Headlines
Prisons, privatization, patronage – Op ed
NJ: Dems seek new reports on NJ halfway houses
CA: Saving Calif. state parks: The end of public funding?
VA: New meeting set on fate of UVA president
TX: Texas A&M awards contract to privatize services

Prisons, privatization, patronage – Op ed
The halfway houses from hell in New Jersey are part of a broader pattern in which essential functions of government are being both privatized and degraded…But if you think about it even for a minute, you realize that the one thing the companies that make up the prison-industrial complex — companies like Community Education or the private-prison giant Corrections Corporation of America — are definitely not doing is competing in a free market. They are, instead, living off government contracts. There isn’t any market here, and there is, therefore, no reason to expect any magical gains in efficiency.  And, sure enough, despite many promises that prison privatization will lead to big cost savings, such savings — as a comprehensive study by the Bureau of Justice Assistance, part of the U.S. Department of Justice, concluded — “have simply not materialized.” To the extent that private prison operators do manage to save money, they do so through “reductions in staffing patterns, fringe benefits, and other labor-related costs.”  New York Times

NJ: Dems seek new reports on NJ halfway houses
Lawmakers called for stricter oversight of the system of prisoner re-entry centers, saying new requirements would lead to “better safety for our communities.” The plan came in response to articles published this week in The New York Times that examined the privately run system, which has beds for roughly 3,500 state inmates and parolees. The articles detailed unchecked violence, gang activity, drug use and hundreds of escapes from the facilities every year. Democratic lawmakers called for the Corrections Department to issue quarterly reports describing conditions inside the halfway houses, including the number of inmates, the number of escapes, incidences of violence and disciplinary measures taken.  New York Times

CA: Saving Calif. state parks: The end of public funding?
On July 1, 15 California state parks are slated to be closed permanently to the public — the first such closures in the state’s history. They’re the victim of budget cuts in a state with a $16 billion shortfall. …With 135 square miles of spectacular wilderness in the Diablo mountain range, Coe Park is considered one of the Bay Area’s greatest secrets. Its namesake, Henry Coe, was a cattle rancher whose land became a state park in 1958. The park will stay open for at least three years, thanks largely to the generosity of one man: an avid hiker and wealthy businessman named Dan McCranie…Getting the state off the hook for funding parks may also set into motion a slippery slope, says Rob Reich, who is a co-director of Stanford University’s Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society. [Individual philanthropists] set into motion this dynamic … where suddenly we’re not acting collaboratively or collectively as a public. … And suddenly we don’t have a civic sphere anymore … We don’t have an ‘us.’ We have a bunch of ‘I’s’. On one level, Reich says, McCranie’s donation makes a sweeping philanthropic statement. But Reich is also troubled by the questions it raises: What about parks in areas that don’t have a lot of money? Who saves them? And what about donors who attach all kinds of strings to their gifts? And does private philanthropy replace the common good? NPR

VA: New meeting set on fate of UVA president
The campaign for the reinstatement of Teresa Sullivan as the University of Virginia’s president took a giant step forward on Thursday as the governing Board of Visitors scheduled a special meeting for Tuesday to consider “possible changes in the terms of employment of the president,” the university announced. Since the board forced Dr. Sullivan to resign June 10, the campus has been in tumult, with thousands of faculty members, alumni and students urging that she be reinstated. Although the board voted 12 to 1 on Monday night to appoint Carl Zeithaml as interim president, the calls to return Dr. Sullivan to her job have only grown louder.  New York Times

TX: Texas A&M awards contract to privatize services
Texas A&M University on Thursday announced hiring a private company to run its campus dining, landscaping and building maintenance and cleaning services in a deal officials say is worth about $260 million in cash and savings for the school over the next decade…Sharp’s call to privatize food and other services had created some worries that hundreds of jobs at the A&M system’s flagship campus would be in jeopardy. But Sharp said the company has agreed to keep current workers in their jobs and match their current salaries and benefits. Star-Telegram