Privatising prisons

I agree we need new prison buildings but they still shouldn't be privately owned or run.

I don't know. Looking at Wandsworth prison on the news last night I was struck by its poor design. More modern designs of prisons effectively edit out the possibility of such group behaviour. It all comes down to money of course. Buildings, recruitment of the right staff (as opposed to people who have always done it) good training and support for these staff and meaningful activity for the prisoners is extremely expensive. I reckoned that those young lads I saw on the news needed to kept occupied in fairly tiring activities to burn off the energy that goes into procuring drugs and resultant violence. Heavy farm work? At least that might be productive. No easy answers as usual.