Prison Prions: A Case Study

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

The United States is regarded as a country of innovation and progress. However, the prison and disciplinary systems in the U.S. fall short in several aspects. With the highest incarceration rate in the world, one might expect American prisons to be prepared for providing quality care and rehabilitation for inmates. Unfortunately, this is not the reality - with a growing number of privatized prisons, the quality of life for inmates and their families is dissipating. The U.S. prison system is in desperate need of reform; closing down private prisons will help in alleviating monetary pressure, reducing abuse reports, and lowering the rate of reincarceration in individuals. Prison reform should be seen as a priority, as nonviolent offenders are suffering far more than they should, and are purposely conditioned to be reincarcerated after their release. Private prisons are rapidly growing in the U.S. to keep up with a growing number of inmates. With the rising number of prisoners, prisoner abuse levels are also rising exponentially. This is due to the fact that private prisons are a booming industry that exploits prisoners for profits. Private prisons may seem beneficial at a glance; however, they enforce lax regulations and are notorious for overcrowding and “barbaric” conditions. Prisons should rehabilitate nonviolent offenders in

Private prison guards can be significantly undertrained and “unlike in the state sector, where new recruits undergo lengthy probation, training and induction officers…are deployed 'on the front line' almost immediately after commencing employment” (Taylor & Cooper pg.20) Private companies are willing to put their employees at risk of an attack and their facilities at risk of escapes if it means that costs will be saved. In a private prison in Scotland it was discovered that “the failure to report or the downgrading of incidents including assaults and discoveries of drugs, weapons or other banned items, or the falsification of statistics in order to prevent the prison from incurring fines, were systemic.” (pg.23) The lack of government oversight creates a hazardous environment in these private prisons. Regulations and rules are neglected and as this happens the facilities become more and more

More people have been locked up in the United States than any other country. In the article “Prison Industrial Complex Economics”, it states, “the United States has approximately 6.5 million people under the criminal justice supervision. Incarcerated rate has grown from 176 in 1973 up to 700 in the year of 2000” (Waquant). Incarceration is a big business that feeds into drug violence, corrupted guards, and racism in criminal justice system, taxpayer cost, and racism in the criminal system and through privatization of prisons.

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

In 2007, a group of criminal justice experts got together and agreed reform was needed, and the legislature joined the discussion. Lance says that lock up numbers had been ballooning since the 1980s. Lots of prison violence prompted the solitary lock-up of prisoners in the 1980s, mostly a result of how the prison system was run. Turnkeys were used in the early 1980s. These were inmates who were given authority to do the job of guards, enforcing prison rules. They were chosen based on their ability to get things done. They were brutal and violent, and they were the ones in charge of “correcting” prisoners who messed up. William Wayne Justice put an end to the use of turnkeys in the mid 1980s, but problems escalated when he did because there was no proper control to replace turnkeys. Guards on duty then had already learned to relinquish their power to inmates. These guards had no proper training on the use of force. They had no experience handling trouble in the prison themselves. With no one in charge, violent prison gangs emerged to “keep the peace,” exponentially increasing the problems of prison violence that the elimination of turnkeys had hoped to fix. I asked Lance what was the first essential step in controlling a prison population is developing a staff of professionals through adequate training. Violence in prison has to be detected and addressed immediately for officers to maintain control. Lance is very critical of TDCJ’s

There are many offenders within the criminal justice system, the political economy of the prison crisis in America has

In the 1970s and 1980s, a massive amount of inmates began fillin up the United States prison systems. This huge rate of growth in this short amount of time, has greatly contributed to the prison overcrowding that the United States faces today. In fact, the prisons are still filled to the seams. This enormous flood of inmates has made it practically impossible for prison officials to keep up with their facilities and supervise their inmates. One of the main reasons why many prisons have become overcrowded is because of states’ harsh criminal laws and parole practices (Cohen). “One in every 100 American adults is behind bars, the highest incarceration rate in the world” (Cohen). The amount of inmates in corrections systems, throughout the

In the case study of whistle-blowing at Corcoran State Prison, two corrections officers were all but shunned for the actions they took to put an end to the mistreatment of prisoners. Officers Richard Caruso and Steve Rigg witnessed their fellow corrections officers abusing their power by placing rival gang members in a small recreation yard in the Security Housing Unit (SHU) to promote fighting. The officers would make bets on the inmates, treated the fighting like a sport and used unnecessary deadly force with a firearm at will (Dryburgh, 2009). Caruso and Rigg, both former marines, had superior comprehension of ethically handling a firearm; the actions of their co-workers became unacceptable so they took action (Dryburgh, 2009).

In the course of the most recent 20 years, the U.S. correctional facility populace has qua-drupled, with someone.9 million people in the slammer in government and state penitentiaries, and local prisons by the year 2000. firms are looking for benefit making open doors from this prison populace. that corpora-tions are profiting by prison work: correctional facility privatization and prison exchange. we tend to in the blink of an eye survey key clarifications of detainment, re-port on this condition of prison privatization and correctional facility industrialization, look at the effect they require on sorted out work, and propose union routes in battling against the amplification of organization force inside the (D. E. (2002 inside the u. s., privatization should be comprehended as each a driving and main effect of financial procedure. The expanding dependence on advertised sorts of organization and organization self-direction in a portion of control by government is normally talked as "the new administration. " thirty The new administration is demonstrative of late changes inside the relationship between the business sector furthermore the state itself—changes that region unit resolute from world financial rivalry and option sorts of commonality amongst state and non-state on-screen characters, locally and transnational, as these have created in late decades (C. J. (2014).

These measures were taken to ensure public safety but are now posing a problem for our correctional facilities. Overcrowding and budgets are among the problems brought about by these measures. Both the state and federal correctional population throughout the United States have steadily seen significant increases in their population, every year for the past decades. Based on the census found on the Bureau of Justice website, the data collected between June 30th 2000 to December 30th 2005 showed that prisoners held in custody between federal and state prisons increased by 10%. (“Bureau of Justice Statistics”, p.1 -2)

The United States has an incarceration problem that personifies issues throughout the entire criminal justice system. "The United States, with just 5 percent of the world 's population, currently holds 25 percent of the world 's prisoners" (Khalek). This issue runs deeper than just incarceration; it permeates every level of the criminal justice system, from incarceration to probation. Many states have turned to private institutions in an attempt shed operating costs, while also increasing effectiveness throughout the criminal justice system. These acts can include anything from providing treatment programs to full blown management of the entire prison system. Overcrowding at prisons and the rising costs associated with them has led many states to turn to some form of privatization within the criminal justice system. However, privatizing the entire correction system would not be beneficial for the state, from both an ethical and a public policy standpoint.

Privatizing prisons may be one way for the prison population to get back under control. Prisons are overcrowded and need extra money to house inmates or to build a new prison. The issue of a serious need for space needs to be addressed. “As a national average, it costs roughly $20,000 per year to keep an inmate in prison. There are approximately 650,000 inmates in state and local prisons, double the number five years ago. This costs taxpayers an estimated $18 billion each year. More than two thirds of the states are facing serious overcrowding problems, and many are operating at least 50 percent over capacity. (Joel, 1988)” Private prisons may be for profit, but if they can solve the issue of cost then it may be a

There are many supervisory and management challenges facing corrections, due to the proliferation of the gang problem, presently within our prisons today. It is critically important for upper management, in the correctional field, to be held as responsible stewards, of the all resources available to them to combat this problem. (Saint Leo University, 2016). These actions are necessary, to deter the increasing glut of criminal activities, which gang behavior inevitably brings to prisons like a spreading cancer in the system. The gang problem is a dominate force within the correctional system, and steps to minimize its impact upon the daily lives of both prisoners and staff alike must be continually addressed. Swanson and Taylor touched on this trend in the correctional setting, when they discussed that much of this problem is contributable due to the boom in worldwide communication, resulting from the use of newer technology. This form of contraband, is in the form of cellphones, smartphones, and their subsequent ability for the inmate to control gang enterprises by tapping into the internet. Increased technology results in smaller sizes of smartphones each year, and this outside benefit makes detection increasingly more difficult for officers within prison who utilize more of a community policing model to curtail criminal actions (Swanson, C., Territo, L., & Taylor, R, 2012).

Correctional organizations whether it is local, state, or federal will all have numerous different masteries as well as many different staff members that complete those different tasks. The text (Carlson) explains that prison and or jails are both expected to accomplish several sometimes-conflicting goals when dealing with inmates. Among many of those, punish, incapacitate, and rehabilitate as well as deter others from violating society’s rules (Carlson & Garrett, 2008, p. 195). The concept that "all employees of a correctional institution