Although many may not be entirely aware of it, the concept of prison and inmate labor is not new. In fact, prison labor has its roots in our nation’s oldest and perhaps most dishonorable act: slavery. The thirteenth amendment, intended to abolish slavery is specifically worded to do just that, except, in the case of prisoners: “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” So the practice of slavery is still imbedded in today’s society, just behind concrete walls and razor blade fences hidden from public view. Not only does it exist, but inmate labor is a billion dollar industry, …show more content…
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.
Despite this, multiple industries continue to thrive off of the cheap labor including health care companies, telecommunications companies, food supply companies, clothing manufacturers, call centers, technology companies, the bail industry, processing and packaging companies and agriculture (Henderson
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(2015, February). 9 Surprising Industries Profiting Handsomely from America's Prison System. AlterNet. Retrieved from https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/9-surprising-industries-profiting-handsomely-americas-insane-prison-system
King, R. S. (2005). Incarceration and Crime: A Complex Relationship. The Sentencing Project
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Prison labour is a billion-dollar industry, with uncertain returns for inmates. (2017, March 16). Retrieved November 20, 2017, from https://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21718897-idaho-prisoners-roast-potatoes-kentucky-they-sell-cattle-prison-labour
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Mass incarceration today serves the same function as did slavery
The United States has a larger percent of its population incarcerated than any other country. America is responsible for a quarter of the world’s inmates, and its incarceration rate is growing exponentially. The expense generated by these overcrowded prisons cost the country a substantial amount of money every year. While people are incarcerated for a number of reasons, the country’s prisons are focused on punishment rather than reform, and the result is a misguided system that fails to rehabilitate criminals or discourage crime. The ineffectiveness of the United States’ criminal justice system is caused by mass incarceration of non-violent offenders, racial profiling, and a high rate of recidivism.
Shapiro, David. Banking on Bondage: Private Prisons and Mass Incarceration. Rep. New York: American Civil Liberties Union, 2011. Print.
Whyte, Alan and Jamie Baker. "Prison labor on the rise in US." 8 may 2000. wsws.org. 05 April 2011 .
Of course, that would be the logical thought to have, but as it turns out, it 's a little more complex than that. Expectedly, “the interest of private prisons lies not in the obvious social good of having the minimum necessary number of inmates but in having as many as possible, housed as cheaply as possible.” (Adam Gopnik) In other the words, more inmates meant more money for the company. Over the last thirty years, the Corrections Corporation of America, a company whose main source of income comes from “having as many [prisoners] as possible, housed as cheaply as possible” saw the incarceration rates increase to “500 percent to more than 2.2 million people.” (grassroots) Well, let’s not get carried away, one could argue that the spike in incarceration rates can’t possibly be the private prison’s fault. They exist only to control and house the prison population, not to create it. Well, one would be right, the private prisons are not directly responsible; they are not directly making more criminals but what one doesn 't realise is that they play a pretty critical role in the
There are many citizen concerns, including the premise that private prison companies lobby governments to increase punishments and penalties to fill their facilities. Mr. Geoffrey Segal writes “It is unlikely that private prison firms are going to sway policy in favor of greater incarceration when such polices are obviously already very popular with the general population” in his online article published also on The Reason on November of 2002, Mr. Segal is the director of privatization and government reform at Reason Foundation. witha B.A in political science from Arizona State University, and a Master of Public Policy from Pepperdine University. The prison system as an industry, according to Randy Gragg privately owned prisons are starting to flourish again, Mr. Gragg is the editor-in-chief of Portland monthly, he wrote the article “A High-Security, Low-Risk Investment: Private Prisons Make Crime Pay” for Harper’s magazine on August 1996 Mr. Gragg is a Harvard University graduate of the school of design, and the national art journalism fellow at Columbia University. The
Goldberg, Eve, and Linda Evens. "The Prison-Industrial Complex and the Global Economy." Global Research. 18 Oct. 2001. Web. www.globalresearch.ca/articles.
The number of Americans that are in prison has elevated to levels that have never been seen before. Prisons in the US have always been crowded ever since the first prison was invented (Jacobs and Angelos 101). The first prison in the US was the Walnut Street Jail that was built in Philadelphia in 1773, and later closed in the 1830’s due to overcrowding and dirty conditions (Jacobs and Angelos 101). The prison system in modern US history has faced many downfalls due to prison overcrowding. Many private prison owners argue that the more inmates in a prison the more money they could make. In my opinion the argument of making more money from inmates in prisons is completely unconstitutional. If the private prisons are only interested in making
Today, half of state prisoners are serving time for nonviolent crimes. Over half of federal prisoners are serving time for drug crimes. Mass incarceration seems to be extremely expensive and a waste of money. It is believed to be a massive failure. Increased punishments and jailing have been declining in effectiveness for more than thirty years. Violent crime rates fell by more than fifty percent between 1991 and 2013, while property crime declined by forty-six percent, according to FBI statistics. Yet between 1990 and 2009, the prison population in the U.S. more than doubled, jumping from 771,243 to over 1.6 million (Nadia Prupis, 2015). While jailing may have at first had a positive result on the crime rate, it has reached a point of being less and less worth all the effort. Income growth and an aging population each had a greater effect on the decline in national crime rates than jailing. Mass incarceration and tough-on-crime policies have had huge social and money-related consequences--from its eighty billion dollars per-year price tag to its many societal costs, including an increased risk of recidivism due to barbarous conditions in prison and a lack of after-release reintegration opportunities. The government needs to rethink their strategy and their policies that are bad
can become a major source of income, not only for the inmate, but also for
The number of individuals that are incarcerated in the United States on a daily basis has surpassed 2.2 million (Gibbons & Katzenbach, 2011). Annually, 13.5 million people at some point and time spend time in prison or jail with approximately 95 percent of them ultimately returning to society (Gibbons et al., 2011). Taking the aforementioned statement into considerations the author believes that it is safe to say that what goes on behind prison walls effects all members of society. When correctional facilities are unsafe, unhealthy, unproductive, or inhumane it affects both the people who work in them as well as the people that are living there at some point and time.
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.
Shelden, R. G. (1999). The Prison Industrial Complex. Retrieved November 16, 2013, from www.populist.com: http://www.populist.com/99.11.prison.html