Dr. Seuss’ children’s books have given insight of good versus bad both during his life and long after. A famous quote in Horton Hears a Who reads, “A person’s a person, no matter how small”. No matter what situation this is applied to, it means that everyone has value; everyone should be treated as valuable. As the industry of private prisons rises, communities find themselves asking the moral question: is it right for a man to make profit off another man’s downfall? Although intriguing, it is not the right question to ask. Successful prisons are not defined by statistics at the end of a fiscal year, but by the quality of the prison. Taxpayers pay for criminals to be incarcerated for the safety of the community, but ideally prison would not
I believe that God commands it because it is already right or wrong. This could possibly mean that whether or not God exist, those right or wrong actions were already right or wrong instinctively. The only difference is that, some people believe that they need a creator or God to tell them what is morally correct or wrong to believe it is.
James Neal, a prisoner in the Youngstown prison, built by the Corrections Corporation of America, (CCA) was forced to strip and parade naked in front of the female staff. He was even in his cell, accompanied by canisters of tear gas, which is supposed to be used for war. The medium security prison, which took maximum security, ended up with many escapees and deaths. More than 20 prisoners died in the first few months. Private prisons are helpful when storing prisoners and in conditions when the government is under budgets, but the prisoners are dying very fast and treated badly in the prisons (Bates).
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
Privately owned prisons are prisons operated by private entities for profit. They can be owned by individuals or companies and earn money through unethical practices. These prisons are supposed to cut cost, which they do by providing dangerous living conditions, submitting workers (both convicts and prison employees) to unethical work conditions, understaffing, and underpaying (Blesset 9). By cutting cost owners of theses prisons thrive financially from the imprisonment of criminals which is unethical.
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.
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
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.
The privatization of prisons serves as a solution to economic problems. Privatization essentially allows for large corporations, such as Corrections Corporation of America and GEO Group Inc, to profit from caging humans. State governments allow corporations to buy local prisons because privatization lifts the fiscal responsibilities of the states. While privatization eliminates a financial burden from states, it comes with great compromises. For example, the Lake Erie Correctional Institute was the first prison purchased by a for-profit corporation: the CCA. When the CCA purchased the prison, the city of Conneaut, Ohio faced many hardships. Almost immediately, many long-time employees of the prison were fired. The CCA replaced experienced employees
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.
U.S. to Phase Out Use of Private Prisons for Federal Inmates. This was an article title created by Charlie Savage, a Pulitzer Prize winner and correspondent for the New York Times in Washington on August 18, 2016. Savage wrote how the Obama administration would begin to phase out the use of private run prisons to hold inmates. This was ultimately due to the research done on the quality of life for inmates, the safety of inmates and prison employees, and the security of private run prisons. In the article Sally Q. Yates, the deputy attorney general said in less words that private run prisons do not save substantially on costs. First what is a private prison? A private prison is a prison or jail that incarcerates individuals and is run by a
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.
Gun control in America is a tough business. Second amendment advocates love to flourish their rights to bear arms. However, their stubbornness is causing many unnecessary complications that could be easily solved if they would cooperate more with legislators. The need for more a more thorough background check, more rigorous restriction on purchases and less selfishness is paramount to the evolution of our country.
Private prisons, especially for-profit prisons, pose a serious ethical dilemma. While private prisons may offer some budget relief, it comes at a serious ethical cost. Prison and criminal justice systems should not make a profit based on incarceration. Since the 1980’s, harsher sentences have led the prison system to focus less on rehabilitation and more on incarceration. Consequentially, focusing on punishing criminals rather than rehabilitating them leads to a higher rate of imprisonment, as prisoners continue to
Marijuana is a shredded mix of dry flowers, stems and the seeds of a plant called cannabis and people usually smoke it in the form of cigarettes for relaxation. Ever since marijuana hit mainstream America over 30 years ago, government prohibition of it has been the subject of an ongoing debate. Should marijuana be legalized? Proponents of marijuana argue that there are numerous medical benefits and that the drug is not more harmful than tobacco or alcohol. Therefore, prohibiting it intrudes on personal freedom. On the other hand, opponents argue that marijuana is too dangerous; its legalization would increase the chances of the drug falling into the hands of kids and that marijuana use often progresses to the use of more dangerous drugs