Prisons have been around for decades. Keeping housed, those of our society who have been convicted
Of many crimes ranging from theft, rape all the way to capital murder. “Do the crime you do the time.”
Now, there is no argument that prisons aren’t a necessity to keep order and peace for the public. But
There is a new form of prisons called private prisons and they are costing more than just convict’s time and freedom, but are also costing law abiding citizen’s major tax dollars and taking away a lot of financial freedom from the government. Being introduced in the 1980’s, was the boom for most of today’s first private prisons. Initially being built to reduce overcrowding and cut cost from the regular prisons which were once a form of rehabilitation
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With most of the units being understaffed, prison gangs and prison violence is hard to control in these type of places. A nationwide study concluded that inmate on guard assault was 49 percent more frequent in private prisons than in government run prisons. It was also stated in this study that “for profit prisons” have more problems with maintaining security in their prisons. With that being said, “for profit prisons” have significantly more escapes, homicide and assaults than government run prisons. All of these things make working in this type of environment very frightening for guards and other staff and could potentially make employees more hesitant to approach a situation they may see or know is hazardous or unsafe for the inmates. Poor living condition and lack of safety within these prisons are getting worse because of the high demand for private prisons. This type of practice is not ok. It has caused major sacrifice but little gain for the public. Private prisons must be better monitored and closely regulated by the government in order to maintain a safe housing unit for inmates.
Overcrowding is a problem that is not only seen in for profit facilities, but in all facilities. If there was funding to provide more housing units for the inmates there would be less staff and inmate assaults. I feel that this is a huge negative factor in the for profit setting, it is bad enough that staff and inmate assaults happen as often as they do in state and federal facilities. If more staff are taken out of the equation, it increases the likelihood of staff and inmate assaults.
Private prisons are correctional institutions ran by for-profit corporations. They claim to cost less than prisons ran by the state, while offering the same level of service. In fact, the Corrections Corporation of America, one of the largest for-profit prison corporations, states that their business strategy is to provide quality corrections service while offering a better value to their government partners at the same time making a profit (CCA 2010). However, opponents of private prisons say they do not save states money because of their hidden cost. At any rate, more than a few states have found private prisons to be advantageous. For one reason, many states are facing massive deficits and are l...
In the 1970s, prison was a dangerous place. Prison violence and the high numbers of disruptive inmates have led prison authorities to seek new ways to control prisoners. At first, prison staff sought to minimize contact with prisoners by keeping them in their cells for a majority of the day. As time went on, the prison authorities began to brainstorm the idea of having entire prisons dedicated to using these kinds of procedures to control the most violent and disruptive inmates. By 1984, many states began construction on super-maximum prisons.
Prison overpopulation puts a strain on the environment of our legal system. According to the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) the United States is currently incarcerating 1 in 100 American Adults. ALEC also claims that
The goal of private prisons is to be more efficient and runs cheaper than the average public operated prisons. In a public prison, it cost a lot of money for the inmates to be taken cared of, so the plan was to have a prion that is not own by the government, but instead was owned by a owner who would guarantee to run their prison facility for less money, and still provide the same qualities and care as a public prison. However, that isn’t the case now. Private prisons are falling short on actually fulfilling those aspect and requirements. In fact it is relatively hard to determine if there is any difference in the qualities between a private facility and a public facility. The only difference so far is that a private prison is not own by the government and therefore it is more of a business own by an owner who most likely runs...
Of course, that would be the logical thought to have, but as it turns out, it 's a little more complex than that. Expectedly, “the interest of private prisons lies not in the obvious social good of having the minimum necessary number of inmates but in having as many as possible, housed as cheaply as possible.” (Adam Gopnik) In other the words, more inmates meant more money for the company. Over the last thirty years, the Corrections Corporation of America, a company whose main source of income comes from “having as many [prisoners] as possible, housed as cheaply as possible” saw the incarceration rates increase to “500 percent to more than 2.2 million people.” (grassroots) Well, let’s not get carried away, one could argue that the spike in incarceration rates can’t possibly be the private prison’s fault. They exist only to control and house the prison population, not to create it. Well, one would be right, the private prisons are not directly responsible; they are not directly making more criminals but what one doesn 't realise is that they play a pretty critical role in the
The proponents of private prisons contend that private prison are a necessity because the criminal justice system is in crisis and governments do not have the willingness to spend public money building new prisons. According to Adrian Moore, Mr. Moore is the Vice President, Policy of the Reason Foundation, and this statement was published online “Private Prisons, Quality Corrections at a Lower Cost.” For the website reason.org on April 1998 Moore holds a Ph.D. in Economics
Over the past several decades, the number of prison inmates has grown exponentially. In 1980, prison population had numbers around half a million inmates. A graph of statistics gathered from the U.S. Bureau of Justice shows that between 1980 and 2010, the prison population grew almost five times, topping out at nearly 2.5 million. According to an article in The New York Times, the average time spent in jail by prisoners released in 2009 increased by 36% compared to prisoners released in 1990. Many people, such as those at Human Rights Watch, believe that the increase of these numbers has been because of tough-on-crime laws, causing prisons to be filled with non-violent offenders. This rise in crime rates, prison population, and recidivism, has led politicians as well as ordinary citizens to call for prison reform.
The number of Americans that are in prison has elevated to levels that have never been seen before. Prisons in the US have always been crowded ever since the first prison was invented (Jacobs and Angelos 101). The first prison in the US was the Walnut Street Jail that was built in Philadelphia in 1773, and later closed in the 1830’s due to overcrowding and dirty conditions (Jacobs and Angelos 101). The prison system in modern US history has faced many downfalls due to prison overcrowding. Many private prison owners argue that the more inmates in a prison the more money they could make. In my opinion the argument of making more money from inmates in prisons is completely unconstitutional. If the private prisons are only interested in making
The past two decades have engendered a very serious and historic shift in the utilization of confinement within the United States. In 1980, there were less than five hundred thousand people confined in the nation’s prisons and jails. Today we have approximately two million and the numbers are still elevating. We are spending over thirty five billion annually on corrections while many other regime accommodations for education, health
Throughout history into today, there have been many problems with our prison system. Prisons are overcrowded, underfunded, rape rates are off the charts, and we as Americans have no idea how to fix it. We need to have shorter sentences and try to rehabilitate prisoners back to where they can function in society. Many prisoners barely have a high school education and do not receive further education in jail. Guards need to pay more attention to the well being of the inmates and start to notice signs of abuse and address them. These are just a few of the many problems in our prison systems that need to be addressed.
It is said that prison should be used for more serious crimes such as rape, assault, homicide and robbery (David, 2006). Because the U.S. Prison is used heavily for punishment and prevention of crime, correctional systems in the U.S. tend to be overcrowded (David, 2006). Even though prisons in the U.S. Are used for privies on of crime it doesn 't work. In a 2002 federal study, 67% of inmates that
The overall goal of correctional facilities can be broken down into three main functions which are retribution, deterrence, and rehabilitation of the inmates. Today, there is much debate on rather private or public prison admiration is best to suit those goals. In a private prison the inmates are contracted out to a third party from either local, state, or federal government agencies (Smith 2012). Public prisons are where the government themselves house and supply the inmate’s basic needs with no third party involved. However, a large portion of the argument of private verses public prisons is over, which is best in achieving those goals more efficiently.
Firstly, in order to gain a better understanding of the problems that plague or correctional system we must fully understand the enormous overcrowding problem that exist in the majority of or state and federal prisons. Since 1980 the prison population has quadrupled and only the numb...
Prison was designed to house and isolate criminals away from the society in order for our society and the people within it to function without the fears of the outlaws. The purpose of prison is to deter and prevent people from committing a crime using the ideas of incarceration by taking away freedom and liberty from those individuals committed of crimes. Prisons in America are run either by the federal, states or even private contractors. There are many challenges and issues that our correctional system is facing today due to the nature of prisons being the place to house various types of criminals. In this paper, I will address and identify three major issues that I believe our correctional system is facing today using my own ideas along with the researches from three reputable outside academic sources.