If the First Paragraph of This Alone Doesn't Give You Chills..It's Like a Horror Film

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73. Private prisons are so bad even the Florida legislature turned them down

Florida already has privately run prisons, but when a bill trying to add more with guaranteed populations came up, the legislators actually voted it down!

Largest Private Prison Bill In History Dies In Florida Senate Despite Million Dollar Lobbying Campaign

By Scott Keyes on Feb 16, 2012 at 10:15 am

The largest proposed expansion of private prisons in the nation will not proceed after the Florida Senate voted down the proposal on Tuesday.

Though the GOP enjoys a 16-seat advantage in Florida’s upper chamber, nine Republicans joined twelve Democrats to defeat the massive prison privatization bill 21-19. The Miami Herald has more:

The state will not undertake what would have been the single greatest expansion of prison privatization in U.S. history, affecting 27 prisons and work camps in 18 counties and displacing more than 3,500 correctional officers.

Senators debated privatization for nearly three hours, and opponents’ floor speeches often showed more passion. Rather than talk about numbers, they talked about people, such as the treatment of correctional officers, whose starting salary is $34,000 a year and who have not received an across-the-board pay raise for the past six years.

“What’s wrong with state employees?” said Sen. Dennis Jones, R-Seminole. “We should be taking care of them, rather than kicking them under the bus.”

More: http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/02/16/426481/private-prison-florida-senate/