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What Is Private Prison Privatization?

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The modern private prison first started and was established publicly in 1984 when Hamilton County, Tennessee had awarded the correction corporation of America (CCA) a contract to take over the facility. This was the first time the country had ever contracted out the complete operation of the jail to a private operator. The 1980s, brought in a new era of prison privatization. With a burgeoning prison population resulting from the “war on drugs” and prison overcrowding, increased use of incarceration and rising costs became increasingly problematic for local, state, and federal governments. Resulting from it all they had to begin expanding criminal justice system, private business interests saw an opportunity for expansion, private-sector …show more content…

They house out of state inmates to make extra money and charge a per diem or a monthly rate for each prisoner. CCA tried to gain full control of all the prison system of Tennessee but they were declined due to the opposition from public employees, disagreement and the skepticism of the state legislature. After the initial defeat at first, CCA still ended up successfully expanded and has other for-profit prison companies. “As of December 2000, there were 153 private correctional facilities (prisons, jails and detention centers) operating in the United States3 with a capacity of over 119,000 (Cheung, 2004).” Some people believe and set an argument that the privatization can save the government money and that the profit can help. Although there has not been much proof of this out of all the research to today says that there is no real difference. After numerous studies it still can’t be proven if it saves money and if it does how much it saves. (Cheung, 2004) says; “Proponents’ Arguments: Proponents contend that cost-savings and efficiency of operation place private prisons at an advantage over public prisons and support the argument for privatization. Research to date, however, casts doubt on the validity of …show more content…

“Gerald Gaes gives a specific numerical example involving Oklahoma, a high-privatization state, where a difference in overhead accounting can alter the estimate of the cost of privatization by 7.4% (Volokh, 2014).” Private prisons were most commonly smaller than the federal or state prisons so they can’t hold up to the same amount of prisons. There being, there has to be a lot more of them. “The first private contract to house adult offenders was in 1984, for a small, 250-bed facility operated by CCA under contract with Hamilton County, Tennessee (Seiter, 2005, pp. 162-165).” As of 2008 there was 126,249 state and federal prisoners held in a private prison, accounting for 7.8 percent of prisoners in general. So the private prisons quickly stepped up and made the prisons bigger to account for more prisoners. It is expected that private correctional operations will continue to grow and get stronger, due to a number of factors. With that being said the growth in the number of state and federal prisoners has slowed down in the past two to three years, there is still expected to be a huge increases in the number of inmates being held and with state and federal revenues down due to the recession, very few jurisdictions are constructing new prisons. Tightening the government’s budget forces them to look for other ways to make up for the

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For example the federal state, lease system and county governments pay private companies a fee for each inmate. Which means that they are able to keep prisoners as long as they want to keep their facilities filled. “Important evidence of the abuse that takes place behind the walls and gates of private prisons, it came to light in connection with a lawsuit filed by one of the prisoners who was bitten by a dog” pg. 96.

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With 105 prisons being public and 14 being private sector there have been long discussions and decisions being made to make numerous public sector run prisons, private. The quality of service provided by private prisons is being faced with criticism that quality is being reduced to improve efficiency. Michel Gove has to make sure he is being efficient with his finances to run public prisons as he is facing 40% budget cuts. This table shows how the private and public prisons budgets have been split over the past 5 years: The public sector figures for 2015/16 exclude budgets that will be added over the course of the year which includes the prison industries, contractors’, escorts and learning and skills. 2016 will be the first full year with the prisons and offender management system going through the new reformed system with a new budget of £3,230.414m programmes resource expenditure and a further £8.000m capital expenditure and a new focus of stabilisation of the system including finances and public value (Ministry of Justice, 2015) Justice Minister Jeremy Wright gave a statement to The Telegraph (2013) on private prisons that states: ”The cost of running our prisons is too high and must be reduced.

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The Reason Foundation study also criticizes the GAO study for overlooking certain cost comparisons in Australia, the United Kingdom, Kentucky, Texas, and Florida and notes that the GAO study is narrow because of its insistence on comparing identical facilities and refusal to consider hypothetical projections of government-run facilities (Moore 13). Yet even the Reason Foundation’s table of comparative studies shows a range in estimated savings of between 0 percent and 28 percent (Moore 12), suggesting that cost savings associated with private facilities are neither definite nor consistent. In addition, another factor that may be unaccounted for in the reports that claim private prisons are most cost-efficient is the cost of government monitoring and

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Private prisons are seen as a money-making investment and not a place of rehabilitation, and thus the prisoners needs are viewed in dollar signs. Without laws and governmental overseeing, private prisons can restrict the amenities available to prisoners. Although prisoners still maintain the majority of rights that non-prisoners do according to the law, the quality of life in private prisons is strictly at the mercy of millionaires who are looking to maximize their profits (Tencer 2012). In order to maintain those max profits, the prisons must stay full. Private prisons often have stricter rules that result in extended sentences for what are usually minor

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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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Hi I agree with your cost assessment involving jailed inmates, but not as most people imagine prison cost. My concern is with the private corporations that profit from jailing US citizens, it is business model aimed at legally embezzling American taxpayer dollars, these corporations deploy few ethics in their day to day business practice. Being only concerned with keeping their facility at, or near capacity. Consequently, unsavory governing officials scramble to meet contractual “lockup quotas.” Taxpayers pay for any empty beds should crime rates fall under quota.

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Across the United States, states and their governments have the tall task of keeping the streets safe from crime, and keeping criminals properly detained. States spend millions and even billions of dollars annually to run its prisons and support its inmates, and although many people support this, there is a large amount of tax payers who argue that education should have higher funding. Overspending becomes an issue when states and counties delegate more funding, which includes taxpayer money, to supporting these prisons than they do to other necessary institutions like public schools and public school students. The public, media, and government often argue whether rising funding and attention for prisons is a proper use of taxpayer money and

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The history of prison and incarceration in the United States have dramatically increased as well as the cost of keeping an inmate incarcerated. Every year, more and more prisons get overcrowded with mostly black and brown people with minor offenses. One of the main prisons is San Quentin State Prison which is the oldest and first prison ever opened in California. The prison first opened 166 years ago, on July 1852, at the northside of San Francisco Bay. It is able to hold 3,802 inmates.

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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).

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Since correctional services is operated by civil service workers there is no need to make a profit thus making the process less effected. CON: Correctional services run by civil service workers can be as efficient as a privately run correctional by adopting effectiveness strategies thus being cost efficient. Another reason is that a private company would choose perpetrators that are able to pay the fines involve when on parole and probation therefore

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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.

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Milakovich defines privatization as “a practice in which governments either join with, or yield responsibility outright to, private-sector enterprises to provide services previously managed and financed by public entities; a pattern especially evident in local government service provision, though with growing appeal at other levels of government” (2013, p. 39). This leads us to one of the issues facing the State of Florida: the privatization of prisons. The prison system in Florida has been slowly privatized and not much attention has been drawn to it until recently. A couple years ago, the state closed 19 prisons and many inmates were forced to move into old and rotting buildings. Some say that these privately owned prisons are more effiecient than state prisons and save money.

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Months after publishing Bauer’s story, Mother Jones reported on the effects that their article had in the private prison community. The more significant of these changes include, an independent DOJ investigation of private prisons, a decision by the DOJ to stop using private prisons, etc. (Andrews). If Mother Jones had not pursued this story, it is fair to say that CCA and Winn Correctional Center would have gone on operating the way they had for years: understaffed and putting profit over humanity. The conditions at Winn were dangerous for the prisoners, as they were abusing and neglecting them.

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The Immigration and Naturalization Service, now ICE, actually gave GEO its first private prison contract and gave CCA its first contract which led those two groups to be the most successful and largest private prison corporations/companies in the world (Mason, “Dollars and Detainees”). At the time GEO and CCA got their first contracts, USMS was contracting private companies to hold detainees in detention services which are usually used to hold illegal immigrants. The rate at which USMS and ICE held detainees in privately run facilities was actually higher than the rate at which state and federal prisoners were being held by private prisons in the last ten years (Mason, “Dollars and Detainees”). In 2010, the number of detainees held by ICE and USMS was about the same as the number federal level prisoners held by private prison facilities (Mason, “Dollars and Detainees”). Like private prisons are run by private corporations, the same ones that run private prisons.

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Private prisons companies can charge inflated prices which should not be allowed, or if it is the private prisons should give better living conditions. Private prisons should be banned in all countries, because it literally puts the prisoners in horrible conditions. Public prisons are already bad. If we decide to keep private prisons, we should at least have a guideline

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