Private Prisons

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Recommended: Impact of slavery in America

America has 5% of the world’s population but also 25% of the world’s prisoners. The 13th amendment states that slavery and involuntary servitude is illegal unless as punishment for a crime. The exception of slavery and involuntary servitude being legal if it is punishment of a crime was a loophole. Because slavery was a major part of the economy in the South, they arrested African-Americans for extremely minor crimes and used the loophole to make them provide labor to rebuild the economy of the South. Doing so caused the first prison boom in America. African-Americans were often made out to be out of control and dangerous to white women. For instance, the 1915 film Birth of a Nation made African-Americans look like criminals. In one scene, …show more content…

The CCA is a major funder of private prisons, thus, prisons would have to keep their prisoners in longer to maintain funding while CCA gets a huge profit. ALEC made a bill called SB 1070 that allowed the police to arrest anyone who looked like an immigrant. In doing so, immigration detention facilities, that were basically just prisons, were filled and the CCA made a profit. Other reasons there are a lot of prisoners are because of the way the system works with bails and plea deals. A lot of prisoners are in prison because because they can’t afford to pay the bail to get out. Also, people are given the option of pleading guilty to a crime they didn’t commit and getting a shorter sentence or risk taking it to court and getting an extremely longer sentence if found guilty. These favor the rich and guilty instead of the poor and innocent. Even after prison, people don’t get to move on. People who leave prison are then shunned because they’ll get denied student loans, jobs, insurance, the right to vote. Prisoners are supposed to repay their debt to society and then move on with their life. However, it is near impossible to do so when you can’t get student loans to afford college, can’t vote, can’t get insurance, and can’t get treated like a citizen …show more content…

If I remember correctly, there was a study that showed, statistically, more white people do heroin than African-Americans but more African-Americans get arrested for heroin possession. Also, if African-Americans are getting shot at just for resisting arrest when they didn’t do anything, that’s a problem. While technically you aren’t supposed to resist arrest (if you didn’t do anything you are supposed to take it up with court, call a lawyer when you get a police station, ask what you did when you get there, etc.), you can’t shoot someone for resisting arrest when they didn’t do anything or know why they’re getting arrested. Assaulting a cop is one thing, but resisting arrest shouldn’t get you could. You are only allowed to kill in self-defense and resisting arrest isn’t putting the cop in any

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