Private Prisons History

The United States accounts for 5% of the world population, but our prison population makes up 25% of the world’s (Nagin, 2014). African Americans account for the largest percent of our prison population because they have the highest incarceration rate compared to other races. This essay will argue that African Americans are incarcerated at a higher rate than Caucasians. Proven by statistical data, there are grounds to establish that the racial disparity in incarceration rates is a social problem. To address this social problem, public policy should be implemented by the Federal Government.

The U.S. prison system is one of many great controversies when compared to other correctional systems. America’s prison population has increased by 700% (2.4 million current inmates) since the start of the war on drugs in 1971. As a result of this “war”, people that fall into the racial minority have suffered as a direct consequence of unjust legislation. Our prison system is known for its overrepresentation of minorities such as Blacks and Hispanics. This unfortunately gives these groups of people a perennial negative stigma as a result. I argue that the U.S. prison industrial-complex emphatically displays signs of prejudice and racism and disproportionately incarcerates people of color at a rate higher than whites. Yes, there are skeptics who think “the left’s prison-complex” is wrong about their theory of mass incarceration but the statistical data and concrete facts in support of my argument are very compelling.

A huge racial disparity in American prisons is apparent. The people in power have been utilizing the Criminal Justice system by increasing the number of prisoners at an astronomical rate since the turn of the 21st century, and their capitalistic agenda is a catastrophic problem. The transformation of prison policies is characterized by the mass incarceration of African Americans. Regrettably the elitism sustained in the early

The United States prison system is having a terrible time. In 2000 the US inmate population reached a record of two million. which means that 1 person in 140 in the United States was imprisoned. Over the last quarter of the 20th century, the number of inmates tripled, and the United States locked up mor people per capita than almost any other country, almost tying up with Russia for this dubious distinction. Incarceration rates are six times those of Briton and 17 time those of Japan. The rising numbers have made prisons a growth industry, California builds a new prison every year to keep up with the demand. The burden of imprisonment falls disproportionately on racial minorities. In California for example, a young black man is 5 times as likely

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

Racial inequality is growing. Our criminal laws, while facially neutral, are enforced in a manner that is massively and pervasively biased. My research will examine the U.S. criminal justice policies and how it has the most adverse effect on minorities. According to the Justice Department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics, out of a total population of 1,976,019 incarcerated in adult facilities, 1,239,946 or 63 percent are

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.

The United States of America has the largest prison population in the world. The United States incarcerates six hundred ninety-three people per one hundred thousand people and boasts an incarceration rate that is almost five times higher than most other countries (Wagner & Walsh, 2016). The incarceration rate within the U.S. is significantly higher than the incarceration rates of other countries due to the prevalence of institutional racism within the American criminal justice system. While the criminal justice system unjustly targets minority individuals, African Americans and Hispanics are especially targeted (Brennan & Spohn, 2009). African Americans and Hispanics account for a minority of the U.S. population but make up the majority of the U.S. prison population. Despite comprising only 13.6% of the U.S. population (Rastogi, Johnson, Hoeffel, and Drewery, 2011), African Americans account for 37.8% of all prisoners in the U.S. (Inmate Race, 2017). Hispanics are also targeted by the criminal justice system at abnormally high rates. Hispanics make up

Racial disproportionality of United States prison populations have been a controversy for several years. It is not entirely evident that the racial disproprtionality is cause to discrimination; however it does contribute to the conditions are the prisons. The criminal involvement of blacks and other minorities seems to be linked to the racial disproportionality of the prison populations. The types of crimes that are committed especially in the black community are addressed in the journal. The differences in the involvement of black offenders as it relates to more serious crimes as robberies and homicides which is a major contributor to the larger percentage of the prison system. The more serious crimes also tend to account for more of the disproportionality between black and white incarceration rates.

The United states has a mass incarceration problem with 1 out of 4 of the total population being incarcerated. With the highest incarceration rate in America makes up five percent of the world's population but holds twenty-five percent of the world's prisoners.The rate of incarceration has increased greatly over the last 50 years and continues to grow .The prison systems have become obstreperous, expensive, and destructive to society. African Americans account for fifty six percent of the people incarcerated. The discrimination of black men in the justice system has escalated in the last 50 years causing mass incarceration, broken family systems with distrust of the government, and increased mental health problems in the black community.

Jails depend on three main resources for operation which include the public, the local government, and the sheriff. Within the local power structure jails must compete for scarce resources with schools, hospitals, parks and other more popular facilities (Mays and Thompson, 1991). Prisons are maintained by the states or the federal government. Running a prison can be costly, so the logic behind prison fees is that

There is a racial connection between the United States criminal justice system and the overrepresentation of black men in the United States prison system. There are over 2 million people in the U.S. prison system exceeding that of any other nation and represents 25% of the world’s prisoners (The Sentencing Project, 2016). According to Prison Policy Initiative, African American communities are the most impacted with African American men representing nearly 40% of all U.S. prisoners, though African Americans represent less than 13% of the U.S. population (Wagner & Rabuy, 2016). In fact, African American males are six times more likely to be incarcerated than white males (The

At the prosecution stage, African Americans are subject to racially biased charges and plea agreements (TLC, 2011). African Americans are less likely to have their charges dismissed or reduced or to receive any kind of alternate sentencing than their white counterparts (TLC, 2011). In the last stage, the finding of guilt and sentencing, the decisions of jurors may be affected by race (Toth et al, 2008) African Americans receive racially discriminatory sentences from judges (TLC, 2011). A New York study from 1990 to 1992 revealed one-third of minorities would have receive a lesser sentence if they were treated the same as white and there would have been a 5 percent decrease in African Americans sent to prison during that time period if they had received the same probation privileges (TLC, 2011). African Americans receive death sentences more than whites who have committed similar crimes (Toth et al, 2008). Because of the unfair treatment from the beginning to the end of the justice system there is an over represented amount of African Americans in prison (Toth et al, 2008). Some of the problems faced by African Americans in prison are gangs, racial preferences given to whites, and unfair treatment by prison guards (Toth et al, 2008).

Mass incarceration is a large-scale problem that has emerged in recent decades. The reason for this lies in new laws and policies that crackdown on drug-related offenses. Since these policies have taken effect, the percent of people in prisons and jails has grown by 500% (The Sentencing Project). The 2015 population of inmates in either prison or jail was 2,173,800, this makes the United States the world leader in number of incarcerated people (The Sentencing Project). However, the rise in jail and prison populations has not spanned equally among races. The population of prisoners in 2015 was 1,476,847, with 523,000 of those prisoners being African American (The Sentencing Project). African Americans make up 13% of the population in the United

There are so many more African-Americans than whites in our prisons that the difference cannot be explained by higher crime among African- Americans - racial discrimination is also at work, and it penalizes African- Americans at almost every juncture in the criminal justice system.1