Privatized Prisons

"The figures show that the United States has locked up more people than any other country: a half million more than China, which has a population five times greater than the U.S. Statistics reveal that the United States holds 25% of the world’s prison population, but only 5% of the world’s people"(Pelaez). The Global Research website publishes new article, commentary, background research and analysis on a broad range of issues, focusing on social, economic, strategic and environmental issues. Within the wealth of articles , there was an article that stood out and talked about the USA 's prison system and provided great statistics like the one above. The imprisonment rate have gone up, and now there is got to be a reason for such a rapid growth

The increase of privatized prison allows the prisons to treat the prisoners like slaves." Our belief is that reentry begins at the time an inmate is placed in our care. To support this philosophy, we offer evidence-based programs including academics, addictions treatment, vocational training, faith-based initiatives and life skills courses" (http://www.cca.com).This statement is straight out of the CCA official website. The CCA is one of the biggest corporations to own prisons. They seem to belief that, their prisoners ' first step of reentry start with them. They also go as far to say that they provide programs that help the prisoners to be ready upon reentry, yet they seem to not mention the prison labor they have the prisoners do for them. In the prison the prisoners are forced to work and they do not get paid a reasonable amount for their work. There is a term for this and it is prison labor. The first thing that comes to one 's mind is this even legal? Well Global Research website answers that question ."At least 37 states have legalized the contracting of prison labor by private corporations that mount their operations inside state prisons" (Pelaez). 37 states have made prison labor legal but they didn 't put any regulation on how much should the prisoners should get paid. How come 37 states made it legal for this to happen and how come the CCA has no information on their website about the prison labor that goes on their facilities. Now the private prisons easily

The growth of privatize prison allows the originations to keep prisoners longer, or even find way to fill up their prisons. On the CCA official website they claim that "At its essence, that 's what reentry means. It is providing inmates with the services, support and resources they need to become better equipped to face the realities of life on the outside in a positive way"( http://www.cca.com/). The CCA claims to have reentry programs for the inmates so they would not returned to prison, but if a prisoners leaves the prison and goes back to the streets the CCA loses money. Now if the CCA lose money if the prisoners gets out of prison why would they have these programs? Well they claim to have these programs that help the inmates prepare to reenter the world, but Paul Reynolds who was a corrections officer at the privately owned lake Erie prison claims in an interview "You get them into system, get them in prisons, and you’re warehousing them, you keep them there and you charge the state as much as you can for them and put very little back in return to those inmates. Basically, there’s no rehabilitation when it comes to privatization like this"(Shevardnadze). Reynolds witness how the CCA runs prisons and saw that there is basically no rehabilitation program unlike the CCA claims. Then again why would they have such program that would make them lose profits in the future. By denying these programs to the inmates they are most likely to stay longer or return to the