India to Send Prisoners to U.S.
Washington to Offer Detention Outsourcing
Federal penitentiaries like this one will now be called, “detention outsourcing centers.”
Richieville News Service – NEW DELHI
Indian Finance Minister Shri P. Chidambaram today announced the completion of a trade deal that allows convicts from all of India’s 35 states and territories to serve out their sentences in American prisons. The deal came just days after it was reported that although the United States has less than 5 percent of the world’s population, it has nearly a quarter of the world’s prisoners.
“When we learned that the U.S. is number one in keeping people locked up, we just naturally thought of going there for our prison services,” said Mr. Chidambaram. “If you want good prisons, it makes sense to go to the folks who are really good at putting people behind bars, just like people come to us because we’re good at software development, semiconductor design, computerized record keeping and database management, tech support and sales service centers, generic drug manufacturing and melodramatic movies with lots of catchy song and dance numbers.”
In Washington, Trade Representative Susan C. Schwab hailed the deal as a win for the struggling American economy. “This proves the U.S. can compete in the world marketplace and that globalization is a two-way street,” she said. “We offer a full range of prison services from minimum security to capital punishment. Very few countries can say that.” She added that she expects the U.S. lead in the field to be maintained for quite some time. “China has, like, ten times as many people as we do yet they only manage to lock up 1.6 million of their citizens. We have 2.3 million Americans behind bars. I don’t think they’re going to catch up any time soon.”
Many Wall Street analysts gave credit for the deal to the worldwide publicity American prison methods have received thanks to news stories about Guantanamo Bay and Abu Gharib. Meanwhile, state governments began jockeying for a piece of the India prison business, but many details still needed to be worked out, especially how to keep track of the Indian prisoners once they are in the vast U.S. prison system. Ms. Schwab conceded that there were obstacles that needed to be overcome. “Those long Indian names are pesky,” she said. “and are hard for our prison staffs to understand, but we have a plan for that – we’re going to outsource Bureau of Prison record keeping to India.”
