WSJ had a hilarious report yesterday about the frantic search for prisoners to fill empty prison beds that have resulted from frantic construction to meet court orders and mandatory sentencing now offset by declining crime rates -- or sentencing rates -- and governments kicking prisoners out of jail to reduce costs. The competiton between government-run prisons and the commercial ops have led to fabulous lobbying and jawboning of legislators and wardens to spread the lucrative but diminishing prison-care population around, represented in the report by Mississippi's plight of having too few prisoners to fill its state pens and county jails. At one point a bill was near passage that would have paid commercial operators for empty beds, for "ghost prisoners," so they wouldn't pull out to the business (following the admirable lead of the defense and farming industries). When that term made it into the news, there was a quick veto of the bill, but still the struggle goes on to find more prisoners or bookkeeping simulations thereof. Florida leads the nation with over 80,000 empty prison beds. Pity the pressured investigators and prosecutors and spooks to fabricate more enemies of the state or AP-bookkeeping simulations thereof.