[quote]doogie wrote:
75% of my classes could have been titled “Defending Your Inefficiency: How to take more and do less”.
[/quote]
I want to take that class.
[quote]snipeout wrote:
Doogie, What do you do for a living? Just curious. [/quote]
Teach
Your description of your job:
“I’m making six figures with no college education and minimal actual work(although we do have our occassional semi-riots and fights and officer assaults), I don’t break rocks, I don’t build houses and I don’t have to take my work home or worry about what didn’t get done while on a vacation day(15 paid of those a year) or on a sick day(also 15 paid a year).”
Yes, I think you are overpaid. You are overpaid because you’re a unionized government employee, not because of the actual work you do.
Private prisons have a profit motive to consider when the prisons are designed. Safer design, less need for overpaid COs.
I went to school so I wouldn’t have to do that kind of thing. You have 12 WEEKS of training. That is not a high skill profession. I’m pretty sure there are many, many people who would take your job at half your salary if your union allowed the competition.
It takes quite a bit longer than 12 weeks to become a divorce lawyer.
[quote]
You sound fairly ignorant to attempt to tell me in not so many words that I make to much money and for that reason we should privatize. [/quote]
Sorry, I meant to say it directly. You are overpaid, and for that reason we should privatize.
I was in the Reserves for my eight years. I don’t think that because I CHOSE to serve my country then, taxpayers should overpay me for the rest of my life.
When you were arguing that you were incorruptible, you sure didn’t make your job seem very stressful:
“…minimal actual work(although we do have our occassional semi-riots and fights and officer assaults), I don’t break rocks, I don’t build houses and I don’t have to take my work home or worry about what didn’t get done while on a vacation day(15 paid of those a year) or on a sick day(also 15 paid a year)”
You teach and wanna talk about unions? NEA? At the very least everyone is on the same plane in my job, take a test and the highest test score gets first consideration for the job. It isn’t like well my daddy taught there so he spoke to the superintendant who GAVE me the job. As for not working, yeah when we aren’t doing our required walk through once an hour to make sure no one is dead or responding to fights where you have 2 murderers stabbing another one stepping on his chest attempting to make him bleed out, where failure to act will get you prosecuted I would say we don’t work. A wise man once told me we don’t get paid for what we’re not doing a majority of the time, but what we are required to do when the shit hits the fan. Your rationalization for pay being justified by schooling holds no weight. You couldn’t handle my job or a police officers job if you had too. Anyone can teach a fourth grader how to add subtract and spell. My dad once said “those who can do, those who can’t teach” take it for what it’s worth. Before you say I don’t deserve what I get you should know what goes on behind prison walls. Wanna talk corruption, more times in the last year there has been a scandle involving a school teacher and a child than a CO and problems in prison. As for your reserve training I commend you, should have gone active duty you would have a greater appreciaiton for civil servants if you had.
I almost forgot, tenure ring a bell? three years and you really can’t be fired. C’mon man your sounding ridiculous, you are way more protected by a union than any cop or CO. You don’t face prosecution for a mistake, you don’t face a law suit everytime some inmate wants to file one then have to explain yourself to some liberal like you sitting on a grand jury.
Wrong, wrong, and wrong.
I teach at a Charter school. That means we agree to take a lot less money from the state in exchange for being free to get the job done.
http://archive.parade.com/2004/0606/0606_wont_hungry.html
For the most part, people in the South are not real found of unions and the lazyness they breed.
The school I’m at produces results or we don’t get any funding. We perform about 20% above normal public schools and spend 34% less per student. We get no money for buildings. That has to be raised from private sources (Gates Foundation, La Raza, ect) who believe it what we are doing.
There are no union members, and there is no tenure. The only bonus I get is my Performance Incentive. Yep, I have to actually do more than show up for it. You see, I am not afraid of the competition that privitization brings about. I embrace the challenge to do my job more efficiently.
I’m quite sure that if I decided to suck on the public tit, tell myself I deserved it because I was in the Army, and not make a difference in anyone’s life, I could do your job.
Here is an interesting article about the cost of New Jersey’s prison population. Seems ya’ll now let more people out on parole and don’t really bother hassling them when they fail drug tests or fail to check in with their parole officers. Surely that must save the state some bucks, right? Wrong. While prison your prison population has declined 14% since 1999, the cost has increased 16%. Not good for the taxpayer.
http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/local/11614415.htm
My favorite part of the article:
"The state is paying for about 1,000 more employees now than in 1999, and most of the increase comes from new corrections officers.
Corrections Commissioner Devon Brown said the cost of running the prison system would not go down - “not when the salaries keep going up.”
I’ve read other posts of yours. We probably agree on 99% of stuff. I just can’t stomach lazy civil servants.
Doogie,
Look, here is my whole point, I was simply trying to say I have a good job and I am alot less corruptible than a private guard, I am considered a police officer by the state, I have all the same rights and privileges. As for the correction officer situation in new jersey, in my jail alone we have 500 inmates and on my shift we staff 22 officers. Although it appears to be about 20 to 1 it’s really not. If I work east or west housing area there is me and one other officer for the 130 inmates housed there.
I am required by state law to go in each of the 5 dorms once an hour and check every cell, there are numerous blind spots where my tower officer can not see me. In my jail we have 22 inmates awaiting trial for murder, again about 1 in 20 are in for murder.
We have gangs, bloods, crips, 5 percenters, latin kings and 'netas. Keep in mind now I have contact with these guys at least 8 hours a day 5 days a week. On someone lesser paid and qualified they have the potential to be very manipulative, enter privatization. In state prisons in new jersey the food service is privately run. My friends who work there have told me this is the number one avenue of contraband being brought in, cell phones(to place a hit on an officer outside of the prison) readily available heroin, marijuana and crack, weapons.
Now an officer goes through rigorous FBI background checks as well as internal affairs investigations of reputable references, in the private sector it just can’t be done if the guy doing the invest makes 10 dollars an hour. What is considered overpaid by you or anyone else is a necessity to keep these people behind bars and from operating as if jail was not jail.
A private prison guard could not charge an inmate with a crime i.e. a 2C criminal code in new jersey, which in case you didn’t know law still applies behind the bars an assault is an assault, they will be criminally charged, not by some 10 dollar an hour security guard not PTC certified in 2C. I understand you think privatization breeds competition, it just doesn’t belong in corrections or police work.
Everyone in this state over the age of 18 is eligible to take the civil service test. A list comes out and they start at the highest score, people are disqualified for numerous things, mainly failure to disclose anything in your past to the investigating department. Everyone is on a level playing field, if you are skipped for a bogus reason you can request a review by dept of personnel for NJ and if they reveal the reason bogus, you are hired. There is more than enough open competition, the fee for the test is about 40 dollars.
Now let’s see how open hiring is for teacher, being as though my wife is a speech pathologist for a school system I will tell you, a vast majority are hired by who they know not based on a test score making it level for everyone. My wife has a family friend who is a supeintendant, she graduates college and at the ripe old age of 22 starts off making 60,000 a year and no one else was even considered for the job.
I can not emphasize anymore how big of a mistake it is to privatize any form of law enforcement. My job is a job 24/7 if I see a crime on the street I am bound to act or face criminal prosecution for failure to act considered official misconduct, a second degree crime with a mandatory jail sentence of no less than 5 years. I see inmates on the street every day everywhere I go and in nine years on the job for various dept’s you try and remember who said they were gonna get you on the street because they didn’t get an extra food tray.
Now keep in mind my wife is with me almost everywhere I go, so now my family is directly affected by my job even though I’m not at “work”, I am always working, just not always getting paid. Dutifully bound to act 24/7 but paid for only 8 of those hours 5 days a week. Most people do not want my job, most street cops are afraid to work in a jail because we don’t get guns or pepper spray or pr-24’s inside the wall.
I have seen more new hires quit in the first 3 days of orientation prior to the academy then I have seen take the job. Working around criminals is not easy, they are always thinking of ways to get over on you and possibly jump you in a blind spot if you are not careful. Most people who take the civil service test do not even check the corrections box, most people are not fit to work in a jail that is run like a jail.
In three years at my jail I have been involved in about 30 fights, in 3 of those the inmate who fought me then turned around and filed assault charges on me, I had to go in front of the grand jury and explain my actions and justify them, they can do this and do it. I’m done, if that doesn’t clarify it for you you’re never gonna get it!!
[quote]snipeout wrote:
Everyone in this state over the age of 18 is eligible to take the civil service test. A list comes out and they start at the highest score, people are disqualified for numerous things, mainly failure to disclose anything in your past to the investigating department. Everyone is on a level playing field, if you are skipped for a bogus reason you can request a review by dept of personnel for NJ and if they reveal the reason bogus, you are hired. There is more than enough open competition, the fee for the test is about 40 dollars.[/quote]
None of this addresses what happens after you are hired, suck at your job, and then are protected by your union. That kind of crap doesn’t happen in our schools or our private prisons.
That is because your school systems are totally fucked up North. Down here it doesn’t work anything like that. I was hired by first interviewing with the principal and assistant principal, then with a board of teachers and parents, then with the board of directors (most public schools here would have an elected school board instead of a board of directors). I sat on the hiring board for several years. We don’t want to work with asshats, so we are very selective. A few of our teachers have been let go mid-year, and several have not had their contract renewed. Contrast that with where you work.
Well I gave you data showing how inefficient your employer is. Do you have anything to counter the article above? How about this one that shows how efficient PRIVATE prisons are?
http://www.ncpa.org/ba/ba191.html
"The Quality of Private Operations.
Faced with evidence of cost savings, critics then argued that “you get what you pay for,” alleging that services were substandard. Wrong again.
First, government agencies overwhelmingly renew contracts with the private operators. Since the mid-1980s, only one facility - in Zavala County, Texas - has been closed for inadequate performance. The best data fail to reveal a single contract awarded to any firm currently in the industry that has been terminated or not renewed for inadequate contract performance.
Second, not a single private facility is operating under a consent decree or court order as a consequence of suits brought by prisoner plaintiffs. Yet about 75 percent of American jurisdictions now have major facilities or entire systems operating under judicial interventions.
Third, private prisons comply with the standards of the Commission on Accreditation for Corrections and have a much higher accreditation rate than government prisons.
Fourth, in a careful comparison of New Mexico and West Virginia prisons using 333 empirical indicators of quality, University of Connecticut sociologist Logan found “the private prison outperformed the state and federal prisons, often by quite substantial margins, across nearly all dimensions.”
Fifth, in 1995 the Tennessee Select Oversight Committee on Corrections found that a CCA-operated facility (private) had a higher overall rating and cost less to operate than two similar state facilities.
Contracting out corrections speeds up new construction, decreases construction costs by 15-25 percent, generates designs that are substantially more efficient than those chosen by bureaucrats, enhances governmental flexibility to add or modify services, increases the accountability of bureaucrats for their programs and expenditures and decreases the growth rate of bureaucracy. "
Ouch. Argue with any of that.
[quote]snipeout wrote:
A private prison guard could not charge an inmate with a crime i.e. a 2C criminal code in new jersey, which in case you didn’t know law still applies behind the bars an assault is an assault, they will be criminally charged, not by some 10 dollar an hour security guard not PTC certified in 2C. I understand you think privatization breeds competition, it just doesn’t belong in corrections or police work.
[/quote]
Missed this part.
Are you saying that if an inmate assaults a private guard, then it isn’t assault? I’m pretty sure it is. It may not currently be treated as a special crime on a law enforcement official, but it would take a couple of weeks for your state legislature to fix that oversight. Saving a few hundred million dollars a year might be worth updating the penal code.
If a corporation is running a prison, does this mean they will be motivated to influence the government to make more and more stricter laws in order to guarantee fresh crops of new prisoners?
Does it mean that corrupt executives will hire people to frame and entrap people? 
[quote]snipeout wrote:
Doogie, What do you do for a living? Just curious. I think anybody who puts their lives on the line on a daily basis i.e. police officers, corrections officers, firefighters and military personnel to name a few deserve to be well compensated for. Would you or a large majority of the population step into an area of 130 people who have bail to high to bail out due to their crimes to include, murder, aggravated assault, assault on a police officer, rape, armed robbery or assault with a deadly weapon? If I am not fairly well compensated for what is my incentive to take such a job? Civil service to serve someone like you who thinks I make to much money. As an example, a divorce lawyer who makes 70,000 on a divorce of assests of around 2 million deserves in one lump what takes me about 9 1/2 months to earn? You sound fairly ignorant to attempt to tell me in not so many words that I make to much money and for that reason we should privatize. I again ask you, what do you do for a living? How would you justify to me why you deserve what you make? I gave six years of my life to the US Army, earned my veterans status by deploying to a war zone where I and everyone there were grossly underpaid, I did it becasue I love my country. Now I need to make a living, the pay is good and the stress I deal with on a daily basis compounded by the deadly diseases I am exposed to daily(HIV HEP b&c Methicillin resistant staph infections) are why I am paid fairly well and why I am allowed to retire in 25 years at 70%(8.5% of my bi-weekly salary is paid into my pension fund). I await your reply…[/quote]
Dude don’t worry about the haters. One of our employees has a CO in their family. The job sucks, you’re basically in prison all day. Again, you’re effectively in prison most of the time you’re awake, surrounded by negativity to say the least. Props to you, and i think you deserve every penny you make. Noone could pay me enough to have shit in a jar flung at my face. Seriousley man, you deserve every frigging penny you EARN.
[quote]Elkhntr1 wrote:
doogie wrote:
snipeout wrote:
Privatization has been argued and on a whole it seems logic prevails and the 10 dollar an hour guard can not compare to the 80,000 dollar a year officer(at least thats our max base pay, no OT or holidays included). I have the potential to make about 115 thou with minimal overtime and about 10 of 15 holidays worked in a year. We receive an annual 4% cost of living increase plus another 4-6.5% longevity increase for every year we are there over 6 years. I have excellent benefits 5 dollar co-pays and 1 dollar prescription. with buying my military time back i can retire in another 17 years at 70% of my pay until the day I die plus lifetime benefits.
Possibility of corruption aside, that entire paragraph is one long argument for privitization. Good lord.
That they get paid well and have good benefits? You think their standard of living should be lowered why?[/quote]
Elkhntr, simple economics will likely catch up to him. Just as it has caught up to many in manufacturing.
Some day, some way the state of New Jersey will hit a breaking point and either privatize prisons or ship prisoners to Kansas or Montana where they can pay the CO’s half of what he is making.
My advice to him would be to make the money while he can, but to start preparing for the next portion of his career.
I love how much it “bothers” people when they see someone making more they feel they “deserve” to make.
Thanks for the kind words gregus. It seems that doogie is not going to sway even after being told by someone in the business. You can do all the studies you want, the fact is privatization leads to drug problems and escapes, obviously going unreported to the mainstream media. Every prison is required to meet minimal standards. As for inmate complaints, wouldn’t you worry more if inmates weren’t comlaining about jail. As for the assault, I wasn’t reffering to assault on the officer or guard in the private case. I was reffering to the private guards inability to enforce title 2C, if you give him 2C training, in effect you make him an officer.
We have a probationary period of one year following completion of the academy. In this timeframe one incident of a write up for us and we are terminated. The union can only do so much for you. If someone is late for work(defined as not on post at 0700, 1500, or 2300) 6 times in a year they are terminted, no union intervention, it is county policy. Use all your sick time and then take 5 zero days in a 2 year period, also terminated.
Now in with the lates and zero pay days there is an increasing suspension with out pay. Lest I fail to mention, be late by 6 minutes on a walk thru and find someone hanging dead, chances are your fired and facing criminal prosecution for official misconduct. Privatization is a joke, plenty of criminals who have never been in trouble would receive jobs due to inability of these private companies to screen their people(as seen by old airport screeners).
[quote]Gregus wrote:
I love how much it “bothers” people when they see someone making more they feel they “deserve” to make.[/quote]
It doesn’t “bother” me a bit. I am not a “hater”.
I am just smart enough to realize that when somebody makes an inordinate amount of money for the type of work they do that things are likely to change.
That is the way the economy works.
Feel free to keep applying your labels to people rather than try to understand why they may have other points of view.
I agree with everything that doogie has said.
Good job, man.
The most obvious question for me is- How much money do you guys want to do something like be a Prison Guard. Not how much do you think it’s worth, but how much would You want? Take into consideration that you shouldn’t have to take a loss from what you make now.
The funniest thing about this whole thread is that everyone in favor of privatization, would never want my job. If I had 10 cents for everytime I heard anyone say “you couldn’t pay me enough to do your job” I’d already be retired. The fact of the matter is most of you want someone else to do the dirty jobs in America then bitch when you find out how much we make or our benefits are better than yours.
Here’s another one to piss you off, if I get pulled over and flash my badge 999 times out of 1000 the cop turns and heads back to his car, the one other time he tells me to slow down. Now cry me a river about how thats unfair! I also don’t pay cover at clubs and my name is written on a law enforcement officer presence list at the club.
Lets exchange on the job stories and see how much you would care to deal with my situation and me with yours. 2 guys(we’ll call them allen and alexander) jump another, slit his throat with a shank and start stomping on his chest to pump his blood out faster(make him bleed out), your options are as follows a)do nothing b) run and hide c) attempt to disarm the 2 murderers. I
f you answered anytihng other than c welcome to prison yourself for failure to act. scenario 2, inmate lopez has covered himself in his own shit and refused to move out of his cell, what do you do? nothing? run and hide? nope wrong again you HAVE to subdue inmate lopez, clean him off and get ihm the proper medical attention for the nice carving he made in his chest right before he skitzed and spread his own shit all over himself.
Corrections is far and away one of the most difficult jobs out there, mentally for sure, in 25 years on the job you will spend over 6.5 years locked up exposed to HIV, HEP B&C all sorts of shit. Could you get it done cheaper privately? of course but so could the school system if they lowered the standard to an associates degree. Would the teachers be cheaper? damn right, I have 60 misc. credits. Would they do the job, why not, how hard is it for someone with 14 years of school to tell a child, “read chapters one thru four and answer just the odd questions” then review it with the answer key.
Everyone thinks their job is hard, I would love a one week trade and see how many people wouldn’t want a raise in my job. FYI starting pay for me was 29,500 we get a step raise every year for 8 years along with cost of living, we don’t fall into 80 thou we have to wait 8 years to get there and state takes 11 years to hit 74.
I can’t just walk up to the county freeholders and ask for a raise, but on the same hand we have a 5 year contract that guarantees us a raise until we bargain a new one. If there weren’t so many of you people committing crimes, big or small maybe I would make less or there would be less of me.
You all hate law enforcement until you need them, then we’re your best friends. You’re getting your ass kicked by 3 guys I draw down to stop them, then I’m your best friend. Keep in mind I’m bound to act 24/7, I can’t pass even an accident on the side of the road if there is no cop on scene, even if I’m on my way to the gym or on my way out.
[quote]snipeout wrote:
A bunch of stuff about how shitty his job is, and how no one else wants to do it.[/quote]
Do you not understand that this entire thread is about the fact there ARE lots of people who are willing to do your job for less money. It is happening all over the country. They are doing it better, for less money. I provided you with the article showing just that.
If you are so confident that you are paid what you are worth, you wouldn’t fear competition. If you are making an honest wage, then nothing would change. That’s how the free market works. Hell, maybe you are getting screwed. Maybe if there wasn’t a government monopoly you could be making way more. If your job is so shitty and so valuable, privitization would make you more valuable. That’s what it’s done for me.
I have never once said that I should make more for teaching. I think I’m very fairly paid. At the school where I teach I make considerably more than the average school teacher in the state, but I have the results to back it up. If I had a bad year and my students only performed at the state average, I’d make way less than an average teacher. That doesn’t scare me.
Oh, and I’m not certified to teach. As long as we perform, we are free from a lot of red tape. Lower standards don’t equal lower results. Competition ensures that we perform.
Lowering standards in a law enforcement position doesn’t ensure competition, it ensures a greater amount of morons. Privatization would be a way to save money by cutting corners, fill out an application and now we hire you, no test needed. This is my last post on this subject. You don’t seem to grasp that in my state I am a police officer and regardless of anyones stance, yours or mine it is illegal to privatize corrections or any civil service position. 60,000 people a year take the new jersey civil service test, to me thats as open as competition gets. 60,000 people competing for a total of maybe a 1000 law enforcement jobs a year. Hell what do I care the PBA and to a lesser extent the FOP do protect me, and over a broader spectrum protect the citizens of the state of new jersey by requiring CO’s to be police officers, not half wit 10 dollar an hour mall securtiy rejects.
[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
Gregus wrote:
I love how much it “bothers” people when they see someone making more they feel they “deserve” to make.
It doesn’t “bother” me a bit. I am not a “hater”.
I am just smart enough to realize that when somebody makes an inordinate amount of money for the type of work they do that things are likely to change.
That is the way the economy works.
Feel free to keep applying your labels to people rather than try to understand why they may have other points of view.[/quote]
You say it dosent bother you but you state that it’s an inordinate ammount of money for what he does. That means you don’t think he deserves it, you propably feel this way becuase he maes more then you. Hell he makes way more then me, but so what, it’s his life, he made his bed, he earns it, good for him.
Let me ask you one question, Do you want to spend 8 hours plus overtime in jail? This job is not a cake walk, You in friggin JAIL yourself, don’t you get that? You’re locked down in a separate cage, they can’t even go out for lunch. All this and you’re surrounded by such positive people you can learn from all day, they’ll have auch a nice influence on your persona that you’ll come home all smiles always looking forward to the next day at the prison errr work.
You have to be big enough to see it what it’s for.