Private Prisons and Interest Groups Essay

“These private companies are too often plagued by scandal and accused of abuse”.(Loewenstien, Anthony, Private Prisons Cash In on Refugees, New York Times, February 25 2016). At the beginning of the article it talks about how these so called family residential centers for immigrants and refugees that are housing women and children. It is becoming very clear that these centers are not family friendly. Despite the comforting name they are still prisons. The families staying in these facilities are treated as prisoners. This article focuses on these large corporations profiting from desperate people seeking safety. These people have not committed any crimes and yet are treated the same as criminals. The article also focuses on the failures of private prisons. Overcrowding, inadequate health care, and less access to educational programs. It also can be stated that corporations like the CCA lobby politicians to keep their beds full. “Congress requires that at least 34,000 people be housed daily in detention centers - a so called detention bed mandate.”(Loewenstien, Anthony, Private Prisons Cash In on Refugees, New York Times, February 25 2016) The major problem with these corporations is how private prisons make money. These corporations skimp on services like education and health care. This means important programs for inmates are less available in private

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.

The economic components associated with maintaining and operating public prisons in the U.S. has become a prominent topic in recent years. Many anti-prison activist such a Angela Y. Davis and Ruth Wilson Gilmore contend that the involvement of private corporations and the prevailing social ideology have contributed to the radical expansion of prisons in America.

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.

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

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.

The United States is regarded as a country of innovation and progress. However, the prison and disciplinary systems in the U.S. fall short in several aspects. With the highest incarceration rate in the world, one might expect American prisons to be prepared for providing quality care and rehabilitation for inmates. Unfortunately, this is not the reality - with a growing number of privatized prisons, the quality of life for inmates and their families is dissipating. The U.S. prison system is in desperate need of reform; closing down private prisons will help in alleviating monetary pressure, reducing abuse reports, and lowering the rate of reincarceration in individuals. Prison reform should be seen as a priority, as nonviolent offenders are suffering far more than they should, and are purposely conditioned to be reincarcerated after their release. Private prisons are rapidly growing in the U.S. to keep up with a growing number of inmates. With the rising number of prisoners, prisoner abuse levels are also rising exponentially. This is due to the fact that private prisons are a booming industry that exploits prisoners for profits. Private prisons may seem beneficial at a glance; however, they enforce lax regulations and are notorious for overcrowding and “barbaric” conditions. Prisons should rehabilitate nonviolent offenders in

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.

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

Because of this fiscal pressure, governments are looking for alternatives to the public prison system. The predominant idea for reformation is privatization of prisons. Journals abound with responses to this idea including Ph.D. Gaes’s article in the National Institute of Justice Journal, L. Beaty’s article in The Case Journal, and R. Culp’s article in the Criminal Justice Policy Review.

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.

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

The United States has an incarceration problem that personifies issues throughout the entire criminal justice system. "The United States, with just 5 percent of the world 's population, currently holds 25 percent of the world 's prisoners" (Khalek). This issue runs deeper than just incarceration; it permeates every level of the criminal justice system, from incarceration to probation. Many states have turned to private institutions in an attempt shed operating costs, while also increasing effectiveness throughout the criminal justice system. These acts can include anything from providing treatment programs to full blown management of the entire prison system. Overcrowding at prisons and the rising costs associated with them has led many states to turn to some form of privatization within the criminal justice system. However, privatizing the entire correction system would not be beneficial for the state, from both an ethical and a public policy standpoint.

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