Public Prison Case Study

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For the purposes of this study the criteria for quality and effectiveness of correctional officers will be compared to correction officers of public prisons in the areas of drug hit rates, inmate on inmate assaults, and inmate on staff assaults, homicides, and escapes. The differences in these categories are staggering, they truly show how much of a difference the staff can make. When random drug searches were conducted in both private and public prisons, it is very apparent that inmates from private prisons were more likely to have and use drugs. The glaring difference in drug hit rates is a result from lack of correctional officer supervision. In the study of differences in drug hit rates between private and public prison, 74 private prisons …show more content…

Another 8.8 percent of public institutions had a positive result rate of 1 percent, while 13.2 percent of the institutions had a 2 percent rate, and 16.2 percent of the institutions reported a positive rate greater than or equal to 3 percent (Camp & Gaes, 2001). The staggering increase of the drug hits in private prisons is due to staff unawareness and lack of experience. When comparing the violence in private and public prisons, the difference is even greater than the drug hit rate. Private prisons had 41% more inmate on staff assaults and 65% more inmate on inmate assaults then public prisons (Greene, 2001). These numbers are astounding and cannot simply be explained by insufficient or inexperienced staff, there must be other problems beyond staff issues. There must be structural, housing or policy issues in order to explain such startling differences. These numbers are a representation of the priorities and approach of private prisons. This shows that they do not care about the safety of the staff and the inmates, what is more important to them is saving money at the expense of inmates and staff …show more content…

Eighty private prisons, which houses 63,124 inmates reported five homicides, the corresponding number per 5,000 inmates is 0.396. Studied low and medium security prisons, which house 68,541 inmates had three reported homicides, the corresponding number per 5,000 inmates is 0.219 (Camp & Gaes, 2001). In a one year study of escapes from private and public prisons it concluded that escapes in private prisons were much more frequent. There were a total of 23 escapes from private prisons, meaning 85% of private prisons had zero escapes. In the same amount of time public prisons only had one escape, meaning 98.5% of public prisons had no escapes (Camp & Gaes, 2001). It is hard to believe that employing cheaper correctional officers is actually cheaper in the long run when you factor in all the cost of turnover, training, violence, healthcare, homicides, lawsuits and prison escapes. If by some chance it is still cost effective to employ cheaper correctional officers is the measly saving worth the violence, killings, escapes and threatening of the safety of staff, inmates and the

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