Pros And Cons Of Private Prisons

1103 Words3 Pages

The living environments at many private prisons deprives many inmates of basic needs. For example, “[o]ne way for-profit prisons to minimize costs is by skimping on provisions, including food.” In fact, a psychiatrist who investigated a private prison in Mississippi “found that the inmates were severely underfed and looked ‘almost emaciated.’” During their incarceration, prisoners dropped anywhere from 10 to 60 pounds.”
Numerous reports detail startling examples of deplorable prison conditions. At one Mississippi prison, “an otherwise healthy inmate had to have a testicle removed after prison officials repeatedly denied his request for medical help when it swelled to the size of a softball from cancer.” Additionally, some prisoners live in “filthy quarters without working lights or toilets, forcing them to …show more content…

As a practical matter, however, given the current state of partisan rancor and the existing contracts between the federal government and private prisons, it is unlikely that Congress will pass Sanders’ proposal. At the same time, Sanders’ legislation underscores the need for systemic reforms to ensure that private prisons operate with greater transparency and accountability, and to safeguard inmates from violent and inhumane prison environments.
B. NEW PROPOSAL FOR ERADICATING PRIVATE PRISONS

Congress should consider several proposals to address the documented problems with private prisons, including: (1) ending the War on Drugs; (2) creating a federal agency to oversee the administration of private prisons; (3) afford private prisoners limited constitutional protections; and (4) create a statutory cause of action against employees of private prisons for conduct that violates constitutional rights.

A. END THE WAR ON

Show More
Related

  • Analysis Of Lockdown By Evans D Hopkins

    731 Words  | 2 Pages

    A reality where the prisoner is dehumanized and have their rights and mental health abused. “I have endured lockdowns in buildings with little or no heat; lockdowns during which authorities cut off the plumbing completely, so contraband couldn’t be flushed away; and lockdowns where we weren’t allowed out to shower for more than a month” (Hopkins 154). A prisoner currently must survive isolation with improper shelter in the form of heat. Issues compound with a lack of running water and bathing, a proven severe health danger, especially for someone lacking proper nutrients such as a prisoner in lockdown. These abuses of physical well being then manifest into damage of prisoners’ mental well being. “Perhaps I should acknowledge that the lockdown-and, indeed, all these years-have damaged more than I want to believe” (Hopkins 156). Even for the experienced prisoner the wrath of unethically long lockdowns still cause mental damage. Each and every isolation period becomes another psychological beating delivered as the justice system needlessly aims to damage the already harmed inmates. The damage is so profound inmates even recognize the harm done to them by their jailors. An armed and widely used psychological weapon, the elongated lockdown procedures decimate mental health each and every time

    Read More

  • The Pros And Cons Of Federal Prisons

    1219 Words  | 3 Pages

    In 1814 Francis Scott Key described America as “the land of the free and the home of the brave.” Does that still hold true today? The United States has less than 5% of the world’s population, yet houses roughly a quarter of the world’s prisoners. That means it has 751 people in jail for every 100,000 in population. If you only count adults one in every 100 Americans is locked up. In 2012 the U.S. spent 677,856,000 billion dollars on national defense, that’s nearly 7.5 times the amount spent on education. If more money was spent on education there would be a better chance that people won’t end up incarcerated. About half of the prisoners in the United States are sentenced for non-violent crimes. The population of federal prisons has increased

    Read More

  • Private Prisons Negativly Impact State and Local Governments

    3178 Words  | 7 Pages

    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...

    Read More

  • Private Prisons Pros And Cons

    1144 Words  | 3 Pages

    According to a study conducted by James Blumstein, the director of the Health Policy Center at Vanderbilt Institute for Public Policy Studies, private prisons saves at least $15 million a year. The cost of housing an inmate in a private prison facility is cheaper than traditional government funding prisons. However, the idea that private prisons benefit the U.S is under speculation. But if one were to conduct a research on privatization of prisons, the results would show that America indeed saves money every year for each inmate housed in a private facility. For example, according to the New York Times, Richard A. Oppel Jr. said that “the state is required to provide medical and mental health services to inmates regardless of the severity of their condition and medical costs averaged up to $2.44 a day more for state inmates than privately housed inmates.” In comparison, Scott Glover also said on Central news that the medical costs daily per inmate are cheaper in private prisons, at $57.97 as opposed to $60.66 The reason is only healthy inmates would be chosen to house in these private facilities. Moreover, companies can save because the inmates who work, are full time, so they would not have to worry about job health insurance, unemployment benefits, and other checks such

    Read More

  • Prison Reform in the United States of America

    1330 Words  | 3 Pages

    Prison Reform in The United States of America “It is said that no one truly knows a nation until one has been inside its jails. A nation should not be judged by how it treats its highest citizens, but its lowest ones” (Nelson Mandela, 1994). The United States of America has more people behind bars than any other country on the planet. The prisons are at over double capacity. It cost a lot of money to house prisoners each year.

    Read More

  • The Privatization of Prison Healthcare

    1596 Words  | 4 Pages

    The system of the Prison Industrial Complex operates within the law. The law allows private companies to infiltrate the prison, while keeping prisoners in a subjugated position. The law, under the Eight Amendment obligates prison officials to provide prisoners with “adequate” medical care. This principle applies regardless of whether the medical care provided is by governmental employees or by private medical staff under contract with the government (Project, 2012). If prisoners believe they are being denied their constitutio...

    Read More

  • Essay On Prison Overcrowding

    1058 Words  | 3 Pages

    has seen many legal lawsuits due to prison overcrowding and the prison conditions they bring along. Between 1978 and 1982, three of the cases on prison and jail conditions that had been heard in the lower federal courts reached the United States Supreme Court (Jacobs and Angelos 103). According to the article Prison Overcrowding and the Law one of the court cases heard in the supreme court was an appeal from a decision holding the “totality of conditions” in the Arkansas prison system. The other two court cases were appeals from decisions by federal judges holding that crowding by itself was forbidden by the Constitution (Jacobs and Angelos 103). These court decisions helped to resolve the standards to be used by the lower courts in deciding prisons and jail crowding cases (Jacobs and Angelos 103). The federal judges in the Arkansas case all labeled the overall conditions of that state’s prison system “shocking to the conscience” (Jacobs and Angelos 104). According to the article Prison Overcrowding and the Law severe crowding, violence, sexual assault, filth, inadequate medical and dental care, inadequate food facilities, and failure to separate mentally and physically ill inmates were all cited as contributing to the unconstitutional “totality of conditions”. I think that these judges were absolutely right to give these conditions such names even though they are inmates they still need access to certain livable conditions. Prison overcrowding was

    Read More

  • Persuasive Essay On Mass Incarceration

    1168 Words  | 3 Pages

    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

    Read More

  • Private Prisons: Profitability and Controversial Strategies

    730 Words  | 2 Pages

    Private prisons in the United States, came about in the early 1980s when the war on drugs resulted in a mass wave of inmates, which led to the lack of the prison system’s ability to hold a vast number of inmates. When the cost became too much for the government to handle, private sectors sought this as an opportunity to expand their businesses through the prison industry. Since the opening of private prisons, the number of prisons and inmates it can hold has grown over the last two decades. With the rising number of inmates, profits have also substantially grown along with the number of investors. But what eventually became a problem amongst the private prison industry was their “cost-saving” strategies, which have been in constant debate ever

    Read More

  • Pros And Cons Of For Profit Prisons

    1034 Words  | 3 Pages

    Should prisons in the United States be for profit? How do for profit prisons benefit the United States? Would inmates rather be in private or public correctional centers? What kind of affects does this have on taxpayers? What are the pros and cons of profit prisons? These are many of the questions that are brought up when discussing for profit prison systems. There are different perspectives that can be taken when it comes to talking about for profit prisons. This paper will discuss some of the ways that the United States has started to become for profit and why it has happened. Finally, this paper will give an opinion of whether or not for profit prisons should be dominant over public facilities.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of 'The Prisoner's Dilemma'

    1019 Words  | 3 Pages

    Overcrowding is one of the predominate reasons that Western prisons are viewed as inhumane. Chapman’s article has factual information showing that some prisons have as many as three times the amount of prisoners as allowed by maximum space standards. Prison cells are packed with four to five prisoners in a limited six-foot-by-six-foot space, which then, leads to unsanitary conditions. Prisons with overcrowding are exposed to outbreaks of infectious diseases such as, tuberculosis and hepatitis.

    Read More

  • Prison Overcrowding

    2356 Words  | 5 Pages

    In the 1970s and 1980s, a massive amount of inmates began fillin up the United States prison systems. This huge rate of growth in this short amount of time, has greatly contributed to the prison overcrowding that the United States faces today. In fact, the prisons are still filled to the seams. This enormous flood of inmates has made it practically impossible for prison officials to keep up with their facilities and supervise their inmates. One of the main reasons why many prisons have become overcrowded is because of states’ harsh criminal laws and parole practices (Cohen). “One in every 100 American adults is behind bars, the highest incarceration rate in the world” (Cohen). The amount of inmates in corrections systems, throughout the nation, sky-rocketed to 708 percent between 1972 and 2008. Today, there are about 145,000 inmates occupying areas only designed for 80,000 (Posner). Peter Mosko, “an assistant professor of Law, Police Science and Criminal Justice at New York’s John Jay College of Criminal Justice” (Frazier) stated, “America, with 2.3 million people behind bars, has more prisoners than soldiers” (Frazier). There have been studies that have shown “there are more men and women in prison than ever before. The number of inmates grew by an average of 1,600 a week. The U. S. has the highest rate of crime in the world” (Clark). Because of this influx in inmates, many prisoners’ rights groups have filed lawsuits charging that “overcrowded prisons violate the Constitution’s 8th Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment” (Clark). It is clear that the United States corrections system needs to be reformed in order to eliminate this problem. Prison overcrowding is a serious issue in society due to the fact it affects prison ...

    Read More

  • Private Prisons or For -Profit Prisons

    1203 Words  | 3 Pages

    In Ohio, five murders escaped a maximum-security private prison. The food budget can easily be manipulated compared to other parts of the budget. As a result, it is important to examine the food quality in prisons. In a case study of Taft Correctional Institution (a private prison), this private institution ranked the worst in quality of food, variety of food, and amount of food compared to all BOP facilities (Camp et al., 2002).

    Read More

  • Issues in Corrections

    851 Words  | 2 Pages

    The first issue that I would like to address is the overcrowding issues in prisons. In my opinion, overcrowding issues are the biggest issues in our correctional system that concerns every citizen. Running a prison required money, resources and manpower, with overcrowding issues, the government would have no choice but to increase the number of correctional facilities, privatized prisons and increasing manpower. According to (Levitt, 1996), “The incarceration rate in the United States has more than tripled in the last two decades. At year-end 1994 the United States prison population exceeded one million. Annual government outlays on prisons are roughly $40 billion per year. The rate of imprisonment in the United States is three to four times greater than most European countries.” (p.1). Overcrowding issues are not only affect prisons but the society as a whole as well. The reason is simply because prison population directly refl...

    Read More

  • Life Behind Bars

    1158 Words  | 3 Pages

    From prisons, jails, and juvenile facilities the United States has the highest incarceration rate of any nation in the world, costing the country billions each year to operate. Creating a booming business for the entertainment industry to convey prison life through films, documentaries, and TV shows, Beyond Scared Straight, Jail, and American’s Hardest Prisons are a few. Allowing citizens to utilize their imagination to envision what it would be like ripped of all dignity and locked up to inhabit a six by eight center-block cell for an extended period of time. However how accurate are films, TV shows, and documentaries of life behind bars? Hollywood’s take on prison life is often inaccurate using obscured facts to display daily life and various experiences of prisoners for its audience. Creating a misassumption of prison and its inmates to citizens within the U.S. Literacy works, regarding actual accounts of inmate experiences that either an inmate wrote or outsourced to an author similar to A Life for a Life contain more detailed and authentic material. Insight of food consumption, violence, sexual encounters, corrupt guards, and health care are various topics exaggerated in films such as, Animal Factory which the books, journals, and biographies like A Life for a Life adequately convey in greater detail to help an individual create a better understanding of the actual realities of life behind bars. By comparing the two, Animal Factory and A Life for a Life, an individual can correct any false assumptions they may have regarding prison life.

    Read More

More about Pros And Cons Of Private Prisons

Open Document