Here's a thought: if prisons are to be run as private for profit businesses, such as is probably going to happen in Memphis, then what are the market forces driving their "product" demand and hence the price paid to them for their services? Shouldn't it be how good a job they do at rehabilitating prisoners, that is the rate of recidivism of those released from their system? So in a free-market prison system the corporation that does the best at rehabilitating the prisoners will be the most profitable and most dominant. In ideal world perhaps...
In reality I expect that corporations habit of being an externalizing machine will cause it to maximize profit in other ways, ones that do not benefit the community at large. Imagine a prison corporation that ships its prisons to some remote country where they are guarded and fed cheaply, and where if they riot, escape, or just plain curl up and die, well... out of sight, out of mind. The British tried that once with Australia - stuff them on a ship and sail them over the equator - problem solved. I can only imagine that some lesser form of this tactic is at the forefront of every wannabe for profit prison corporation.
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