The industry has much power in states that learn further right-wing in the political sphere; mostly due to the views of many regarding the restriction of the government power and preference for the privation of most all services. When prisons are privatized, profits then become the main purpose and as a result, those incarcerated in privatized institutions often suffer as a result; mostly in the poor food, labor conditions, and overcrowding. This issue of terrible conditions of these prisons doesn’t just influence the incarcerated, they instead affect society as they often fail at rehabilitation, even at a higher rate than public, creating more crime when those incarcerated are reintroduced into
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
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
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.
Looking at the statistics, the number of prisoners has multiplied by almost 800% from 1980 – 2013, is the primary reason why the federal state has first resorted to the privatization of prisons, the same sentiment was related by the Justice Department’s Inspector General, Michael Horowitz, to prevent overcrowded public facilities of federal jailhouses. However, with the report that he has released earlier in August, it turned out that private prisons are now more problematic and violent than its public
This was a very infomative DB on the privatization of prisons. You briefly mentioned that without proper regulation in place for privatized prisons then, "detrimental side effects could surface, such as a diminished quality of service proving (to be) inefficient. " I think this could be said for both public and privatized prisons. In the early years of corrections, institutions usually lacked the profesional standards, central managment, and consistency in operations that is required today. The American Correctional Association (ACA) was developed and has been "instrumental in encouraging professional development and accrediting correctinal agencies" (Seiter, 2011, p. 518).
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.
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.
Alyssa Arellano Professor May English 1302-42218 March 1, 2024 Profit Over Progress: How Private Prisons Increase Recidivism Rates? A prison is a place where criminals are supposed to go to be punished for a crime that they have committed, but also where they are supposed to go through rehabilitation and become productive members of society. The original goal when creating these institutions was to make them with the intention of lowering the rate of and preventing recidivism, which is the tendency to re-offend.
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.
Private prisons have been increasing more and more over the decade and this is due to the fact that private prisons are handed to a third party to handle and manage thus causing the government to worry about one less thing on their agenda. Not only have private prisons been increasing because it is one less thing for the government to worry about but also because the it benefits the government with more cost-efficient prisons. To further elaborate on the above statement, private prisons are run by third parties and due to this it leads to a reduced cost because when it is run by third parties, third parties do not have to follow the same rules a government prison would. For example, private prisons can pay much less for security than a government
The privatization of prisons has many supposed benefits but also presents many weaknesses. While “proponents of privatization argue that by having private, for-profit businesses run jails and prisons, taxpayers end up paying less for incarceration of inmates” (Cincinnaticriminalattorney.com). However, “opponents argue that cost savings haven’t manifested as promised and that private prisons have a detrimental impact on society by failing to focus on rehabilitation of inmates, but instead on warehousing offenders in exchange for a fee per inmate.”
The controversy between state-ran prisons versus private prisons started in 1852, when the first U.S. private prison was introduced. Escapes, riots, and in-prison crimes happen substantially more in private prisons than in public prisons.
The privatization has a much more positive connotation due to its relationship with capitalism, yet thus far prison privatization has been a spectacular flavor but with considerable reform will be successful. While capitalism may be good for business, it does not appear to be a good fit for prisons. Many past studies and crimes against humanity have shown that the best-proven method to keeping a large number of people in order and under the control of their authority is by dehumanizing and using significant force as seen in the Stanford prison experiment. If private prisons were to employ such methods, it would decrease the number of guards necessary, but would certainly violate the rights of the inmates. Statistics from the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) state that private institutes employ 33% fewer correctional officers
Privatization has existed since the 1980’s, and helps the government deal with the exponentially increasing numbers of those who have been sentenced to prison. Kicenski states “Between 1973 and 1997, the number of people behind bars rose more than 500 percent and today, state and federal prisons along with local jails house more than 2.2 million inmates … (Kicenski 1).” This number if inmates is only increasing as time passes and the number of available cells is decreasing just as rapidly. Private corporations can build and run prisons faster than the government can, so outsourcing to them seems to be the best idea. The corporations achieve a profit and the available prisons will start to not be exceeding their capacity as often.
