The Pros And Cons Of Private Prisons

Words: 1550
Pages: 7

The United States has the highest incarceration rate of any country, including China which has a population five times greater than the US. This does not make any sense to someone with any rationale. The United States doesn’t have worse people nor do we have a lower moral code, the system has just been ruined by the privatization of our criminals. Contract prisons or private prisons were started in the 1980’s under the guise that private operations are considerably more efficient than government ones. The most publicized and largest contract prison firm was born out of this, CCA, or Corrections Corporation of America. Originally CCA, which was founded in 1983, was not as lucrative as they had originally perceived. Their stocks were at an all time low until 9/11, in which the government spiked the number of immigrants they were incarcerating and the private prison industry was given a breath of new life. What’s the issue with getting bad guys off the streets? Committing a crime should get you a comparable sentence, but no one should make money off the mistakes you’ve made. This is exactly what contract prisons do though. The two largest companies, CCA and The GEO Group, have an annual revenue that exceeds 3 billion dollars. Fig. 2 on page 9 explains the revenue breakdown. Private prisons don’t want their …show more content…
We aren’t saving money, they aren’t more efficient, and they aren’t helping anyone, except those who run them. The only people they truly benefit are the millionaire and billionaire investors who profit off of the mistakes of others. Private prisons design contracts with the state to ensure they stay filled. These sorts of contracts almost guarantee the continuation of mass incarceration. Although jails and prisons are necessary for society, making them privately run is causing corruption. Their take on efficiency leads to low wages and short staffing which in turn leads to retaliation on both sides of the