Private Prisons

Despite what you may think, private prisons have existed in the United States dating all the way back to 1852, beginning with the San Quentin state prison. Private prisons did not truly become as common as they are today though until President Ronald Reagan led a large-scale effort for increased privatization around the United States during the 1980’s. One result of this effort was a large upswing in the number of private prisons. As a result of private prisons becoming more common place, it has been seen that compared to prisons run by the government, length of sentences have gone up within private prisons, while at the same time the treatment of prisoners has gone down. This topic interests me because I believe that it should never be in the best interests of such a large and powerful group to have as many people as possible in prison for as long as possible. In my opinion, it is not ethically correct on a basic human level to ever have it in people’s best interests to keep other people in prison. I chose this topic because I have always held a strong opinion on this topic but have never had the time to do extensive research on it and either confirm or dispel my current beliefs about it.

Throughout the years, the use of imprisonment has varied, along with its influences of society. It is thought that although prisons have been around since the thirteenth century, prisons as we know them now to be have only been around for the last three centuries. The first uses of prisons were not seen as a form of punishment instead they were used as a way of making people do something. People would be held in prison until they paid their debts, or awaiting trial and then leading up to their sentence. McGowen (1995) suggests that from the early 1700s ‘bridewells’ a house of correction have existed, however at that time being used merely for vagrants and drunks. At the end of the sixteenth century there was a shift in punishment to imprisonment, along with this came a new, more humane idea of reform. Criminals would spend their days of prison carrying out hard labour. However after the American Revolution, imprisonment took a step back and there was another change. There was mass overcrowding within the prison service and although the death penalty was still being used it was a symbol of the power of the state. Therefore, an everyday way of dealing with offenders would be transportation to the colonies, being either Australia or America.

Today, the private prison industry is big and extremely profitable. The industry is dominated by two large companies, Corrections Corporations of America (CCA) and the GEO group. The annual combined revenues for both companies amount to over $3 billion while their top executives get compensation of over $3 million each. However, the way these companies operate is wholly unethical.

The History of prisons goes through many eras. Many of these eras have a major impact on today’s prison system. The different was that the system worked and didn’t work really showed what was possibly and what should not be tried again. Each era tried to do something new are recreate something that had already been done by making changes to the way that they treated the inmates all the way to how they were housed and how much contact they had with one another. The different eras gave the present day prison system many great things to think about. Such as large capacity housing so you can properly use all the space in the prison and hold it to capacity. There is also the parole system that gives inmates a chance to work get out early and spend the rest of their sentence on the outside. These many great traits that the prison system today has all come from the hundreds of years of trial and error that occurred throughout the world.

In America today, there is a trend in corrections of taking the duty of running prisons out of the hands of state and federal authorities and contracting it out to private organizations. Along with the drift to privatization is a plethora of research pertaining to the subject taking many different approaches to analyzing the effectiveness. The majority of research focuses on one of three areas. The first questioning whether or not it is cost effective to make the switch. The second being the ethical problems that can and have risen from the privatization of prisons. The third being a wide painting of the change and the implications it has on society as a whole.

The concept of the prison has existed for more than two thousand years. It probably goes back as far in time as practice of cannibalism, where victims had to wait for their turn in contributing to the chief course in the menu of their captors. Examples of prisons can even be found in the Old Testament when Joseph was incarcerated in Egypt. It was not until the 19th century that a clear shift occurred from corporal punishment to imprisonment. As societies prospered and the industrial revolution began, the formal prison system, as we know it today, developed. Throughout most of the world, the correctional system is administered by the state, and it is considered a key function that the government must fulfill: protect its citizens by

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

Prisons in America have been around for many years. They have been around since the 1600’s. The prisons in the 1600’s were small local jails for people who were waiting for trial. Punishment for people who went to jail during this time were executed, tortured and penalized. In the late 1600’s the death penalty was allowed for those who committed a murder.

Thesis: Private prisons actually exacerbate many of the issues they were designed to solve by incentivizing increased incarceration, and at the same time they produce lower value than regular prisons while ultimately costing more, such that private prisons should be abolished and incarceration should remain exclusively public.

In our nation’s history, the use of private prisons has played a major role in domestic slave trading. The 13th Amendment officially abolished slavery in 1865. However, due to the plain language of the 13th Amendment, it is be interpreted in a way that allows slavery so long as it is used as criminal punishment. The 13th Amendment reads, “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” Private prisons have been abusing and misusing this language for years. The Jim Crowe era, which implemented the “convict leasing” system, is a prime example of how private prisons have used prisoners

Almost two million men and women are held in prisons across the US. However, as each year passes more and more of these men and women are being held in privately run prisons. At first glance saving the U.S. government money through the use of private prisons might seem like a good thing, but as a whole these privately run prisons are hurting our country. Should the justice system really be something we should be turning into a business opportunity to make money? I believe the U.S. should stop giving grants to private prisons and instead use that money to expand and improve the public prison system. Moving towards private prisons is putting more money in the pockets of corporations and less money towards improving

The idea of prison has been around for thousands of years and seems to be an integrated part of the human concept. We remove the people that disrupt society and we put them away or get rid of them. We, as a modern culture,

This is a relatively new industry and it is startling to imagine how much power they will have in another 30-40 years. They have already managed to manipulate the fourth amendment. At this rate, your simple municipal violation might turn into an arrest record in the future. One possible sign of things to come happened with a Texas man, Jory Enck. He was thrown in jail for allegedly not returning a GED study guide to the public library.

where's that goes on the privatization of prisons. Providing a broad study between public and

Like most other problems with private prisons, the problem is rooted in money. Programs that rehabilitate prisoners in preparation of sending them back out into the community are cut to save to the prisons money. As Graybill tells us, “A 2013 study by the Minnesota Department of Corrections suggests that a higher recidivism rate at privatized prisons was due to the lack of programs, like those that teach job skills and prepare prisoners for life after release...” With programs like these, people are setup to go back into the communities just to make the same bad decisions. As a result the same people who left prison land right back in and make the private prisons more money. There is more issues involving recidivism and private