Issue Prisons
THE ISSUE:: Prison overcrowding is a government-created issue in Arizona. We could clear the overcrowding of our prisons simply by commuting the sentences of all non-violent offenders who committed victimless crimes. Furthermore, there is rampant abuse of prisoners, particularly in Maricopa County where Sheriff Joe Arpaio runs his tent cities.
THE PRINCIPLE: Government's only legitimate purpose is the protection of individual rights. When someone violates the rights of another, in addition to making restitution, the offender may deserve a prison sentence. However, government prisons are another opportunity for bureaucratic waste, graft, and corruption. Because of this, and many other reasons, the private sector should provide this service.
LIBERTARIAN SOLUTIONS: We oppose the plan of former Governor Jane Dee Hull and current Governor Janet Napolitano to "close the schools and open the jails." Schools today deal with simple problems, such as children fighting, by calling the police, thus creating criminal records. A rational person can expect the result, that such children learn from their incarceration experiences to become more hardened criminals.
There is no reason to stand in the way of privatization of prisons. Prisoners do have rights, but a private prison is no less able to protect those limited rights than a government prison. On the other hand, a private prison, with a profit motivation, will best make use of the labor force in prisons so that actual restitution can be made to victims of the crimes for which these convicts were incarcerated.
LIBERTARIAN ACTION/TRANSITION: Most prisoners in our state were convicted of victimless crimes, and if their sentences were reduced or eliminated, there would be plenty of space for murderers, rapists and child molesters who are presently being released on parole despite the failure to reform.
In the short term, the State of Arizona should continue to outsource its prison operations, which are huge liabilities to the state, to corporations which can run the prisons at a profit without violating the limited rights of their wards.
