Prison Industrial Complex Economics And The United States

Private Prisons Cash In on Refugees by Antony Loewenstein. This article was written for the New York Times. It was published on the 25th of February 2016. The article covers how corrupt private detention centers are and how they are profiting from immigration and the mass exodus of refugees.

There are public service announcements which warn that a DUI will cost you about $10,000. Those costs include fines, court fees, legal fees, jail costs, bail bonds, probation services, etc. Those advertisements subtly illustrate how crime directly benefits the “prison industrial complex.” That term refers to all of the sectors which profit from a massive prison population, including law enforcement, prisons, and the entire legal system. This system employs millions of Americans as police officers, lawyers, judges, paralegals, parole officers, correctional officers, etc.

As prisons grow in size, governments look for new methods to aid in cutting costs and increase efficiency. Over the last decade government run institutions have been replaced with privately funded, for-profit prisons. Although it is cheaper for governments to run contract based institutions this mass industrialization of the prison system has seen many issues with corruption, decreases in efficiency and even mistreatment and exploitation of incarcerated individuals. The prison system should remain under government control and in this essay I will discuss the faults and errors of for-profit institutions and why this system should not be overseen by private corporations.

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

On July 13th, 2015, President Obama granted clemency to 46 prisoners, facing decades of prison time for low-level non-violent drug offenses. Obama said the nation is spending too much money on incarceration of individuals who received long sentences for relatively minor drug crimes, and so by granting amnesty to these 46 prisoners, he hopes to push the drive towards prison reform.

Prison Industrial Complex (PIC) is a term we use to describe the overlapping interests of government and industry that use surveillance, policing, and imprisonment as solutions to what are, in actuality, economic, social, and political "problems. Through its reach and impact, the prison industrial complex helps secure the authority of people who get their power through racial, economic and other structural privileges by defending current power distributions. It benefits government and industry, as well as those individuals who already hold power in our society. There are six components I believe contribute to the PIC. The components are criminalization, media, surveillance, policing, court system, and the prisons.

Prisoner outsourcing in the United States is originally attributed to New York’s Newgate Prison in 1802. The prison was able to contract with local manufactures, effectively offsetting rising prison costs. By 1825, prisons throughout the country, including Auburn, Baltimore, Charlestown, and Wethersfield, were realizing profits resulting from “prison contracted labor industries.”

There are large racial disparities in incarceration and related detainments for African Americans. They are more likely to be under the supervision of the Department of Corrections than any other racial or ethnic group (H.West, Sabol, & Greenman, 2010). Institutional racism is believed to be the reason why African Americans, especially males, are disproportionately represented in the criminal justice system. On balance, the public believes that discrimination against black people is based on the prejudice of the individual person, correlates to the discrimination built into the nation’s laws and institutions (Pew’s Research Center, 2017). This belief is actually supported through several experimental studies that provide evidence that African Americans are to be seen as more criminal and threatening than others thus more likely to be arrested or even shot (Greenwald, Oakes, & Hoffman, 2003). Racism within the criminal justice system very much exists and is still relevant.

The smuggling of prohibited items such as cigarettes, drugs and cell phones into prisons and jails is a significant problem throughout the United States. As our book states, very often the people doing the smuggling are the correctional officers or other staff of the prison. Unfortunately, these individuals are motivated by self-profitability and so they accept bribes from prisoners or external sources that have affiliations with those who are incarcerated. This presents ethical and professional concerns.

Falling right in line with today's discoveries of wide spread corruption on various fronts, one area that has until more recently remained relatively unscathed is the corruption found within many of the correctional institutions and leading businesses of our nation. Quite honestly, I wonder sometimes if our correctional system has the right people behind bars.

The new prisoner is then admitted into their “pod”. Rather than keep ALL the inmates together in one large group, they are broken down into smaller groups. Each group lives in their own pod. Each pod had a central living space and outside fresh air lounge. The individual cells surround the living area and there are three additional floors that overlook the central living space that you reach by inside stairs. Each level contains approximately 10 individual cells. Some information was not available to us (the public) as it is confidential. Information such as how many Officers work in a pod per shift. The inmates are served their meals in the central living space and it the Correctional Officers job to count everything they take. Items such as jam containers, plastic knives and forks are made into weapons by the ingenious inmates. After they are given their meals and have had time to go to the gym, they are then put back into their cell for the night.

Whenever you imagine prison, you think up ideas and violent images that you have seen in the movies or on TV.   Outdated clichés consisting of men eating stale bread and drinking dirty water are only a small fraction of the number of horrible, yet “just” occurrences which are stereotypical of everyday life in prison.   Perhaps it could be a combination of your upbringing, horrific ideas about the punishment which our nation inflicts on those who violate its’ more serious laws that keeps people frightened just enough to lead a law-abiding life. Despite it’s success in keeping dangerous offenders off the streets, the American prison system fails in fulfilling its original design of restoring criminals to being productive members of society, it is also extremely expensive and wastes our precious tax dollars.

There is a large racial disparity with unjust arrests in America. African Americans are discriminated and racially profiled more than any other race within the criminal justice system (Slate, 2015). The main goals of the criminal justice system are to prevent and control crime and to achieve justice (Crime&Justice International, 1997). However, according to the ‘American Progress’, “people of color, particularly African Americans and Latinos are unfairly targeted by the police and face harsher prison sentences compared to other races, particularly white Americans (American Progress, 2015). Although the criminal justice is to provide equal justice to all of its citizens, African Americans tend to not receive the same justice. Specifically, African

There are so many more African-Americans than whites in our prisons that the difference cannot be explained by higher crime among African- Americans - racial discrimination is also at work, and it penalizes African- Americans at almost every juncture in the criminal justice system.1

At one point in time the high percentage of men and women who are drug