Let's Make a Deal
Joseph F. Johnson Jr. sold the District on the thoroughly modern notion of privatizing government services. Unfortunately, some of the deals he's wired up look like the same old same old.
Cover Story
Tilting his portly frame back in a boardroom chair, Joseph F. Johnson Jr. ticks off a well-rehearsed pitch about the merits of private prisons. Perched five floors above Connecticut Avenue in his plush office conference room, Johnson is sales personified: The way Johnson tells it, he is not selling prisons; he's selling freedom. "No state should ever build another prison. You have the private sector that will put up all the capital and take all the risks," he says. "The government should invest in schools and infrastructure."
Impeccably dressed, with spit-shined shoes and linked cuffs, Johnson is the District front man for the Correctional Corporation of America (CCA), the nation's largest private prison company. He trades in concepts, "pieces" of deals that promise government nirvana—zero budget impact, low risk, better services.
Johnson's private-sector magic bullet is a timely one in a cash-strapped city like D.C. and has proved nearly irresistible to those in charge of finding a way to get from one day to the next. Under pressure from Congress to balance the budget, D.C.'s elected officials who once eschewed privatization as a betrayal of city employees and an abrogation of government power have now embraced the concept as a two-fer: saving money and improving services at the same time. ... Continued 
Issue of May. 9 - 15, 1997
News and Features
- Let's Make a Deal
Cover Story - The Naked City
The City - Ground Zero
The City - Guidance Missive
The Mail - Thanks Hank
The Mail - Six Sense
The Mail - Ward of Attrition
The Mail - Term Paper
The Mail - The Shadow Knows
The Mail - The Greening of D.C.
The Mail - Also Rand
The Mail - Unmellow Drama
The Mail
Columns
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Loose Lips
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Young & Hungry
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- Grrrl Trouble
Film Review - Rhapsody in Blue
Film Review
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- Raw Power
Music Review - First Rays of the New Rising Sun
Music Review - The Global Masters
Music Review - This Ain't No Disco
Music Review
Theater
- Summer Camp
Theater Review - Sea Legs
Theater Review
Arts and Events
- Sunday in the Lobby With Lloyd
Artifacts - The Gift
Artifacts - Responding in the Affirmative
Artifacts - Tea and Empathy
Books - Beneath Contempt: A Briefly Annotated Selection of Ignorable Art
Art Review - Endless, Nameless
Art Review - Soft Machines
Arts
City Lights
This week's best in Arts and Entertainment.
- Quentin Crisp
City Lights - The Orb
City Lights - Pavement
City Lights - Pablo Picasso: The Legacy of a Genius
City Lights - Keeping Time: Photographs of Musicians by John Cohen and Milt Hinton
City Lights - Liviu Ciulei
City Lights - The Woman in the Moon
City Lights - All Out for Public Higher Education in the District of Columbia
City Lights - Chris Whitley
City Lights - El Canario
City Lights - Solar Eclipse and Lamont
City Lights - Gala Opening of Sankofa
City Lights - Ward Just
City Lights - Grace F. Edwards
City Lights - Life in the Theater
City Lights - The Mollys
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