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Sentences for sale
By Steven | March 12, 2009
Private prisons in the US have bribed judges to lock up more offenders so they can receive more money for incarcerating them. Only in the US? Or should it be part of the debate here about privatising prisons?
[Update: I see TV One News did raise this point in a report last night.]
Topics: General | 4 Comments »
4 Responses to “Sentences for sale”
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March 12th, 2009 at 1:22 pm
Would our judges be susceptible to that sort of influence?
March 12th, 2009 at 9:39 pm
Chris,
No.
March 12th, 2009 at 11:54 pm
I agree, which I think answers Stephen’s question about whether such stories should be part of the debate.
March 13th, 2009 at 10:53 am
Yeah, fair enough. I agree the danger of this sort of judicial corruption here is minimal.
But it’s not zero. We have had judges behaving dishonestly (though not on this scale). Privatisation does provide opportunities and incentives that aren’t there to the same degree in a public system. We have a glaring real-world example of the possibilities of abuse. I think it was fair game for One News to bring it up.
Still, I think it would be easy for the risks to be blown out of proportion, and I certainly don’t support that.