Americans really need to seriously sit down and re-think exactly what we want our prison system to accomplish — rehabilitate crooks so that they can see the error of their ways and become productive members of society again? Or create thugs, psychopaths and terrorists unfit for human company? Or produce pathetic weaklings ground down by a slave-labor system that has made them old far before their time and who will be a burden on society for the rest of their lives?

There is a good possibility voters in California will get a chance to reform their 1994 “three strikes” law this November. Supporters of the ballot initiative to reform the law claim they turned in signatures well in excess of the 500,000 required by state law to qualify for the ballot.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the ACLU of Michigan reports the Michigan Department of Corrections has decided to no longer routinely subject women to body cavity searches at the Women’s Huron Valley Correctional facility. The facility had been forcing women to spread their vaginas for searches after shifts in prison jobs, after receiving medical care and after being visited by family, religious workers, lawyers or any other person who might want to see them in prison.

A consortium of civil liberties, religious and health organizations, and experts including the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) are challenging a strip-search procedure prisoners in Michigan’s Women’s Huron Valley Correctional Facility (WHV) are forced to submit to that is nothing less than sexual sadism by the state. In the prison that operates under the umbrella of the Michigan Department of Corrections, women are forced to remove their clothing and spread the lips of their vaginas so that a guard can peer inside. Female prisoners are forced to do this after they meet with family members, religious workers, their lawyers, or anyone else who may visit them in prison.

Following on the announcement of the removal of all juvenile prisoners in Mississippi from private prisons, the Department of Justice has just released a report of its findings in investigating the Walnut Grove Youth Correctional Facility, which is run by the GEO Group. Walnut Grove was the target of the lawsuit that resulted in the prohibition on sending juveniles to private prisons, and it turns out the state was more than justified in ordering such a removal.

Florida’s politicians really just can’t take a hint. After they failed to force widespread privatization on the state’s prison system, against the wishes of the director of their DOC (but at the behest of companies that spent a million dollars lobbying the legislature), the asshats in the state legislature are back at it, this time with a vengeance. Even the fact that the GEO Group is under FBI investigation over a deal that brought a private prison to the state, and the state’s Circuit Court ruling the initial push unconstitutional, have failed to slow down the push to privatize.

Private prison companies don’t make money by generating more revenue; they make it by cutting costs, in things like maintenance, security, and medical care provided to prisoners. So private prisons simply don’t offer better or even equivalent services and conditions compared to state-run facilities. But the findings of the audit may surprise those who aren’t familiar with this blog or the industry: the state wouldn’t actually save any money by privatizing its prisons. That’s right; even though they pay less, offer less benefits, cherry-pick the cheapest prisoners, and cut corners in every area of operations, private prisons cost just about as much to operate in Arizona as state-run facilities.

Los Angeles county sheriff is suffering through the worst performance record in the country outside of noted racist Joe Arpaio in Maricopa County, Arizona. First, Sheriff Lee Baca had to endure credible allegations of mistreatment of prisoners in county lockups. Now, he has a new scandal on his hands.

According to California sources, “nearly 12,000 prisoners were on hunger strike, including California prisoners who are housed in out of state prisons in Arizona, Mississippi and Oklahoma.” This is the second hunger strike in less than four months, with prisoners at the Supermax Pelican Bay Prison and other California state prisons protesting the use of long-term solitary confinement, in addition to four other main demands, including provision of adequate and nutritious food, and an end to administrative abuses.

In terms of forensic psychology, why do prison abuses occur in for-profit prisons? Jenni Gainsborough, director of Penal Reform International, says many corporations take shortcuts in training prison guards. Prisons are no place for novice security workers, but require well-trained staff that are highly educated to respond to the types of situations common in a prison. Workers need to understand prisoner’s rights, appropriate self-defense procedures, and need to be able to communicate with prisoners in a fair and effective manner.