incarceration rate has continued to climb despite the fact that crime rates overall have gone down (King 2005) and our country incarcerates more people than any other nation in the world, mass incarceration has become an large economic industry sector. The economic factors of it have resulted “in huge profits, not only for private prison companies, but also, for everything from food companies and telecoms to all the businesses that are using prison labor to cut their manufacturing costs,” (Henderson 2015). Not only is inmate labor an issue with private prisons, since 1979, publicly run U.S. prisons have used inmate labor as well (Economist 2017). Inmate labor contributes to the Gross Domestic Product, but only very slightly (Kling, Krueger 1999). Inmate labor plays such a little role in the overall Gross Domestic Product that some argue, regardless of ethics and purely on an economic standpoint that the act of prison labor it is not even economically sensible to continue the practice.
There are many reasons that the idea became increasingly entertained. These reasons include the egregious overcrowding of government run facilities, citizens' forceful promotion of policies to further increase the American prison population, and increasing cost to maintain the increas... ... middle of paper ... ...ization: An Overview,” Prison Journal LXV Bureau of Justice Statistics, “Prison and Jail Inmates at Midyear 2004,” April 2005. Dennis C., 1999 “Projected FY 2000 Cost of DOC Operated Medium Security Beds Compared to Private Prison Contracts,” 4th Annual Privatizing Correctional Facilities Conference.. Greenblatt, A. (2003). "What Makes Alec Smart?".
What started out as buildings to only house couple thousands of dangerous criminals, drug offenders, and etc., are now turning into towns and cities of inmates with more prisoners than it can provide for. Many factors contribute to the overpopulation of prisons, but are the government funded prisons the best way of resolving this issue? The expansion of more private prisons has been a topic of many debates in America, especially in California, due to the many issues popping up in state run prisons. Third party prisons would not only help the huge overcrowding dilemma, but many other issues in the prison as well. The installment of more private prisons would satisfy both the taxpayers and prisoners and transitioning to the privatization of prisons would overall benefit the nation as a whole.
One of the major reasons that prisons have overcrowded is that crime control strategies and legislative changes have meant longer sentencing (Mcshane, 2008). A study in 2006 showed the change in the State and Federal prison population from 1990 to 2005. In 1990 there was a total of 773,124 inmates. In 2005, that number increased to 2,186,230 (Harrison & Beck, 2006). The three- strikes laws has a great impact on the overpopulation of our prison systems because it means more life sentencing with a lesser possibility of parole for most offenders.
The New York Review of Books. Retrieved May 18, 2012, from http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2009/nov/19/can-our-shameful-prisons-be-reformed/?pagination=false Florida Regional Community Policing Institute (March 2005). Ethical Issues and Decisions in Law Enforcement. Heather Mac Donald (14 May 2010). Distorting the Truth about Crime and Race.
Due to the fact that, at the time of the study, states were “mired in a fiscal crisis and struggling with painful budget choices,” they wanted and needed to know what was working for the criminal justice system, and what was not, in regards to recidivism. Furthermore, Pew wanted to create a single source of state-level recidivism da... ... middle of paper ... ...ensive review of empirical research of meditative styles used a multitude of methods. In a study concerning Transcendental Meditation, which is a technique where an individual systematically develops a finer and increasingly subtle experience of conscious attention, offenders in La Tuna federal penitentiary near El Paso, Texas were introduced to a TM (Transcendental Meditation) program. Participants, 17 offenders that were from a narcotics rehabilitation program, were recruited in this two month controlled study. Works Cited Benson, E. (2003).
(2011). Confronting confinement: A report of the commission of safety and abuse in america’s prisons. Federal Sentencing Reporter, 24(1), 36-41. McClellan, D.S. (2002).
Wackenhut, Inc. and U.S. Corrections Corporation, two very large private security firms, are coming soon to a town near you. With the advent of New York's so-called "Rockefeller" sentencing laws, overcrowded and violence prone prisons have become quite a problem for the New York State's Corrections Department and others. Many states have followed suit, along with the Federal government, in requiring mandatory sentencing and issuing guidelines for judges in certain cases. This increased burden on the system has created an opportunity for private business to get in on the action. Some act as brokers between institutions for services, others purchase outright or build their own institutions.
It is a contract between the governmentally controlled facility, where the private facility will bear responsibility for management and finance while the government will focus on sentencing, health care and drug treatments. According to the text, Corrections in the 21st Century by Frank Schmalleger, private prisons were outlawed during the early 1900’s but it came back into action when public prisons were over-populated and in a financial deficit. Many turned to private investment where the owner would regulate the facility while charging for each bed. Indeed, the business flourished and expanded to what we know today as private prisons. The three leading private facilities in the United States are Corrections Corporation of America, Wackenhut Corrections Corporation of America and Cornell Corrections Inc.
Privatization In Taft, California, with a perimeter of razor wire, armed prison guards, supervise hundreds of medium security level federal inmates. Welcome to one of America's newest and fastest growing trends in the area of corrections. This new phenomenon is termed, The Corporation of Modern Corrections. Faced with an increase in prison overcrowding and aging institutions, court orders demanding immediate reform coupled with a straining budget, mandatory minimum sentences, and the public's attitude toward "getting tough on crime", America's justice system is in need of an overhaul. Thus, government leaders are ready to consider different options to help reduce the strain, while still meeting is legal responsibility to provide services.