Private Prison Company Indicted for Murder

Private Prison Company Indicted for Murder    Privatize prisons profit by our country's staggering incarceration rate, which is presently about one in every 130 people.  They also profit by the closure and downsizing of mental health facilities, reduction in outpatient services to psychiatric patients, and resistence to facilitate enforced treatment of mental patients, when warranted.  These omissions leave many acute mental patients vulnerable to arrest for acting out their dementia in public.  Private prisons are paid up to $50,000 per annum per prisoner, and some enlarge their profits by using prison labor to manufacture goods for sale.  Ever wonder why it is that planes and boats are being checked thoroughly these days to fight terrorism, yet many illegal drugs still manage to get through our borders?  One could have logically expected an associated decrease in the expensive budget for America's War on Drugs with the advent of the War Against Terrorism.  Perhaps the decrease in drug trafficking did not occur because drug offenses account for a large percentage of arrests every day.  Stop illegal drug imports and the Big Business of private prisons may soon need a bailout.  African American males under the age of 34 have an incarceration rate estimated at being 1 in 9, and many of them are imprisoned for nonviolent drug offenses involving marijuana and other contraband.  With these things in mind, I was not displeased to read about a private prison company in trouble.  In fact, the AP article reported that a private prison has been indicted for murder.  I did not know that non-humans could be indicted for such offenses, but that is what the article reports. ***************** Private prison company indicted for murder 10/24/2008 Associated Press A Florida private prison company has been indicted in South Texas on a murder charge in the death of a prisoner days before his release. A three-count indictment alleges The GEO Group allowed other inmates to beat Gregorio de la Rosa Jr. To death with padlocks stuffed into socks. The death happened in 2001 at the Raymondville facility, just four days before de la Rosa's scheduled release, according to Thursday's indictment from Willacy County. Calls to The GEO Group and the Willacy County District Attorney's Office were not immediately returned Friday. The GEO Group was formerly known as Wackenhut Corrections Corp. In 2006, a jury ordered the company to pay de la Rosa's family $47.5 million in a civil judgment. ****************