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Pros And Cons Of Private Prisons

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Private, for-profit prisons have received a lot of negative media attention over the years, and often with good reason. As a result, President Barack Obama instituted a plan to eliminate the use of private federal prisons. (-- removed HTML --) This decision was reversed (-- removed HTML --) by the Trump administration, meaning that no matter what your politics are, it's appropriate to look once again at the corruption within private prisons that puts at inmates at risk.

Prisoners Are in Danger Before They're Even in Prison

There are many appalling things about the for-profit prison system that happen behind closed doors and do not necessarily put the inmates in harm's way. However, perhaps one of the worst scams that directly contributes to overcrowding and other health and wellness concerns is bribing judges to produce more inmates. There are numerous news stories about this particular form of corruption.

In one instance, a Pennsylvania judge received a staggering (-- removed HTML --) $1 million kickback (-- removed HTML --) for sending juveniles as young as 10 to prison. Children were actually sentenced to several months in a private juvenile facility for crimes as innocuous as stealing a single jar of nutmeg. One particularly sad case involves a first-time offender who missed his entire senior year due to a drug …show more content…

Years later, an investigation into for-profit prisons discovered that many of them were too crowded. In other words, importing prisoners, bribing judges and inflating sentences has led to there being too many inmates to house safely. Instead of owning up to this, the corruption inherent in this industry causes prisoners to be in unsafe conditions. It's not hard to imagine what happens in an overly-crowded, improperly maintained facility; tensions flare, fights increase and germs are more easily

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Private prisons were constructed as a response to the overcrowding in federal prisons during the 1980s; many people speculate whether or not private prisons are good or bad. Critics argue that private prisons like any business are driven by profit, and prisons profit from the amount of criminals they are able to contain which gives the private prisons and their shareholders incentive to keep the prison population high and expenses low. The National Council on Crime and Delinquency estimates that over the next ten years state and federal expenditures on prisons will amount to $351 billion6. These government subsidies along with the support of private prison shareholders allow the prison industrial complex to keep their power and influence

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Ever since For-Profit prisons started, jails have been overcrowded and are distributing inmates into prisons in neighboring states, such as Arizona, Mississippi, and Oklahoma. Judges and the government only have one thing in mind. Profit. As a result of wanting more profit, judges are convicting more prisoners for petty crimes. Therefore, For-Profit prisons have more employees to make more products.

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Private prison began booming in the 1980s, under the presidential terms of Ronald Reagan and Bush Sr., however, it slowed down in 1990. When prison sales began to slow down in the 1990's, Clinton who was the acting president, wanted to cut the program but the Justice Department took over and began contracting private prison out to corporations again. Private prisons are the largest business in the prison industry. About 18 corporations guard 10,000 prisoners in 27 states.

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The placement of so many people into prisons for general, popular, frequent non-violent crimes has lead to such an extravagant number of people inside the walls used to punish people of horrific

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The privatization of the prison system has made it so that individuals who have committed a crime are no longer seen as people but as profits. Prisons receive more money and more laborers (which they grossly underpay) with the addition of new inmates, so it is in the best interests of prison corporations to increase the volume of prisoners as well as expanding the length of sentences. Private prisons started out as a cost-effective way to house inmates, but after yielding large investments and profits, they began lobbying for new and harsher punishments resulting in America having the highest levels of incarceration in the world. In 1984, the first private prisons were created, the founders claimed that the prisons funded by the government but run privately would cost considerably less than prisons run at the county, state, and federal level.

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This type of monopoly, in the prison system, can promote injustice and corruption. In the end it’s the inmates that lose time and time again. The government should focus its resources on the corporations, and curbing the amount of people being incarcerated for victim less

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This is due to the fact that inmates are unable to unionize, and are effectively slaves to the company that runs the prison. This has lead to private prisons becoming multi-billion dollar corporations, that only care about making money. This creates a conflict of interest since if there are more people being incarcerated, there are more inmates that can exploited, that in turn makes these corporations more money.

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Half of the money that is getting spent on the prisoners could be going toward state schools, or fixing roads. The amount that is spent on the prisoners is a lot more than it should be. We the tax payers are paying for all the luxury’s that a prisoner can have. At Bayside state prison lunch

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In prisons today, they are large, guarded, organized penitentiaries that rehabilitate prisoners in a controlled and heavily guarded environment while also doing it in humanitarian ways. This system of prisons allows people who have committed crimes to learn from their mistakes and become better people after their sentence. This wasn't always the case, however, before the antebellum period, prisons were unorganized, poorly funded, and run, and their morals were completely based on physically harming prisoners to “teach them a lesson.” Before this movement, the crime rates across the United States surged with a large increase of immigrants moving to the country. Due to this, there was a large need for a change in the prison system so reformers

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Contradictory to what has been said, private prisons are not as safe as public prisons. Private prisons were created as a cost saving alternative, but this means the corners are being cut to provide these “savings”. Staff training at facilities are lower than the compared staff training at public facilities. Without the proper training, prison staff may not know how to properly defuse a situation or handle conflict. In turn, this can create a dangerous and deadly prison environment.

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Topic: Prison overcrowding General Purpose: To inform Specific Purpose: At the end of my speech, the audience will be able to identify and describe the key reasons and issues of prison overcrowding. Introduction Attention Getter Imagine being locked up in a confined space with little to no air conditioning, concrete walls, concrete floors, poor sanitation, rowdy peers, no soft comforts of a home, and a lack of the everyday basic needs.

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The amount of private prisons has increased since they were first created. Private prisons should be banned because they do not benefit anyone besides the corporations. Private prison’s treatment of inmates are not beneficial to the inmates quality

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Kimberly, it is easy to see what side of the fence you are on. Nonetheless you raised some very real concerns and your discussion caused me to mull over the government role when it comes to private prisons. I’m sure the government has a hand in the way that private prisons are being maintained but how much. I would be highly surprised if private prisons were given free reign because the government in some sort of way regulates all businesses and private prisons are no exceptions. According to the National Criminal Justice Reference Service (NCJRS) the government does have a hand in how private prisons are operated and nearly all facilities received some oversight from the contracting agency (McDonald & Patten, 2004).

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The prison-industrial complex is a corrupt political system that consists of overpowered politicians whose sole ambition is exploiting poor, uneducated, and under-privileged Americans to make money. Although, it wasn’t initially the purpose when Rockefeller started the war on drugs, but he started something bigger than he could’ve imagined at that time. The prison system has been proven to be ineffective, and costly waste of resources. However, it probably won’t be abolished due to the cash flow that it brings to some of the largest corporations in the

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My grandma is the 911 dispatcher for O'Brien County and has been doing this for 52 years and knows lots about inmates. She explained to me that at one point some prisons had more inmates than they did beds. Overpopulation has burnt holes in many people's wallets. All taxpayers pay for most of the needs of prisoners which to me is stupid.

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