I. List at least five of the major controversies surrounding private-sector prison providers.
Modern private prisons have been around since the 1980s. Also identified as “Prison Privatization”, these private sector prison providers were utilized to bring together governments in need of additional prison capacity with private companies that can supply that capacity. Governments at the local, state or federal level sought bids from private firms to operate a prison, jail or detention center. Several major controversies surrounding private sector prison providers were centered on three points: cost, quality and morality.
Cost is perhaps the most common controversy that was often marred by ambiguities in accounting. There were questions in the private prisons on who should bear the costs of prisoner lawsuits, contract enforcement, on-site monitoring and health expenses. Private prisons often avoided inmates with greater health needs, thereby offloading costs onto the government. Traditionally, private prisons were paid to hold an inmate, and little attention was paid to later outcomes, such as
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Across the country, Prison institution work assignments include employment in areas like food service, laundry, warehouse, or work as an inmate orderly, plumber, painter, or groundskeeper. The fact that incarcerated offenders often participate in prison work programs is nothing new, however, some critics believes these programs verge on enslavement, with inmates paid meager wages that earns them less than $1.00 dollar per hour for the work assignments and a few states not requiring prisoners to be paid at all, denying the inmates the benefits and protections a civilian job would provide. It is hard to motivate an incarcerated person to make a serious effort to learn a trade while he is working in prison for such low wages when the same person has made a substantial amount of money illegally in his