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Why Should Private Prisons Be Banned

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Private prisons are fairly new, the first private prison was opened in 1984 by Corrections Corporation of America and operated a county jail and a juvenile detention center. Over the years the amount of inmates became far too much for the capacity of public prisons. The CCA advertises themselves as prisons that could take in the growing number of inmates. The purpose of a private prison is to make money by having people locked up. The percent of inmates in private prisons was eight percent in 2016. 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 …show more content…

Private prisons are not held to the same standard as public prisons. Public prisons have many rules such as what the prisoners are fed, medical care, and how many guards are on a unit. To help private prisons save cost the Federal Bureau of Prisons applied fewer rules on private prisons. To achieve a bit of a saving private prisons tend to cut back on staff cost and training and have a higher inmate-to-staff ratio than public prisons. The data on if private prisons save more is inconsistent, some research says it does, while some do not. The reason that the data is skewed is because some states allow private prisons to withhold their cost or refuse an evaluation. Private prisons diminish their quality in an attempt to save money. The regulations against private prisons are weak and even the rules that they must follow are lenient. Even with small amount of regulations, the regulations is not useful. For example, if monitors would want to impose significant fines, they would ask the Bureau of Prisons in Washington, who would make the fine small or refuse it altogether. With these type of regulations there is a great amount of things that private prisons can cut back on, yet they still do not manage to save a significant amount of money compared to the cost of a public prison, which has better

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It’s disturbing to find out that in private prisons the treatment that inmates receive is quite disappointing. Although the things they have done weren’t right but they are still people who deserve to get treated right. I would think that for private prisons the protection and the treatment would be better than prisons that aren’t private. Behind the walls and gates of prisons it’s a whole different world.

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713 Words | 3 Pages

He argues that privately contracted prisons reduce cost of corrections for federal and state budgets. Seiter explains how private and public corrections are not competitors but partners. Partners that “ are proud of the services they deliver and are committed to meeting the expectations of the taxpayer and public official responsible overseeing their work” (Seiter 419). Private prisons have the ability to buy the fundamental supplies, hire more staff to avoid overtime expense which lower the operating costs to run the prison and make more profit. Setier accurately states that over the past decade “ new growth in prison inmates is going to private prison” (419).

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754 Words | 4 Pages

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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322 Words | 2 Pages

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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1556 Words | 7 Pages

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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1561 Words | 7 Pages

This falls into the ethical issues because it makes it seem as though when someone enters a private prison, the odds are much likelier that they’ll have a longer stay than a public one. Time is something one can never get back, and private prisons are purposely wasting inmates’ lives just for financial gain (Pelaez). Prison privatization may also have affected sentencing. Prison privatization was supposed to be a solution to mass incarceration, not promote it. However, since privatization, three strike laws have been enacted.

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154 Words | 1 Pages

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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716 Words | 3 Pages

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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182 Words | 1 Pages

(Conley, 2013 Para 3) Private prisons receive a secured amount of money for each prisoner. According to Russell Boraas, (2014) a private prison administrator in Virginia, “the secret to low operating costs is having a minimal number of guards for the maximum number of prisoners.”

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174 Words | 1 Pages

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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240 Words | 1 Pages

First, there are not enough staff to monitor the inmates in private prisons. The reason is because labor costs is controlled by reducing number of staff, wages, and fringe benefits. The reduce in staff has caused inmates to lose their lives. Secondly, many workers within these facilities are inexperienced with key corrections

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574 Words | 3 Pages

The demand for private prisons has grown tremendously over the years. The government has relied on prison privatization to help address growing issues of overcrowding and financial stress in public prisons. However, many believe that privatizing prisons has led to and will continue to cause legal issues for our judicial system. In this paper I will discuss three potential legal issues associated with privatizing prisons. Privatization of prisons affects inmates negatively by neglecting and violating their rights.

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232 Words | 1 Pages

This political issue brought forth the attractability of private-owned prisons (Findlaw, n.d.). In short, the privatization of prisons would take pressure off the government, allowing them to shrink the amount of money they would spend on the prisons. Not long

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853 Words | 4 Pages

The private corporations do not care, and maybe they never will, for the inmates they are forcing into their facility. The use of private prisons are not the saving grace the government expected it to be; in fact it may be the devil itself. Private prisons are more relaxed with their safety and health guidelines. As a result, the inmates suffer the consequences of neglect. Private prisons are known to cut corners, and when forced to change they retaliate.

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1392 Words | 6 Pages

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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