One of the reasons it costs New York City more than three times what it costs Los Angeles or Chicago to take care of a prisoner for a day in a city jail is that the city and state political cultures here are averse to privatization. A 2002 state law prevents the city from hiring private jail guards. As we said back on November 22, “If the Republican governor is willing to remove even the threat of privatization, why should the politicians and bureaucrats and unions even bother to seek savings?” Since then, a corruption scandal has blossomed involving a Florida-based prison firm, Correctional Services Corp. The firm hasn’t commented and it hasn’t been charged with any wrongdoing, but two Democratic members of the state assembly, Gloria Davis and Roger Green, have acknowledged accepting transportation between New York and Albany from the company. It’s incredibly stupid of a company to do things like this, because when it comes out in public, it sets the cause of privatization back for years. Why would anyone turn a jail over to a company whose behavior was anything less than totally scrupulous? The company’s outside shareholders must also be disappointed in the firm’s tactics, which seem to be hurting, rather than helping, its chances of growth in New York. You can expect that in the coming days opponents of privatization will use this company’s flaws to argue against turning jails over to private companies. That makes as much sense as using Assemblywoman Gloria Davis’s flaws — she pleaded guilty in a bribery case — to argue against democracy. Bad apples should be held accountable, but, on the merits, the case stands that the city’s jails are due for a correction.