Originally posted by normbenign
"Or perhaps a splendid argument against privately run detention centers."

Strawman spotted. These two creep judges are caught and going to jail. The argument that private enterprise is at fault might be valid, if we didn't know that State run institutions including jails have been centers of corruption for as long as they've existed.

How do the rates of corruption compare?

Originally posted by Barts
1. A state-run prison is 'paid' for extra prisoners in that they a slightly larger allowance for the extra costs. That is just a transfer from one part of the government to another though. No one will be any better off because of it, no one has a financial incentive for using the money on prisoner care instead of something else. In a private sector prison, eve ...[text shortened]... per for the government than running their own prisons that don't need to make a profit.

You are quite correct that the competition factor, and other economic factors don't apply well to prison settings, and some other public sector activities.

The profit incentive however is a positive factor. In public institutions, the lack of it tends to lead to laxity and carelessness in terms of spending and efficient use of resources. Cost continually escalate, and the public is threatened with the release of inmates, if additional revenues aren't forthcoming.

This has little to do with the public corruption of judges, keeping prisons full of free labor. This is actually parallel to the well known practice of using police as revenue generators, via aggressive traffic enforcement to generate revenue instead of public safety.