Are Private Prisons being run for profits or are they just a solution to the current problems we are dealing with today in society? There has been a recent debate on whether private prisons are being run for profit for their corporations or for the people. Especially with the expected increase in stocks on the two major private prison corporations due to the election of our new President Donald Trump. There has been many different problems and views arising to this. Many of the problems I will be talking about that include the important topic of mass incarceration and the safety of the inmates and staff at these facilities.
The history of private prisons began in the early nineteenth century. The number of juveniles and adults in the
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These companies are: the Corrections Corporation of America and the GEO Group. CCA operates as many as 61 correctional facilities with 75,000 inmates. As for the GEO Group they operate fewer facilities and house fewer inmates than the CCA.
According to the journal article “Advantages and Disadvantages of Private Prisons” there are many disadvantages and advantages in private prisons as compared to federal, state, and local facilities. The advantages of private prisons include how they are seen as an enhancement to the current problem of prison overcrowding due to private prisons having more capacity in supplying empty beds and cells to inmates. Another advantage includes how private prisons take around 18 months to build as for government prisons take over two years. Private prisons are also known to build their prisons in locations that provide financial benefits to the communities. Many of those benefits include stable employment increase, and increase in community resources for spending. Private prisons are also known in reducing costs to complete costs associated with employment, which offers many alternatives for more ideas into the correctional system as well as bringing in more staff that are young and eager than the public paid staff and equipment purchasing. Another advantage is the ability to hold a greater number of female inmates which have the history of costing government institutions more money. Private prisons also have the
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.
Two of the biggest for-profit prison company, GEO and Corrections Corporation of America, have funneled more the 10 million dollars to candidates since 1989 and have spent around 25 million dollars in lobbying campaigns. One of the best examples of private prisons skewing the opinion of government officials is Marco Rubio and GEO. While Marco Rubio was the state representative of Florida, he awarded GEo a
Should Private Prisons be allowed in the United States? One side would argue that private prisons are needed in the U.S. because they help alleviate overcrowding in state prisons. They would argue that taxpayers are saving money by not have inmates in a state-run prison, but rather a private ran one that is funded by private corporations. They would argue that private prisons help grow and stimulate the economy by adding many more jobs. They would argue that those wanting to achieve a career in law enforcement have an easier time getting a job due to the lower competition rate.
Many people in America have no idea that there are different types of prison systems. The two different types of prisons include state-ran and private. State-ran prisons are prisons owned and operated by the local, state, or federal government; however, private prisons are prisons in which individuals are incarcerated by a third-party organization that is under contract with a government agency. Private prisons are funded by the government and have the unique ability to do whatever they want. The controversy between state-ran prisons versus private prisons started in 1852, when the first U.S. private prison was introduced. Escapes, riots, and in-prison crimes happen substantially more in private prisons than in public prison. Private prisons
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.
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
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.
Public prisons are prisons that are owned, operated, and funded by the government. Private prisons, on the other hand, do not require as much maintenance from the government. A corporation rather than the government controls private prisons. A private prison profits by receiving a “stipend from the government.” The amount of money is “based on the size of the prison, based on a monthly or yearly set amount, or in most cases it is paid based on the number of prisoners that the prison houses”
Across the nation, both local and federal prison systems have looked to private corporations to provide beds for
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.”
Many people, since the early 1990s, when the privatization of prisons became popular, have had concerns that these companies would be more worried about profit than the prisoners human rights. Since then, private prisons have only increased in popularity. The original reason private prisons exist are cash strapped states were looking for an alternative to state and federal facilities to incarcerate inmates affordably. It is now a 5 billion industry. Many states pay millions of dollars each year to the private companies. Colorado has the largest number of private prisons in the country. “The state had not saved money by contracting out minimum security beds, and that more money is actually spent on private medium security beds than would be spent in a publicly operated institution.” (Mason) This study, performed in 2010 in Arizona, showed that they were not saving and were actually spending more money on the private facility than the public. The U.S. General Accounting Office, in 1996, went over five different research studies and came to the conclusion that there was no real evidence that prisons for profit saved the government and the general public money. Private
If the offered cost per inmate is lesser in a private prison than in a government run facility; the former will readily give an allowance based on number of prisoners housed by the prison. However, even if private prisons promise to save taxpayer money; there have been investigations regarding the veracity of these convictions. According to the New York Times, private prisons offer but slight savings if any in comparison to state-run prisons. For instance, Arizona’s Department of Corrections found that private prisons often “cherrypick” prisoners --choosing the non-violent, healthier and overall least expensive inmates to to oversee --which in turn makes them look more cost-effective than they actually are. What’s more, these for-profits are also putting up prisoner quotas. If a certain number of beds aren’t filled which is usually 90%; states are obliged to pay for the unused beds. Case in point was Arizona which had to pay a $3 million fine to Management & Training Corp. after their 97% quota wasn’t met in 2010. Even more outraging is the fact that three inmates had escaped from this facility not one year earlier; prompting officials to demand improvements and abstain from sending new inmates to what they considered a “dysfunctional 3,300-bed facility”. According
Prison overcrowding is one of the most burdensome problems plaguing our criminal justice system, but privatization is not the answer. The federal prison population increased by almost 800 percent between 1980 and 2013. (Pelaez, 2016).This is a much faster rate than the most state prisons could accommodate in their own facilities. In an effort to manage the rising prison population, many states began contracting with privately operated correctional institutions to house inmates. There are patterns of abuse, especially against the mentally ill in prisons operated by for-profit companies such as the Corrections Corporations of America also known as "CCA". Many of these for profit corporations have been accused of providing abysmal care to prisoners.
Currently prisons are operating at above capacity because more people are coming in than are getting out. This is a trend that is going to continue to rise. The alternatives are to let people go, lower sentences or to outsource the prisoners. Letting people go on a lesser charge is an option that is being used and outsourcing to private prisons is also in use. Private prisons are better alternative because they can house the inmates of the prisons choice and in most cases do it at a lower cost. Private prisons are also held to the same or higher standards than federal prisons. “Private prisons comply with the standards of the Commission on Accreditation for Corrections and have a much higher accreditation rate than government prisons. (Thomas, 2001)” This ensures that the private facilities are complying with their contract and operating how they are supposed to be. There has only been one private prison shut down since they started popping up. This facility was
Currently, many prisons are beginning to be run by private corporations. If a company is running a prison then they need prisoners to stay in business. Around 1 in every 107 Americans is currently being housed in a prison. The United States has about 5 percent of the world’s population yet 25 percent of its prisoners(ACA, 2008). This is the easiest way to maintain a large prison population is by maintaining the current drug war. The largest private prison company in the United States is Corrections Corp. of America(ACA, 2008). In the last twenty years, CCA has donated nearly $5 million dollars to certain political