Privatize Private Prison

Private prisons result from public contracting. State and federal governments can, in times of special need or for increased financial security, develop contracts with independent businesses to allocate to them any additional prisoners or to have them take in prisoners instead of the public prison. These institutions take on the public responsibility, assets, and management aspects of prison work. In his article, “Private Prisons are Beneficial,” Mr. Erwin Blackstone argues that private prisons decrease costs for the state, operate more efficiently than state prisons, and reduce large scale inmate overcrowding. He suggests that the benefits from this type of prison management unequivocally outweigh any adverse effects of this system, and neglects,

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.

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.

Since 1984, the California Penal System has been forced to undergo drastic changes resulting from increased legislation aimed at increasing the severity of retribution to offenders leading to an exponentially increasing prison population. In the 132 years between 1852 and 1984, the state of California built twelve prisons, but has since supplemented the prison system with 21 new facilities. In 1977, the California Department of Corrections was responsible for 19,600 inmates. California’s inmate population now stands at 160,655, an increase of close to 800%.

Privately owned prisons began to emerge in the mid-1980s. These prisons emerged because of the ideological imperatives of the free market, the huge increase in the number of prisoners, and the substantial increase in imprisonment costs. (1) Proponents of privatized prisons put forward a simple case: The private sector can do it cheaper and more efficiently. Corporations such as Correction Corporation of America and Wackenhut promised design and management innovations without reducing costs or sacrificing quality of service. (1) Many interest groups comprised of correctional officers, labor works, and a few citizen groups strongly oppose the privatization of the prison system. I will identify four

Private prisons have a monetary incentive to keep their prison filled to the max (Mason, Too Good to be True Private Prisons in America). Public prisons on the other hand spend more money and effort on rehabilitation efforts and reintroducing people back into society in a healthy manner. One way in which private prisons reduce costs is by cutting the amount of training and pay prison staff are given as well as the number of staff which in turn leads to a less safe prison. The statistics point to an increase in riots, inmate violence, and even assault on prison staff (Mason, Too Good to be True Private Prisons in America). The quality of healthcare is another major issue in private prisons compared to public prisons and is one such reason why the amount of money spent per prisoner is less in private prisons (Smith, Why the U.S. Is Right to Move Away from Private Prisons). As well as spending less on those who need it, private prisoners do a certain amount of cherry picking taking only healthier and thus cheaper prisoners to hold within their \walls (Smith, Why the U.S. Is Right to Move Away from Private Prisons). Private prisons state innovation and creative methods as the reason for saving money as opposed to public prisons but there

The United States government had been working closely with private prison corporations for over three decades. Private prisons were first constructed to help the U.S. government house an ever-expanding prison population, and to relieve the government of some expenses. Today, these privately owned facilities have stirred up controversy with the questionable results of their formation. While it can be difficult to compare private prisons to public prisons, several researchers conclude that private prison corporations are harmful to society in the United States because they hinder economic stability, establish systems that negatively impact prison staff and inmates, and

This study by Clear and Frost demonstrates the overall outlook on the private prison system. Clear and Frost proclaim that the private prison system has become a increasing institution since the 70s due to the its capability to house more prisoners than just through the public prison systems. Despite the capability to house more than federal prisons, there has been many controversial disputes on the overall affect of the private prison systems. Some of the main disputes focus are issues such as whether or not this system is actually cheaper than the federal prisons, if they are better ran by their private providers, more suitable and the better choice longterm. Many argue that despite their exclusion from the public, they do not perform better

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

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.

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

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.