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BY JOE AMATO
COMMENTARY
In today's tough economic times, our so-called concerned county politicians have most definitely played on the taxpayers' fear of the unknown and that fear is currently being heavily exploited by the private jail industry, because taxpayers are completely in the dark as to what goes on behind jail and prison walls.
The law enforcement community as well as most other public employees have become a target of blame in these economic times, but it's the county politicians who become extremely wealthy from taxpayer dollars, not to mention through the highly questionable way in which county government contracts are awarded.
When it comes to our state's correctional system, taxpayers can only rely on what their elected officials tell them and it's very convenient for our elected officials to slant the facts, because jail business is locked away from the taxpayers' sight. So who's really to know what's right and what's wrong?
Correction officers who patrol and secure our many jails and prisons seem to be labeled by careless county politicians as an expendable part of the law enforcement community and will ask the taxpayers to join them in their quest to replace our state's trained, mandated and state certified correction officers with "counselors" in these private jail companies. But I often wonder what would happen if the taxpayers were asked to replace their police officers with a profit-driven private company?There would be outrage and politicians would be running for cover, because once again, the safety of our streets are under the watchful eye of the public, while the safety of our jails and prisons is a mystery to the common taxpayers who are being fed the biggest lie in the history of politics when the subject of jail privatization rears its ugly head.
These discount prison systems, who join forces with county politicians to dupe the taxpayers, look at inmates not as human beings, but as dollar signs. A "commodity" where millions upon millions of dollars can be earned by both sides.
Regardless that these individuals are offenders of the law, it's ludicrous that politicians are willing to put price tags on inmates' heads. And even more ludicrous that we have the private jail industry who has become modern day human traders. Legal? Maybe so or maybe not, but extremely questionable nevertheless.
In Essex County for example, for many years, thousands of high risk recidivist criminals who are remanded into the legitimate correctional system through the judicial process to await sentencing for a variety of indictable offences, are traded back and forth like baseball cards between the county jail and a profit-based jail provider next door to the county jail.
A profit based company, I might add, that's been marred with violence, drugs, gang activity, escapes, questionable deaths and even murder.
Rather than learn from Essex County's mistakes in doing business with this loosely operated and crime infested facility, Camden County officials are now seeking to turn over their entire jail system to this failed company for nothing more than money and their own political resumes as is the case here in Essex as well.
The private jail industry provides politicians and political parties with huge amounts of money, which flows into campaign coffers (pay to play) and while county politicians will tell you that they're concerned for public safety, the only thing that really matters is raising funds and getting re-elected.
I urge the taxpayers in this state to support their "civil servants" in the trenches of this battle and make sure that the "self servants" in county elected office are telling you the whole story before you allow safety, security and professionalism to be compromised by jail profiteers within our state's correctional system.
Joe Amato represents officers at the Essex County Department of Corrections as the president of PBA Local 382
