Privatized jails due careful look, debate
/As they continue to search for budget relief, some
Shelby County commissioners are considering privatizing the Downtown
jail and the Shelby County Correction Center. But the question of
whether government should transfer its sovereign responsibility for the
safety, health and welfare of its incarcerated citizens to private
companies deserves thorough study and much debate. More than 80 percent
of the approximately 4,700 adults in the jail and the correction center
are African-American. That's a relevant statistic because private
prisons have a sordid history in the South that dates to the racist
"convict leasing" systems of the late 19th Century. [more 
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