever) full regardless of if they're actually housing that many prisoners. Now you can argue that the government will want a prisoner in the cell if they're paying for it, but that's an issue with policy and not the private prisons themselves. Private prisons generally come about when the government run prisons fill up. When the prisons fill there are a few options such as policy reform, building another government run facility, or outsourcing development to the private sector. While obviously most of us in here are for policy reform a lot of politicians and judges are afraid of not looking tough on crime and reform is a very slow process. So now you're options are to build a new facility that's either government or private with tax payer money either way. Going private allows multiple companies to compete and try to offer the cheapest bid to the government. Private prisons are generally cheaper than government alternatives and usually save tax-payers money. The contractual occupancy level is just a safeguard for these companies to make sure that they don't spend millions building the facility after they get the government bid only for it to sit vacant and bankrupt the company. So again they're just getting paid for a certain occupancy level regardless and its just there to ensure they won't lose money.
alec94417 karma
Yes and no. While many private prisons do indeed have contractual occupancy levels they don't actually mean the cells need to be filled. What the contracts usually say is that no matter what the government will pay the prison as if it we're 90% (or whatever) full regardless of if they're actually housing that many prisoners. Now you can argue that the government will want a prisoner in the cell if they're paying for it, but that's an issue with policy and not the private prisons themselves. Private prisons generally come about when the government run prisons fill up. When the prisons fill there are a few options such as policy reform, building another government run facility, or outsourcing development to the private sector. While obviously most of us in here are for policy reform a lot of politicians and judges are afraid of not looking tough on crime and reform is a very slow process. So now you're options are to build a new facility that's either government or private with tax payer money either way. Going private allows multiple companies to compete and try to offer the cheapest bid to the government. Private prisons are generally cheaper than government alternatives and usually save tax-payers money. The contractual occupancy level is just a safeguard for these companies to make sure that they don't spend millions building the facility after they get the government bid only for it to sit vacant and bankrupt the company. So again they're just getting paid for a certain occupancy level regardless and its just there to ensure they won't lose money.
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