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
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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