CHARLOTTE, NC (CAP) - Battery cages, the stacked wire cages commonly used for egg-laying hens, have a long and noble tradition in animal agriculture. Recent studies have proven them such an effective tool for lowering costs while also lowering the quality of life of sentient non-human beings that the private prison industry has announced plans to adapt battery cages for human use in America's corrective services industry.
Micah Preston, President and CEO of Corrective Rehabilitative Allied Penal Services, told CAP News that prison crowding remains a huge issue in the corrective services industry, with private prison operators struggling to crowd large numbers of adult men and women into smaller and smaller spaces in order to maximize profits and "raise the bar" for prisons' penal impact.
"The factory farms have already addressed this very same issue, so it occurred to us here at CRAPS, why reinvent the wheel?" Preston said. "We can automate feeding and watering for the inmates, and the stacked wire cages are so efficient that we can hopefully fit between eight to ten inmates in each one.
"More if they're Mexican or Filipino," he added.
Preston added that another advantage of the sloped wire floors of the battery prison cages will be decreased sanitation costs.
"With the sloped floors in the prison battery cages, the human waste that doesn't naturally drop through the wire bars will just roll down into troughs below," Preston explained. "That means we'll be able to cut down on bathrooms and plumbing expenses.
"And, it'll be tougher for the critters to pick up their feces and throw them at the guards like they like to do, because their fingers will snag on the wiring," noted Preston.
Prison warden Tripp Hartmann of Charlotte, NC. expressed enthusiasm for the new agri-style prison cell design.
"In the factory farms, poultry get their feet and heads stuck between the bars of the cages, and there's not enough room for them to really move around or spread their wings," Hartmann opined. "That same system is ideally suited to reduce violence here in the human pens. I mean, if you can't spread your arms, you're not going to be able to assault some dude."
Preston emphasized, however, that time is of the essence in developing the new agri-style prisons. While battery cages for use in the animal industry remain permissible throughout most of the United States, they've been banned in most European nations, suggesting a trend toward eradicating particularly torturous factory farming practices.
"Prison profits are at stake," Preston stated. "We can't take the chance that that American policies will move even slightly in the direction of compassion for any animals, human or non-human. For that reason, we need to move on this now. And we intend to."
- Chrissy Benson
Contributing Writer