Private Prisons

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What Goes on Behind Closed Bars (Profits So Good It’s Criminal)

The United States is the world’s leader in incarceration. Beginning in the the tough-on-crime ‘80s, prison populations have increased from 400,000 prisoners to 2.2 million in 2016. Overcrowded prison populations catalyzed the need for private prisons. However, now private prisons need to be eliminated. They exist only to make money, they perpetuate a cycle of mass incarceration, and the prisoners are often treated less humanely than in government-run prisons.
Private prisons are built to benefit one group only: the corporations running the prisons. The companies’s only interest is keeping as many private prisons running in order to turn the greatest profit. The largest private …show more content…
The contracts require that the state fill the private prisons to a certain percent occupancy and forced the state to pay a fine if the prison population drops below the required quota. In 2012, CoreCivic “offered to buy up and operate public state prisons. In exchange, states would have to sign a 20-year contract guaranteeing a 90 percent occupancy rate throughout the term” (Short). Some of these contracts require even a 100 percent occupancy. A 2013 report, “Criminal: How Lockup Quotas and ‘Low-Crime Taxes’ Guarantee Profits for Private Prison Corporations,” documents these contracts, reporting that “contract clauses like this incentivize criminalization, and do nothing to promote rehabilitation, crime reduction or community building...[which] counter to many states’ public policy goals of reducing the prison population and increasing efforts for inmate rehabilitation” (Short). As a result of these contracts, states are incentivized to arrest more people on minor crimes but issue longer sentences, so they reach the occupancy quotas for longer periods of time and don’t have to pay the massive fines. This continues the trends of mass incarceration in America. These private companies are hurting the lives of people arrested, who deserve effective programs to help them, rather than long …show more content…
Some studies have found that any savings are the result of cutting corners on basic services for prisoners. James Surowiecki of the New Yorker writes: “In a study of prisons in nine different states, Chris Petrella, a lecturer at Bates College, found that private ones avoid taking sick and elderly inmates, since healthcare is a huge expense for prisons. They employ a younger, less well trained, and less well paid workers and have higher inmate-to-guard ratios, all of which saves money but also makes prisons more dangerous” (Surowiecki). As private prisons become more crowded to make more money, there are more instances of violence within the prisons. In addition, private prisons often lack proper mental-health care, adequate food, and cut down on basic necessities like toilet
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