Prison behind Arizona illigal immigrant law

[CptStern]

Last year, two men showed up in Benson, Ariz., a small desert town 60 miles from the Mexico border, offering a deal.

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.

That's because prison companies like this one had a plan — a new business model to lock up illegal immigrants. And the plan became Arizona's immigration law.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130833741

NPR spent the past several months analyzing hundreds of pages of campaign finance reports, lobbying documents and corporate records. What they show is a quiet, behind-the-scenes effort to help draft and pass Arizona Senate Bill 1070 by an industry that stands to benefit from it: the private prison industry.

holy shit talk about stacking the odds in your favour

 

[Ridge]

Oh noes, enforcing the law!!

 

[Krynn72]

Yep, private companies drafting and passing legislation that allows said private companies to lock up women and children for decades is most definitely a form of law enforcement.

 

[Danimal]

Kind of reminded me of the Private American Police Force visiting supposedly abandoned prisons to refurbish it's barbed wire etc.

The website featured in this news story no longer exists. I used to visit it all the time.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bdhdx_vVwpo

 

[Warped]

these are pretty much the only reasons why i like the media...when they report something that seems important enough that doesn't involve Lindsay Lohanchokesondicks or Lady Googoo

 

[Solaris]

Privatised prisons should be illegal.

 

[Eejit]

Oh noes, enforcing the law!!

Er, the point is they're drafting the law.

 

[Xevrex]

Er, the point is they're drafting the law.

Well, they are enforcing the law, but the point is more that corporate interests are trying to enforce it in an intrusive and arguably unconstitutional manner for their own profit. Once again, corporate interests attempted to subvert fair and right treatment of the common people for their own gain. This is why a government should be able to regulate industry: in defence of the common people. That is the reason for the health care debate, and the main grievance of modern conservatism to our current administration. "The government is best that governs least," as stated by Thoreau, never meant "big government" or "the government is trying to rule your life holy shit overthrow" but more that the best government hardly needs to govern because its people can act in a moral way. Government restrains the immoral to enforce fair and moral treatment of the people. In this specific situation, the government would be best to stop lobbying and corporate interests/industry from interfering with Congress's job if it's with malicious intent to decrease human treatment to increase profit.

In the early 1900s, the government wisened up and legislated industrial shackles because they oppressed the common people. Unions were legalised and industry had to act humanely because of things like children being forced to do dangerous work, people working long and unfair hours with a wage that barely supported their livelihood. Do you think the government was wrong to intervene here? While the two situations are only analagous and differ on magnitude of inhumanity, capitalist interests should not dictate how other humans are treated, and that includes invasion of privacy or denying of health care.

/rant

Oh and by the way Eejit the first bit about them drafting the law/drafting the measures they use to enforce the law was directed at you, the rest was just a general rant not really directed at anyone except maybe conservatives or other enemies of "big government" in general.