Summary: Improving The Private Prison System

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.

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

Whenever you imagine prison, you think up ideas and violent images that you have seen in the movies or on TV.   Outdated clichés consisting of men eating stale bread and drinking dirty water are only a small fraction of the number of horrible, yet “just” occurrences which are stereotypical of everyday life in prison.   Perhaps it could be a combination of your upbringing, horrific ideas about the punishment which our nation inflicts on those who violate its’ more serious laws that keeps people frightened just enough to lead a law-abiding life. Despite it’s success in keeping dangerous offenders off the streets, the American prison system fails in fulfilling its original design of restoring criminals to being productive members of society, it is also extremely expensive and wastes our precious tax dollars.

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

Prison culture or the “values, norms and attitudes that inmates form in terms of institutional survival” (Bartollas, 2013), can be described in one of three models. The Deprivation Model describes the inmate’s behavior as the product of the environment, more specifically the attempt to adapt to that which he is deprived of as a result of incarceration (Bartollas, 2013). An example of such would be the pseudo family unit or physical relationships that inmates form as a result of the absence of such relationships while incarcerated.

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

The United States prison system struggles eminently with keeping offenders out of prison after being released. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, more than third of all prisoners who were arrested within five years of released were arrested within six months after release, with more than half arrested by the end of the year (Hughes, Wilson, & Beck, 2001). Among prisoners released in 2005 in 23 states with available data on inmates returned to prison, about half (55 percent) had either a parole or probation violation or an arrest for a new offense within three years that led to imprisonment (Durose, Cooper, & Snyder, 2014). Why are there many ex-offenders going back to prison within the first five years of release? Are there not enough resources to help offenders before or/and after being released from prison.

She argues that the reforms suggested by the conservative party would cause unintended harm to the people they are attempting to help. The author forms her argument by analyzing the prison reforms initiative put forth by republican politicians. Bruenig concludes that these attempts to bring needed modification to the criminal justice system have not improved the lives of disadvantaged people. By focusing on cutting prison costs the author states, the conservative’s suggestion for reform will fail to provide support to community programs that help people stay out of prison. This would make the reform meaningless. It would also rid communities of prevention programs.

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.

Through the obvious statistical evidence of the United States Prison system and the exploration of detrimental prison culture it becomes apparent that the system needs to be reformed. Prisons are not cost effective and they do not provide the right correctional help. The United States prison system is deeply flawed. Prison creates a culture that is detrimental to prisoners and all

We will discuss two models for inmate subculture: the deprivation model and the importation model. The Deprivation model suggests that “the prisoners suffer and get frustrated due to the absence of liberty, privacy, free access to goods and services, heterosexual relationships, autonomy and security” (Stojkovic, Stan & Lovell, 1998). This theory clearly says that inmate subculture is evident through the pains of imprisonment. While the importation model says that the subculture is evident because the prisoners are replicating the outside world. This model includes the prisoner-staff dynamic, 3 types of inmates, various racial groups within the prison population, type of offence, record of recidivism (re-offending), personality differences (prior to imprisonment), power of “politicians” (top of the inmate social hierarchy), work gangs, work groups, and sexual “deviation” which would directly affect inmate subculture. Both inmate subculture models comprise of a behavior code, a power hierarchy, an economic system for illicit goods and service distributions and “argot”

Within this paper, you will find a comprehensive review of the United States prison system, and why it needs to analyzed to better support and reform the people of this country. I plan to persuade the other side (politicians and society) into seeing that the way the prison system is now, is not ethical nor economical and it must change. We have one of the world’s largest prison population, but also a very high rate of recidivism. Recidivism is when the prisoners continuously return to prison without being reformed. They return for the same things that they were doing before. So, this leads us to ask what exactly are we doing wrong? When this happens, we as a nation must continuously pay to house and feed these inmates. The purpose of a prison needs to be examined so we can decide if we really are reforming our inmates, or just continuing a vicious cycle. What is the true purpose of prison besides just holding them in a cell? There must be more we can do for these hopeless members of society.

The Unites States of America’s prison system is a flawed mess. To open the eyes of our government we must first take a stand against unlawful government decisions, and show support for the greater good of society. What are our own tax-dollars paying for, what are the flaws in the justice/prison system, why is overcrowding in prisons causing tension, and what are ways our society and government can rebuild the system that has been destroyed over the years? Most criminals in prisons are not a danger to our society because they commit crimes just to use jail as a shelter, causing the overcrowding of prisons and wasting away of what we really should be paying for.

With the population of the United States prisons growing every day we need to evaluate if they are doing any good. Personally, I believe that we need to keep our prison system, but we need to take steps in reforming them rather than abolish them altogether. The United States has the highest number of incarcerated people than any other country in the world. We must sit down and look at other countries and see what they are doing different than the United States. In this paper, we will first look at what the prison system in America is like and what we can do to improve upon our prison system. Then, we will also look at the Finland prison systems and see if we can learn anything from them, since they have one of the lowest incarceration and crime rate in the world. We will then look at reforming our prison system or abolishing it. Finally, we will investigate other punishment alternatives other than the prison system that we could use.

Prison reform is a significant issue that the United States government should enforce. It would aid in creating a more organized system of incarceration. Prison reform is an attempt to improve, change, or eliminate certain conditions in prisons. It is believed that it should be enforced due to the cases of overcrowding, lack of proper education, and the lack of rehabilitation that could inform prisoners of societal values. Prison reform would increase the self-esteem that was diminished in the prisoner’s personal history. Prison reform is significantly important as it will heighten the amount of self-worth in the prisoner and cause a decrease in the population of prisoners who return to a life of crime. Recidivism, or chance of recommitting a crime, will therefore be reduced. Prisoner who are released will not have all the negative ideals or influence from the prison that is usually spread until their release. Prison reform will help society if the increase in education and decrease in overcrowding is ensued upon the prison system with this policy.