{"id":640393,"date":"2018-10-31T08:00:49","date_gmt":"2018-10-31T14:00:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=640393"},"modified":"2018-10-30T19:23:06","modified_gmt":"2018-10-31T01:23:06","slug":"gary-johnsons-stubborn-shameful-support-for-private-prisons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2018\/10\/gary-johnsons-stubborn-shameful-support-for-private-prisons\/","title":{"rendered":"Gary Johnson\u2019s stubborn, shameful support for private prisons"},"content":{"rendered":"

COMMENTARY:<\/strong> Gary Johnson has always been stubborn. During his eight years as governor, he was notorious for refusing to compromise or find middle ground once his mind was made up.<\/p>\n

When he didn\u2019t get his way he vetoed budgets, pulled funding for infrastructure projects, and even blocked pay raises for teachers. Johnson didn\u2019t care if his punitive temper tantrums hurt New Mexicans — it was about imposing his vision of how the world should look, even when there was clear evidence that he was wrong.<\/p>\n

\"Selinda

Courtesy photo<\/p>

Selinda Guerrero<\/p><\/div>\n

In a recent column<\/a>, Heath Haussamen pointed out Johnson\u2019s ardent support for private prisons. He noted that Johnson’s justification was saving taxpayers money, and that private prisons<\/a>\u00a0\u201coffer the same services and goods as the public prison services at two-thirds the cost.\u201d<\/p>\n

The problem with Johnson\u2019s claims is that they aren’t backed up by facts. The question of saving taxpayer dollars is debatable<\/a>. But the notion that private prisons maintain the same standards as government-run facilities has been proven by a mountain of reporting to be demonstrably false.<\/p>\n

There have been many<\/a> lawsuits against private prison companies. In fact, one of the worst offenders is the GEO Group<\/a>, the same company<\/a> that Johnson contracted to run<\/a> New Mexico\u2019s private prisons. According to a review<\/a> by the Federal Office of the Inspector General, \u201cin most key areas, contract prisons incurred more safety and security incidents per capita than comparable Bureau of Prisons institutions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Johnson hasn\u2019t just defended his push to privatize New Mexico\u2019s prisons; he\u2019s actually expressed regret that he wasn\u2019t able to privatize all of them. Why does he continue to eagerly promote the private prison system? It must be willful ignorance or his ego — neither answer is the kind of quality you want in a person who is running to be our next United States senator.<\/p>\n

Johnson\u2019s cheerleading for the private prison system also runs counter to the narrative he has carved out for himself as an advocate for criminal justice reform. His push for marijuana legalization and ending the War on Drugs is completely negated by his advocacy for a system<\/a> that profits off of locking people up.<\/p>\n

In the age of Trump, many of us have become desensitized to politicians who traffic in lies. But that doesn\u2019t mean that we shouldn\u2019t hold leaders accountable for their mistakes or their dishonesty.<\/p>\n

Johnson was wrong to grow private prisons in New Mexico, and his continued support of the industry, in spite of the body of evidence that contradicts his position, is a problem.<\/p>\n

But this is not new. This is the same Gary Johnson we\u2019ve known for decades. While his eccentricities might be fun for late night television shows, he should never be placed in a position of power again.<\/p>\n

Selinda Guerrero is a human rights activist and community organizer with the\u00a0Millions for Prisoners New Mexico Chapter.\u00a0Agree with her opinion? Disagree? NMPolitics.net welcomes your views. Learn about submitting your own commentary\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Johnson was wrong to grow private prisons in New Mexico, and his continued support of the industry, in spite of the body of evidence that contradicts his position, is a problem.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":640400,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1192,16],"tags":[2238,297,3712,267,116],"class_list":["post-640393","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-commentary","category-guest-columns","tag-2018-election","tag-gary-johnson","tag-incarceration","tag-u-s-senate","tag-washington"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/640393","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=640393"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/640393\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":640401,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/640393\/revisions\/640401"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/640400"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=640393"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=640393"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=640393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}