Locking Up Immigrants For Profit

Due to the tight labor market, companies are relying on prisoners to provide them with labor. As of now, private prisons have become one of the largest powers in the “prison-industrial complex.” There are approximately 18 private prison corporations, which guard 10,000 prisoners, and more than 37 states have legalized the contracting of prisoners by private companies (Prison Slave Labor: Fascism U.S. – Style). For both the prisons, and the companies, it’s a good deal. Whyte and Baker list the benefits for those who utilize prison labor: no unions, strikes, health benefits, unemployment

Traditionally, there have been four justifications for punishment: deterrence, confinement, rehabilitation and retribution. While these methods can be flawed at some point in history they served as primary reasons for the justification of punishment. Recently, there has been an epistemic shift in thinking about punishment where now it is focused on retribution and incarceration. The emphasis on this method has lead to an increase in incarceration and the rise of a prison system. While we acknowledge that there will always be a need for society to punish criminals in order to protect the rights of individuals, however a prison/prison system is not the correct way to handle such problems. Currently the prison system is being used an economic tool for private companies to exploit cheap labor from inmates. Known as the prison-industrial complex private enterprises are now able to build more prisons to “benefit” society and themselves as the prison population grows. Since the 1980’s the growth in prison

With the exponential increases in government expenditure on immigration enforcement since 2001, private industry accurately views immigration detention as a growth industry, and corporations have therefore devoted their resources to lobbying for those policies and programs that will increase their opportunities to do business with the federal government (DWN.org). Speculations that private prison corporations are more concerned with generating profit rather than the safety and security of detainees have emerged. Human rights violations have become more apparent through raids, deportations, and detentions against immigrants have been rampant with rationalization made in the name of homeland security since 9/11. The potential profitability of ownership and operation of detention centers are not the only means for generating profits, private industries operating within federal, state, and local facilities stand to generate substantial profit from subsidiary industries as well. Under the guise of protection of the general public and homeland security, these private prison systems create an image of being the solution to the “immigration problem,” when in reality most are only concerned

At the expense of the young, to the detriment of the poor, and on the backs of the immigrants is the means by which the private prison companies have constructed a business that trades freedoms for profit but more concerning is to what ends these freedoms are being exchanged. The advancement of the private prison system has changed the face of the prison industry as we know it. Because little attention has been given in the media to the private prison industry, they have been able to expand their influence and their revenue by means the average American would consider unscrupulous. Private prisons came about to act as the solution to a problem facing federal prisons, overcrowding, which was created due to the war on drugs, but in acting as a solution to one problem they created another one that could be more problematic than the one it intended to fix. Proponents of private, for profit, prisons claim that it is a better alternative than federal prisons because they can provide the same service for less and save taxpayers money in the process. They also contend that the service they provide would help to stimulate the economy. However, privatization of America’s prison systems will contribute to an increase in the incarceration rate and unfairly target certain demographics of the population, which could lead to psychological trauma affecting the people of those demography’s that it

Crime rates are down in America, yet there is an unproportionately large number of Americans incarcerated. This paper will delve into and examine this problem and how it is closely linked to private prisons and the issues surrounding them. While private prisons claim to be cost effective and well-run, evidence has shown that these profit-driven companies ignore ethical consequences by purposefully lengthening prisoners’ sentences, target certain groups for incarceration and maintain despicable living standards for the prisoners; ultimately, these prisons have caused more harm than good for the state.

America has a major problem with overcrowding in its prisons, and action needs to be taken. Since 1970, the inmate population in the United States has increased over 700%, far greater than the general population as a whole. This has led to declining quality of life within the prison system including 8th Amendment violations and it represents a needless drain on state finances. There is simply no value in keeping non-violent convicts in the prison system, sometimes for years. The costs are high, and there is very little benefit to America. The justice system needs to be overhauled to relieve the massive crowding in US prisons.

The Citizenship USA project, pushed by the White House in 1996 to expedite admission of 1.3 million aliens, allowed as many as 130,000 criminals into the U.S. from Mexico, South America, and the Caribbean. It is almost unfathomable that all these criminals who could be rapist, murderers, child abusers, or robbers were allowed in. The U.S. already has enough crime, so much that our prisons are basically bursting at the seams with low lives. Third World immigration just adds to that already overpopulated population. They account for more than 25 percent of all inmates in federal prisons and are the fastest growing segment of the prison population. Upkeep for each prisoner costs taxpayers $21,300 per year. (New York Times, 2001) 80 percent of cocaine and 50 percent of heroin in the U.S. is

The industrial prison complex has divided America into two groups; those who are oblivious to the industry and prison abolitionists who are advocating for reform or the complete abolition of the industry. With prisons being so integrated in American society, it is hard for oblivious citizens to see the problems with the prison industry. The media uses television shows such as Orange is the New Black and Prison Break to normalize prisons in America. Prison abolitionists want the industrial prison complex abolished for an array of reasons that end in true equality for citizens. The social injustices explained earlier are reason enough to call citizens to action against the industrial prison complex.

Though many Americans are aware that their nation imprisons more of its own citizens than any other country in the world, what much fewer of them are aware of is the increasing number in which those citizens are housed in facilities with little to no government oversight. From 2002 to 2009, the amount of inmates held in private prisons grew thirty-seven percent while the overall number of incarcerated Americans during that same timeframe grew by only fourteen percent (Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2010), a statistic that reveals a worrying trend; that of a disproportionate amount of citizens being housed in what has come to be known as the prison-industrial complex, a term used not only for the growing

This book is contains information on how detainees are treated in prisons created by the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service. Some of the prisoners did have felonious conviction and were to be deported. Nevertheless, many of the individuals interrogated were immigrants looking for refuge and were being held in prisons as if they were also offenders. The obnoxious management described in this source anticipates demonstrating how non-citizens have been assumed to be lawbreakers.

The Unites States of America’s prison system is a flawed mess. To open the eyes of our government we must first take a stand against unlawful government decisions, and show support for the greater good of society. What are our own tax-dollars paying for, what are the flaws in the justice/prison system, why is overcrowding in prisons causing tension, and what are ways our society and government can rebuild the system that has been destroyed over the years? Most criminals in prisons are not a danger to our society because they commit crimes just to use jail as a shelter, causing the overcrowding of prisons and wasting away of what we really should be paying for.

Currently, many prisons are beginning to be run by private corporations. If a company is running a prison then they need prisoners to stay in business. Around 1 in every 107 Americans is currently being housed in a prison. The United States has about 5 percent of the world’s population yet 25 percent of its prisoners(ACA, 2008). This is the easiest way to maintain a large prison population is by maintaining the current drug war. The largest private prison company in the United States is Corrections Corp. of America(ACA, 2008). In the last twenty years, CCA has donated nearly $5 million dollars to certain political

Private prisons, especially for-profit prisons, pose a serious ethical dilemma. While private prisons may offer some budget relief, it comes at a serious ethical cost. Prison and criminal justice systems should not make a profit based on incarceration. Since the 1980’s, harsher sentences have led the prison system to focus less on rehabilitation and more on incarceration. Consequentially, focusing on punishing criminals rather than rehabilitating them leads to a higher rate of imprisonment, as prisoners continue to

One of the largest problems with the prison issue in America today is that it gets little attention. Unlike education, pollution or gun control people are usually not concerned enough to get involved with the problem until it happens to someone they love or

Corporations exploit prison workers, corporations are able to get away with paying them wages that rival those of third-world sweatshops. These laborers have been legally stripped of their political, economic and social rights and ultimately relegated to second-class citizens. They are banned from unionizing, violently silenced from speaking out and forced to work for little to no wages. Incarceration Nation not just immigrant worker.