Pro's and Cons of Prison Essay

The private prison system is like every other business, the main purpose of it is to make huge profits. Unlike other business, they are selling product or products. In order for a business to function, there have to be infrastructures that would allow that business to work effectively and efficiently. Another word there has to be a manufacture, a transportation system that carries the products after being made and final there is a store where customers can buy the products. The private prison system follows the formula. The products the private prison system is

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.

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.

A prison is a building made up of hard, cold, concrete walls and solid steel bars in which individuals, known as inmates, are physically confined and deprived of their personal freedom. This is a legal consequence that is imposed by the government to lawbreakers as a punishment for a crime they have committed and for the protection of the community. A private prison is much like a public prison except people are incarcerated physically by a “for-profit” third party who has been contracted by a government agency. These private prisons enter into an agreement with the government, and the state pays a monthly amount for every prisoner who is confined in the private facility. In both public and private prisons, incarceration cannot be imposed without the commission and conviction of a crime. Even though public and private prisons may seem to be the same in several aspects and are used to serve the same purpose, there are numerous differences between the two. At one point the Obama administration opted to put an end to private prisons; on the other hand, the Department of Homeland Security and current President Donald Trump fought for them to stay in place. The U.S Justice Department and the Bureau of Prisons will realize that keeping private correctional facilities in place is a huge mistake; therefore, will opt to phase out such facilities and will stick to housing inmates in the public state-run prisons.

Standing as one the most dominant agencies operating within the criminal justice system, the Federal Bureau of Prisons is a detrimental factor that has proven to materialize the very aspects of which to expand the dynamics of maintaining care, control, and custody of federal inmates. Albeit as it may that the agency’s establishment fails to loom too far into the crevices of history, the Federal Bureau of Prisons has surpassed a multitude of platforms that has propelled its strengths today far beyond what its founders could have imagined. However, given the magnitude of such feat as the Federal Bureau of Prisons has been bombarded with, challenges such as, but not limited the swift rate of inmates incarcerated, has greatly hindered the

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

The number of privately owned prisons has grown, as has the imprisonment rate of Americans. “In 2005 more than 2.3 million Americans (or .7% of the US population) were incarcerated, in nearly 1700 state, federal, and private prisons, with many more under other forms of custodial supervision including probation and parole”(Smith and Hattery 2). “In 1980, only 474,368 citizens in the US were imprisoned, but in just a little over two decades, 2,042,270 people

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.

Private prisons have a negative effect on states and local governments. Unfortunately, the number of private prisons has been increasing since their inception in 1983 causing further problems. For-profit prisons offer no real benefits and are bad investments for states. Furthermore, private prisons beleaguer communities with high turnover rates that hurt local economies. The demands of these institutions put an excessive burden on the local community’s infrastructure. Similarly, private prisons strain the county and city legal systems. More often than not, spin-off industries and economic benefits promised by the for-profit correction industry fail to appear. Additionally, private prisons are allowed to cherry pick the least expensive

His policies caused the growth of a massive corrections system that currently houses an estimated 2.2 million inmates. Since the 1970’s federal and state correction agencies have consistently struggled to meet the increased demands brought on by the US Department of Justice and strict drug laws; this in turn created the opportunity for Corrections Corporation of America to form, the largest private prison network in the United States (Godard, T 2015). With the precedent it set with the first private detention center, CCA changed the face of US corrections for good. The private sector became the quick fix to the problem of overcrowded and understaffed public prisons.

The United States is the largest jailer in the world. With only 5 percent of the world 's population and a disproportionate 20 percent of the worlds prison population the United States also has the highest incarceration rate in the world (Chamman). In fact one in every one hundred and ten adults in the United States will be incarcerated. Many of these adults will return to prison later in their life (ACLU). The Prison Crisis has become a recent phenomenon as from nineteen seventy four to two thousand and fourteen the prison population has increased four hundred and eight percent.

To understand the article you must understand what private prisons are and why they exist. Private prisons are a government effort to save money by outsourcing control of detention facilities to corporations. The biggest and most influential corporation is the Corrections Corporation of America aka the CCA. This idea of outsourcing prisons is becoming very common. Australia, Europe and the United States all use these prisons in efforts to save money. “It

Prison Privatization: The Case of Michigan Privatization is a term and action that has grown in prominence and visibility in the United States and in many other parts of the world in recent years. Privatization may be found in virtually all sectors of the U.S. economy and has the potential to impact millions of employees in both non-profit and for-profit organizations. Various factors contribute to the decision to privatize, and much debate has taken place regarding the costs and benefits of this fundamentally system-changing process. While privatization may occur in all sectors, from privately-held corporations to the federal government, the focus of this paper will be privatization relating to prisons, particularly in the state of Michigan.

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

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