That’s the phrase that leaps to mind when I read about Goldman Sachs’ latest attempt to rehabilitate its image:
New York City, embracing an experimental mechanism for financing social services that has excited and worried government reformers around the world, will allow Goldman Sachs to invest nearly $10 million in a jail program, with the pledge that the financial services giant would profit if the program succeeded in significantly reducing recidivism rates.
The city will be the first in the United States to test ”œsocial impact bonds,” also called pay-for-success bonds, which are an effort to find new ways to finance initiatives that might save governments money over the long term.
First used in Britain and now being explored in Australia, the bonds are rapidly capturing the imagination of some public officials in the United States: on Wednesday, Massachusetts announced that it was completing negotiations with two nonprofit groups to finance juvenile justice and homelessness programs, with the promise of repayment only if the programs work.
This might bother me less if we already hadn’t seen the dark side of auctioning off prisoners to private companies.
Making a profit off a human life should be anathema to any civilized society, but I’m afraid that bar was lowered to the ground long ago in America. Just look at our healthcare system pre-Obamacare. Death panels, indeed.
This program has noble aims, don’t get me wrong. The idea is to have Goldman Sachs implement a program that helps inmates obtain the tools and counseling to make it in the real world once they leave. This is in the hope that there will be fewer repeat incarcerees.
I bet when the first slaves washed up on the shores of the colonies, the justifications of slave owners were just as noble. Indeed, “tame the savages” was probably right at the top of the list, just like it is in the Goldman Sachs contract.
That’s not to say that there shouldn’t be a rehabilitation track for inmates and incarcerees (the distinction being that Riker’s is a detention center, nominally a place to await trial, but de facto, it’s a prison, a place where the guilty serve time.) There should be a rehabilitative facility at Riker’s and it should be fully funded, as the small investment we make now in a young man or woman can prevent a far larger expense if he or she does end up back in the prison system.
The idea that a major investment bank is making money off these same young men and women should not be just unsettling, it ought to be raising barricades around the island, the mayor’s office and Goldman Sachs headquarters.
This is slavery, pure and simple.
Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them,and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows,or with both~FDouglas
How much do you think Goldman would need to work off?
This venture promotes lying, fraud, manipulation of the market, and privatization. Does Goldman offer any kind of pittance for paid employment to those who do not get sent back to jail? The city pays if they do not end up employed.
The origin of the universe has not as yet been shown to be a conspiracy theory
simply because really I don’t understand exactly what this program is about. Maybe y’all can explain to me where the evil creeps in. Is this how this works:
* Goldman “loans” the city $10 million to try a new program to reduce recidivism in the jails.
* The city/state/govt tries this new program out with the loaned money
* If it works, Goldman makes more than $10 million in return but the city makes much more in saved jailing costs (and social costs of course)
* If it doesn’t work, Goldman loses money (that I assume they can write off their taxes in a favorable manner)
Now $10 million for GS is like a latte to our budgets. They could just piss it away and never notice. As far as this program goes, they aren’t paid to keep people in jails, it’s an experimental program to keep people out. GS doesn’t make money if the released prisoners reoffend. So isn’t this really just a form of charity for GS and a way for NY to try something new with free money? GS gets some good PR and a favorable charity donation, the city gets to try out a program to reduce jail populations for free. What’s so bad about this experiment?
BTW – I hate private prisons, one of the worst ideas we’ve ever entertained. But is this really the same thing?
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/02/nyregion/goldman-to-invest-in-new-york-city-jail-program.html
with a lot of different points to make. Sorting by viewers picks and those of the NYT differs a lot
The origin of the universe has not as yet been shown to be a conspiracy theory
This is a social impact bond – a very straightforward type of arrangement. They’re not making money off these young men and women, they’re making money off the program – if it’s successful. Asserting that this is neo-slavery is wrongheaded – if you seek to critique, look instead at whether the risk-reward ratio for Goldman is out of whack.
“Everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you and you can change it, you can influence it, you can build your own things that other people can use.” ~ Steve Jobs
Goldman Sachs’s New York prison deal saves all the risk for the taxpayer
Replacing public responsibility with private profit is a one-way bargain, and the state will shoulder the burden when it goes bad.
and a great argument:
“We already know this song. In any situation where the private sector and government are both involved, there’s an implicit guarantee: when it all goes wrong, the corporation can bail and the state has no option but to pick up the slack. It’s dandy enough when privatized rail or for-profit security services are humming along, but when harder times come the corporations, whatever their bushy-tailed do-gooder capitalist roaders may have promised, have no incentive to make things better. Replacing public responsibility with private profit is a one-way bargain. There is no line item for the common good on an annual report.”
Indeed, the one left holding the bag is the one who owns the issue.
–never release them!
“It’s no longer IOKIYAR….It’s OK If You’re A Republican, but IOKBYAR–It’s OK BECAUSE You’re a Republican.” — Me
Like Goldman Sachs would EVER get involved in anything where it would LOSE money? lol.
don’t know much, but that i do know. Evil is evil and Goldman Sachs has a track record that proves it is only in it for profit. Doing God’s work, i heard. lol
Danger Will Robinson, Danger! that is for sure a sign you and i will pay for this. that is guaranteed. lol