Privately Run Prisons Case Study

In Mississippi, there's a call for the Department of Corrections to start taking bids for prison contracts. In light of former Corrections Commissioner Christopher Epps' being charged with corruption relating to prison contracts, a five-person task force is recommending that no company should have a prison contract unless they won the contract in a competitive bidding process. Until I read this article, I assumed all prison services were put up for bids. For example, the Keefe Group has a no-bid contract to furnish commissary services in all of Mississippi's prisons. Task Force member Constance Slaughter-Harvey make a good point when she says that it's inmates' families that put money into their relatives account to buy personal care needs

To begin with governor, private prison have been decreasing in value and popularity throughout the United States. Many people have seen private prison as a disaster and even the

The bulk of the research was performed in the late 90s after many years had passed since the implementation of privatized prisons got a substantial boost in1988 (Austin, 2001). Much of the literature centers on the cost effectiveness of contracting out prisons. The main focus of the research is first and foremost, are they saving money by contracting out. Second, if they are saving money, is it enough money to justify the other problems that naturally accompany the for profit prisons model.

A private prison or for-profit prison is a place in which individuals are physically confined or incarcerated by a third party that is contracted by a government agency. Private prison companies typically enter into contractual agreements with governments that commit prisoners and then pay a per diem or monthly rate, either for each prisoner in the facility or for each place available, whether occupied or not. Such contracts may be for the operation only of a facility, or for design, construction and operation. (Wikipedia)

Private prisons use a system known as an occupancy requirement. Such is a case in which a private company requires a state to keep a prison the company owns filled with a minimum percentage of inmates. This policy is made to stand no matter how crime in the state may fluctuate. Occupancy requirements are common practice within the private prison industry. In the Public Interest group reviewed 62 private prison contracts. The group found that 41 of those contracts included occupancy requirements that demand local or state government must keep the prisons between 80 to 100 percent full. According to the report all the big private prison companies such as CCA, GEO Group, and the Management and Training Corporation try to include occupancy

As the number of prisoners have constantly been rising at an exceedly fast pace, several governments around the world have embraced the use of private prisons. Private prisons are confinements run by a third party, through an agreement with the government. In the United States, it is estimated that there are over 1.6 million inmates, of that there are 8% that are housed in privately-operated prisons. While the other 92% are housed in the public prison system. Private prisons have existed since the 19th century. Their use increased in the 20th century and continues to rise in some states. When a government makes an agreement with a private prison, it makes payments per prisoner or vacancy in jail on a regular basis for maintenance of the prisoners. Privatization became involved due to the fact that prisons were becoming overpopulated. Public prisons contracted the confinement and care of prisoners with other organizations. Due to the cost-effectiveness of private firms, prisons began to contract out more services, such as medical care, food service, inmate transportation, and vocational training. Over time private firms saw an opportunity for expansion and eventually took over entire prison operations. However, now their security, how they treat the inmates, and their true cost effectiveness has come into question

In many of the contracts between private prisons and the state, prisons actually get a guarantee that their prisons will be filled up which mean more money to the company. In the Public Interest, an organization dedicated to high quality accurate research for the public, analyzed 62 contracts from private facilities and found that 41 of the contracts contained quotas. These quotas were occupancy requirements that the

For instance, states like Texas, Tennessee, Florida, Ohio, and Arizona have been increasing the number of private prisons in their states. In fact, “there's been a similar surge in private prison construction as the inmate population has tripled between 1987 and 2007: Inmates in private prisons now account for 9 percent of the total U.S. prison population, up from 6 percent in 2000” (Khimm 2010). Regrettably, instead of alleviating budgetary woes these states have added new burdens to their bottom lines.

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.

Across the nation, both local and federal prison systems have looked to private corporations to provide beds for

Texas Prison System becomes something from the past, and the private prison system becomes the future due to limited budgets and events? Squaring off the full cost of state prisons in Texas requires accounting for expenditures in all areas of government that support the prison system not merely those within the corrections budget. “Due to supplementary budget to taxpayers can include expenses consolidated for governmental determinations such as employee benefits and capital costs, and services for inmates funded through other agencies. The prison also costs the cost of subversive, contributions to corrections wage earner pensions and retiree health care plans; states must pay the remainder of those contributions in the future.”(n.d.)

They profit by putting people in cages, and are responsible for the prisoners getting harsher sentences than they deserve. The cycle of money and power created by PPC’s is unsustainable: The PPC’s lobby in congress, which allows them to get more money, which allows them to lobby more in congress. This lobbying is worsened as more politicians succumb to the allure of riches and reelection, rather than focusing on their obligation to protect their constituents constitutional and human rights. Politicians like Marco Rubio, who reportedly contracted the large Florida PPC GEO Group to house a majority of Florida’s detained immigrants and prisoners for one hundred and ten million dollars (Cohen). This contract came after Rubio was elected to be Speaker of The House in Florida. Rubio’s campaign to become speaker had received over forty thousand dollars from the GEO group, and Rubio had selected a former trustee of the GEO group to he one of his economic advisers

Bauer, S. (2016, June). Private prisons are shrouded in secrecy. I took a job as a guard

According to Alex Tabarrok, privately managed facilities can have cost savings of 15-25% on prison edification and 15% on administrative expenses. Likewise, private prisons generate competition and exert pressure towards public prisons. They encourage public prisons to also innovate and lower costs. Other studies (Lundahl et al. 2009, page 392) argue, “prison privatization provides neither a clear advantage nor disadvantage compared with publicly managed prisons.”

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