[Omega]

A friend of mine recently sent me a very interesting text. She was asking for my opinion about an idea she had this morning, the possibility of outsourcing prisons. Possible reasons for doing this might be to reduce prison costs, inflict harsher punishments, create a new industry in underdeveloped economies, etc.

Do you think this idea is a serious possibility?

[holydefiance]

Think about the Convicts of Australia, did that work?

[JenKnight]

It wouldn't be like Australia because once their prison sentence is complete, they would be allowed to come back to the States, because they are still citizens. This program would not apply to all prisons or prisoners, just ones convicted for long periods of time, such as 10 years to life sentences.
They also could perform works for the country they are placed in, such as help build roads, work on infrastructure, build housing, etc. It could be a form of a charity project for an under developed nation. If they had a project to work on all the time in a foreign country, they could be less violent toward one another.

[Fweeeq]

Wouldn't it be beneficial to have them doing those sorts of projects here in the US?

[Woose]

The idea is intriguing, but I still feel like it's a country's responsibility to attend to their own criminals, and not to pass that task on to another country, even if it would be economically beneficial. I guess I just don't feel it's fair for another country to host our liabilities. Does that make sense, or am I just crazy?

[planckman]

If we have reached the point where we don't have room for our prisoners we should evaluate the system and reasoning that lands them there in the first place. I would opt to release moderate to light drug traffickers before shipping them overseas. That said I would definitely advocate an Antarctic prison for the very worst offenders - they should be separated from the populous.

[Omega]

I absolutely agree that the system is flawed to an extent. The social impact of laws imprisoning people for minor drug possession should be reevaluated. However, I don't believe such cases make up a significant proportion of the prison populous.

Even if we legalized things like marijuana, our prisons would remain extremely over populated and costly.

While the topic of the thread may be the examination of outsourcing prisons as a possible solution, the tread is open to the discussion of other options.

[oz]

I strongly object to the idea of exporting our criminals to prop up under developed countries. If what was meant was that we should utilise the workmanship and produce of those in our present jail systems to make the material existence of the poor more bearable, yep, go for it. But why impose those we have screwed up in our society by some mismatch of genes and environment to those less able to defend themselves? As for costs and who should pay, how long is a piece of string.......

[Partysmasher]

Prisoners need not be sent overseas. Enrol them in a closely-supervised (and whatever security measures necessary) civil labour work unit.

As an Australian I'm well aware of the nation's history with convicts, and agree it was the right thing to do at the time, but it doesn't apply to the current political/economic climate.

We have the lowest population density in the world here (2 people per sq kilometer) and we are rapidly taking on immigrants, which we need to do. However, we lack the infrastructure to support them. The solution is to convert a static prisoner base into a workforce.

[Omega]

That becomes politically infeasible when the unemployment rate is relatively high as it is now. People would surely object to convicts getting jobs when law abiding citizens cannot.