Wednesday, March 12, 2008

More Jail Musings

"When is my death row job available?"

"When is my death row job available?"
Archer Daniel Midland could do executions cheaper

All rise!

All rise!
Finally some real judicial economy.



Cameron County does not have the worst jail in the world. In fact it is not even the worst jail in the Valley. On a scale of bad, worse, horrible, the standings would be Cameron County, Willacy Detention Center, with La Villa coming in last. These are all places where federal prisoners are kept, but the last two are privately owned facilities.

My impression has been that La Villa is by far the worst of the three and lately there seem to be fewer Brownsville prisoners housed there. Maybe the U.S. Marshal's office finally gave up on them. I had one client in La Villa who tells me he screamed for twelve hours trying to get attention during an appendicitis attack. The other guys in the jail were screaming with him. He didn't die and after his surgery, he cleaned up pretty well, but it could have been bad. He was in jail on a charge of entering the country illegally.

There are certain things that privatization may make cheaper, but depending on the goals involved, it sure doesn't make things better. Private jails may make a profit, but they don't do much for the quality of justice.

Why not sell the courthouses to Walmart and allow them to use Walmart greeters as judges? This would be cheap. The same for executions. Executions could be contracted out to Archer-Daniels-Midland. They could use the same employees used in the slaughterhouses. This would be cheap.

6 comments:

Unknown said...

Could cheap just finally equate to true justice?

Quien sobby.

Anonymous said...

Mr. Stapleton,
You've accomplished more and advocated on behalf of our Cameron County inmates than anyone in the past couple decades. That saying, the same hard working jailers are still serving the public interest in a thankless vocation.
Any attorney that visits his or her client within our system knows the conditions that we have to work with. I could go on, but your comment section allows for minimal

StapletonAndStapleton said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
StapletonAndStapleton said...

I am a fan of many of the jailers. Many are kind beyond their job requirements. I have known them to step in and do the lawyers' jobs when the lawyers would not do them. Most every jailer I have known is a better person than the job he has to do.

PS I'll try to increase the comment section if I can figure it out.

Anonymous said...

Congrats on your blog Ed. I knew it wouldn't take you long to get one going.

RC

Anonymous said...

Elementary, my dear Mr. Stapleton, elementary. To increase the comment section one takes the square route of the hypotenus times six and tighten it with a number eight grangle iron to 58 psi, do a left-handed handstand and, bingo, you're there.