Fewer Criminals in Prison=More Crime: The British may be learning something today that the United States learned thirty years ago.  A story in the Telegraph reports that official figures on crime showed that burglaries, robberies and theft offenses have risen in England.  An unpublished report from Britain's Policy Exchange Crime and Justice Unit disclosed that there are 410,000 more hardened offenders on the streets today than in 2001.  The report found that, of that number, 350,000 are habitual criminals, each of whom commit an average of 260 crimes annually.  Commenting on these findings, a research fellow at the think tank said, "these figures are a terrible indictment of the failure to crack down on the crime that blights so many of our communities... [a]ccording to these figures only one in every 20 criminals is in prison."  A spokesman for the British Government disputes these findings noting that there are many ways to estimate levels of criminality.  He said that official studies show no increase in the number of prolific offenders.   

Arizona Prisons May Go Private: New York Times writer Jennifer Steinhauer reports that  Arizona will soon ask for bids from private companies to run 9 of their 10 prisons housing  40,000 inmates.  The state hopes to save $100 million from its roughly $2 billion budget shortfall by contracting out management of its prisons.  Among the facilities state officials hope can be run less expensively by private companies is the state's death row.  The story reports that while executions would still be carried out by the state, the state would relinquish the day-to-day management to the private operator.  The Chairman of the state's House Appropriation Committee noted that "We have private prisons in Arizona already, and we are very happy with the performance and the savings we get from them."