Now we have gated communities in jail too.

“Our sales pitch at the time was, ‘Bad things happen to good people,’ ” said Janet Givens, a spokeswoman for the Pasadena Police Department.

For roughly $75 to $127 a day, these convicts — who are known in the self-pay parlance as “clients” — get a small cell behind a regular door, distance of some amplitude from violent offenders and, in some cases, the right to bring an iPod or computer on which to compose a novel, or perhaps a song.

The clients usually share a cell, but otherwise mix little with the ordinary nonpaying inmates, who tend to be people arrested and awaiting arraignment, or federal prisoners on trial or awaiting deportation and simply passing through.

“The benefits are that you are isolated and you don’t have to expose yourself to the traditional county system,” said Christine Parker, a spokeswoman for CSI, a national provider of jails that runs three in Orange County with pay-to-stay programs. “You can avoid gang issues. You are restricted in terms of the number of people you are encountering and they are a similar persuasion such as you.”

For $82 a Day, Booking a Cell in a 5-Star Jail The New York Times.

Get this: if you have the money you can pay to stay in a safer and cleaner cell where you have more privileges than other inmates. I'm so shocked and angry to find out that this could go on in a country that claims to treat people equally.

Great. Now we have gated communities in jail too.

just had to add this, it's too absurd for words:

Still, no doubt about it, the self-pay jails are not to be confused with Canyon Ranch...Lockdown can occur for hours at a time, and just feet away other prisoners sit with their faces pressed against cell windows, looking menacing.

OMG! Angry poor people are LOOKING AT ME! Oh nos!