Prisons, Profits, and the Public Good - The Privatization of Corrections (2024)

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Prisons, Profits, and the Public Good - The Privatization of Corrections? ›

Prisons, Profits, and the Public Good - The Privatization of Corrections. This paper discusses the increasing role of privately owned and run prisons in the United States in terms of prison reform and presents the historical, economical, political, and philosophical significance.

Privatizing prisons can reduce prison overpopulation, making the facilities safer for inmates and employees. Private prisons can transform the broken government-run prison system. Private prisons offer innovative programs to lower the rates of re-imprisonment.

An estimated 10 million Americans owe more than $50 billion from their involvement in the criminal justice system. Privatization throughout the justice system has exacerbated the cycle of mandatory fees, nonpayment, and consequent additional fees.

Public prisons are owned by the federal government and are funded by taxpayers, and are required to report certain information regarding spending and confinement conditions. Private prisons, on the other hand, are owned and operated by private, third-party firms, and are contracted by the government.

Privatizing prisons allows for cost savings as private companies can often operate more efficiently and at a lower cost than the government. Additionally, overcrowding in corrections facilities is a problem that privatization seeks to address by building more prisons or expanding existing ones.

Private prisons are more dangerous than publicly run facilities. According to a U.S. Department of Justice study covering federal prisons, violent attacks by inmates on correctional staff were 163% higher in private than in public prisons, and inmate-on-inmate assaults were nearly 30% higher.

The advantages of private prisons include lower operating cost, controlling the population of prisoners, and the creation of jobs in the community. The disadvantages of private prisons include a lack of cost-effectiveness, a lack of security and safety concerns, poor conditions, and the potential for corruption.

Prison privatization has both pros and cons. The pros include lower cost and better performance, and the cons include a for-profit prison that encourages extended confinement, less security, health care cuts, and a lack of transparency.

Privately operated facilities have a significantly lower staffing level than publicly operated prisons and lack MIS support. They also report a significantly higher rate of assaults on staff and inmates.

Privatization of prisons involves either having private for-profit entities take over operation of an existing public facility or having private companies build and operate new facilities that they own.

Do privatized prisons make money? ›

A private prison can offer its services to the government and charge $150 per day per inmate. Generally speaking, the government will agree to these terms if the $150 is less than if the prison was publicly run. That difference is where the private prison makes its money.

We show that private prisons have a significant effect on aggregate state incarceration levels. Furthermore, the incarceration rate at the extensive margin increases with more private prisons for some crimes such as fraud, drug offenses, property crimes and weapons crimes.

If a private firm can run a prison more efficiently than the government, the government should allow privatization. Factors such as cost, quality of service, competition and liability must be examined in order to determine whether a private prison is more efficient than a public prison.

Harmful crime policies of the 1980s and beyond fueled a rapid expansion in the nation's prison population. The resulting burden on the public sector led to the modern emergence of for-profit prisons in many states and the federal system.

Private prisons receive their funding from government contracts and many of these contracts are based on the total number of inmates and their average length of time served. This means that the more inmates these prisons can hold – with longer sentences – the more money they earn.

“For-profit” prisons in the United States date back to 19th Century California. However, the private-prison movement did not gain modern appeal until the 1980's. During this era, the United States prison system was flooded with inmates, partially due to President Regan's decision to escalate the War on Drugs.

State prisons cost about $44.56 per inmate per day, compared to $49.07 for similar inmates in private prisons, according to the audit. That may not account for costs such as pensions for state prison workers, the head of the state House Appropriations Committee told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

In 2020, CoreCivic reported $1.9 billion in revenue, 82.2% of that coming from its private prison operations. Only 3.4% of CoreCivic's revenue was generated through “Community” contracts, such as the one it holds with CDCR. The majority of CoreCivic and GEO Group's revenues come from their private prison business.