Privatized Prisons in the US - Research Paper Example

Privatized Prisons in the US Prisons in the United s are plagued by serious problems related to over-crowding such as violence, sexual assault, drugs and poor sanitation. State-run prison systems experience similar problems that other public-sector institutions face due to lack of competition: high costs, poor quality service and inadequate supplies. To alleviate these issues, particularly the cost factor, many states have encouraged the private sector to construct and operate new prisons. It remains an arguable topic, however, whether or not states should control its prison system or transfer some of the responsibility to private companies. This discussion will look into the advantages and disadvantages regarding both systems. The private prison experiment has lasted nearly three decades in the U.S., long enough to make conclusions about the effectiveness and overall impact on state and local governments. Privatized prisons have experienced dynamic growth in recent years but the concept, at least in part, has been around for a long time. During the 1800’s, some states entered into contracts with private groups to lease inmate labor. Leasing prisoners occurred on a fairly routine basis but the system and the inmates, as might be expected, were subject to widespread abuses. Because of this, the prisoner lease system came to an end in 1920’s during the Progressive Era. Until recently the fast growth in the prison and jail populations generated extraordinary opportunities for entrepreneurs to own and operate prisons beginning in the 1980s. The concept of privatization became a topic of public discussion in the mid-1980s, when the newly formed Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) proposed to the State of Tennessee’s to operate its entire prison system. The State paid CCA $250 million dollars on a 99-year deal. In return, CCA would lodge the state’s prisoners for an annually negotiated per-inmate payment. In addition, CCA would insure that the prisons it operated would meet the criterion establish by the same federal judge who had earlier determined that the state’s prison system violated of the U.S. Constitution due to the sub-standard conditions of confinement. (McDonald, et al. 1998) CCA’s relationship with Tennessee started the privatization boom that spread across the nation. Other states were experiencing similar issues with overcrowding and the problems associated with it therefore happy to hand the operation of prisons over to an outside entity. Many have questioned the legality of privatization, arguing the practice does not square with e Constitution. While the legality of governments assigning correctional authority to private corporations was broadly argued in the 1980s, it now seems that opposition to prison privatization, at least on a constitutional basis, has no merit. Unless a government has positively no convincing statutory authority for entering into contracts with private prison companies, courts will be hesitant to nullify those contacts on grounds of delegation. “Only delegated rulemaking and adjudication functions that directly purport to exercise a government power are deemed to require special constitutional due process safeguards and to be subject to heightened judicial scrutiny.” (McDonald, et al. 1998) No clear case law has been developed to define with precision how general due process standards will be applied to private prisons. The U.S. has the higher incarceration rate than any other in the world and is paying more than $3 billion a year to the private prison industry. These two facts are interrelated in an intentional and disturbing way. According to a study recently completed by the Justice Policy Institute (JPI), America’s two largest private prison corporations, GEO Group and CCA collectively pocketed annual incomes of $2.9 billion in 2010. The JPI issued a report based on the study called “Gaming the System.” It reveals that during the past decade, the number of prisoners housed in private federal penitentiaries increased by 120 percent and persons held in private state penitentiaries went up by 33 percent. Interestingly, during this same period of time the total prison population, both public and private, increased just 16 percent. The report goes on to say, “While private prison companies may try to present themselves as just meeting existing demand for prison beds and responding to current market conditions, in fact they have worked hard over the past decade to create markets for their product.” (D’Almeida, 2011) Private prison companies have been able to buy more political influence due to enormous revenue increases during the past decade. They have used this influence to endorse legislation that creates higher incarceration rates. Private prison corporations do not try to conceal their strictly business approach to their manipulation of the justice system which does not consider the victims of its severe penalties. CCA’s 2010 annual report ardently states that, “The demand for our facilities and services could be adversely affected by the relaxation of enforcement efforts, leniency in conviction or parole standards and sentencing practices or through the decriminalization of certain activities that are currently proscribed by our criminal laws - for instance, any changes with respect to drugs and controlled substances or illegal immigration could affect the number of persons arrested, convicted, and sentenced, thereby potentially reducing demand for correctional facilities to house them.” (D’Almeida, 2011) The private prison business produces both supply of and demand for prisoners so as to maintain an ever-escalating market for their “products and services” while collecting an huge profits at the expense of mostly minor criminals who might otherwise be allowed to be free. In May of 2011, Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue signed Senate Bill 87, his state’s version of Arizona’s infamous anti-immigration law. Civil rights groups, who were, of course, opposed to the law, blamed for-profit prison officials and their well-paid lobbyists for sponsoring the legislation, what many say is the most severe, racially biased immigration law passed in any state including Arizona. “CCA had a strong lobbying presence in the Georgia legislature. Passage of Senate Bill 87 was part of a national effort brought together by the conservative American Legislative Exchange Council, a task force that included a representative from a private prison company and was instrumental in drafting Arizona’s Senate Bill 1070,” according to Larry Pellegrini, executive director of the Georgia Rural Urban Summit. (D’Almeida, 2011) The three largest private prison corporations in the U.S., CCA, GEO and Cornel Companies spent more than two million dollars in 2010 alone on state politics in an effort to fill prison cells. These efforts included contributing to campaigns and lobbying for laws intended to lengthen prison sentences for existing laws and enacting new laws that include incarceration, specifically of illegal immigrants. Those who want to reduce the number of private prisons or eliminate them altogether and revert back to a 100 percent state-run system cite the lack of control over many factors necessary to prisoner welfare is their principal concern. Privatized prisons are essentially allowed to operate without scrutiny from any overseeing body such as a human rights organization which imposes legal standards for prisons. “Even within the flawed concept that “prison works,” privately run prisons have generally failed to match the claims made for cost efficiency, innovative regimes and lower recidivism rates. In their short history, private prisons have mirrored and even, on occasions, gone beyond the systemic human rights abuses found in the worst of the state sector” (Nathan, 2001). A federal grand jury found in December 2000 that the largest private prison corporation in the U.S. (CCA) had functioned within a corporate policy that, incredibly, required the use of excessive force. Adolescents incarcerated in a Louisiana private prison had been subjected to systematic abuses. “The U.S. Justice Department filed a lawsuit ordering the company to end the use of corporal punishment, excessive force and gas grenades, limit the use of chemical and mechanical restraints, eliminate suicide hazards, hire sufficient staff to provide adequate safety and security and provide adequate mental health treatment” (Nathan, 2001). A court ordered the government to purchase a privately financed and operated women’s facility from a private prison company following four years of constant complaints. These examples of are not isolated instances involving private prisons. All private business endeavors to be profitable including privately run prisons. Their main concern is reducing costs which, directly or indirectly and intended or not causes economic, social, and political implications including substandard wages, the lack of public accountability and overall incompetent prison operations. There will be increased pressure placed on lawmakers to build additional prisons and enhance the opportunity for profit as the private sector increases its involvement in operating penal facilities. As a result, the private sector becomes more and more involved in making criminal justice laws. “Aside from the moral and ethical arguments about prison privatization, there is ample operational evidence that the policy is wrong. Pending such an examination there should, at the very least, be a moratorium on private prisons” (Nathan, 2001). Claims of sizeable improved efficiency and cost-savings from the private prison industry have not been proven to be true. The present movement to privatize prisons presumes that modern businessmen will make all decisions based on humanistic and compassionate grounds therefore exploitations will not happen. No need to recite the Louisiana case to make the argument that the assumption is preposterous. “Privately managed facilities will bring new opportunities for corruption. Given poorly paid, undereducated, and inadequately trained staff, opponents question the professionalism and commitment that privatized staff will bring to the job” (Walker, 1994). Private prison advocates say that although the private sector has not followed through with its original assurances of significantly improved prison operations, the mere existence of privatized prisons has had a considerable influence on the government’s technique of operating prisons. Privatization has been useful as a device for change by demonstrating the importance of competition, at least on some level, in the area of corrections. Funding for prisons are limited but the cost-saving innovations pioneered by private prisons should be only one consideration. Essential human rights must also be considered. States and the federal government are facing serious debt issues and the public is demanding to cuts in spending therefore are generally in favor of privatizing the prison system at least in part. Private companies have seized this opportunity by offering a privately funded solution pointing out that some success have been achieved in the U.S., Australia and Britain. Their sales pitch to legislators and prison officials seems to be financially appealing at least on the surface. Government has no cash outlay up front because the company borrows the needed money to construct and operate the facility. Prison reformers also contend that private financing provides jobs and new infrastructure. “Private finance measures mean that a government hands over the finance, design and construction of a new facility and the provision of related services to a company or consortium in exchange for monthly fees over, usually, 25 years” (Nathan, 2001). Financial common sense dictates that the issue of funding and efficiently apportioning prison space would lessen if there is an available market to buy, rent and/or sell prison cells. “A competitive contract system brings in the discipline of contractual obligations and the need to meet specified standards. It puts pressure on all prospective providers to improve their quality and keep down costs” (Smith, 2002). Costs are driven down when many private companies vie for prison contracts. A leading U.S. company presently runs 55 prisons located in the three countries. While it takes several years for states to build new penitentiaries, companies have taken only six to nine months to build prisons which drastically reduce costs. Promoters of privatized prisons argue that they have established new and improved efficiency standards including improved services and prisoner welfare concerns. Private prisons can also provide enhanced rehabilitation facilities and provide for more effective time spent outside the cell. “Private prison provides more rehabilitation work with their inmates. In 1999, Corrections Corporation of America became the first U.S. prison service, public or private, to win a national accreditation sponsorship for its vocational trades courses” (Smith, 2002). The prisoners who participate in vocational programs have a much enhanced chance for employment. More types of jobs are available to them upon release than for the prisoners who do not partake in these programs. Increasing the odds that offenders will find a job following their release from prison reduces the odds that they will commit criminal acts to support themselves which decreases the overall costs to the public. Due to this success, CCA has been expanding this vocational program into its facilities located in Oklahoma, Georgia, Florida and Colorado. Prisons managed by private companies contribute to society in two ways, by giving criminals a chance to assimilate back into the general public and at lower costs to the public. Allowing the prison system to be competitive forces the discipline of contractual requirements therefore insures specific standards that must be followed. Competiveness keeps the pressure on all potential prison providers to keep their quality high while keeping costs at a minimum. “Overall, private prisons perform better on every key measure.” (Smith, 2002). No state has more privatized, for-profit, prisons than Texas, a state where capitalism is conjoined with the justice system. In recent years, due a growing convict shortage, some private prisons are having trouble filling jail cells, an economic dilemma which is causing some cities to rethink their decision to go into the penitentiary business. The city of Littlefield, Texas, located outside of Lubbock in West Texas, borrowed $10 million to build a prison in 2000. Wyoming and Idaho had been paying for prisoners to serve their time at that facility but Idaho ended its contract in 2009 due to state budget shortfalls. In addition there had been a scandal at the prison involving an inmate’s suicide. The GEO Group, which had operated the for-profit prison, told the city it was leaving soon after Idaho pulled its prisoners out. The prison has sat empty since that time and 100 prison jobs were lost. The city of Littlefield was economically devastated. It was forced to lay off city employees, increase city fees on sewer and water services, raised property taxes and reduced the budget on the police department to prevent defaulting on the $10 million loan. After taking all those very unpopular measures during especially tough economic times to protect the city’s bond rating it dropped anyway. McLennan County went $49 million into debt to build a prison in Waco, Texas thinking it would make a profit by charging per/day rates for cell space borrowing the business model from motels. However, due to a shortage of prisoners, the 800-plus room “motel” is less than half occupied. Anson, a town of about 2500 located in central Texas, is home to both a newly built $8 million county jail and $34 million state prison, neither house any prisoners or employee any staff and are not likely to anytime soon. The prison developers pocketed the money and left town. “When you put the profit motive into a private jail, by design, in order to increase your dollars, your revenues, your profits, you need more folks in there and they need to stay longer,” says a leading opponent of private prisons Bill Magers, mayor of the county seat of Sherman, Texas. “The detainees are wholly unaware that they may soon become the newest commodities of the volatile inmate market.” (Burnett, 2011). Private prison companies claim that they offer a necessary service to the public by providing a superior product driven by competition. Privately managed prisons drain less from public coffers than state-run prisons. In addition, the prisoners are treated humanely while being offered a chance to learn essential job skills which is another benefit to society. State, county and city officials are happy to hand-off the problematic issues involved with prisons to another entity. However, the 30 year long privatization experiment has shown that the prison system should remain in the “custody” of the state. Private prisons should not be allowed because it causes corruption of the system. The U.S. already incarcerates more of its citizens per capita than any other country. Private prison companies have been successful in driving that shameful number even higher just to make more money. This is an immoral circumstance and therefore the privatization of prisons should not be legal. Works Cited Almeida, Kanya “Profiteers of Misery: The U.S. Private Prison Industrial Complex” Inter Press Service August 24, 2011 Web. November 29, 2011< http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=104877> Burnett, John “Private Prison Promises Leave Texas Towns In Trouble.” NPR March 28, 2011 Web. November 29, 2011< http://www.npr.org/2011/03/28/134855801/private-prison-promises-leave-texas-towns-in-trouble> Mattera, Philip, Khan, Mafruza “Corrections Corporation of America: A Critical Look At Its First Twenty Years” Corporate Research Project of Good Jobs First Washington, DC May, 2003 Web. November 29, 2011 < http://www.prisonpolicy.org/scans/grassrootsleadership/cca.pdf> McDonald, Douglas, Ph.D., Fournier, Elizabeth, Russell-Einhourn, Malcolm, J.D., Crawford Stephen “Private Prisons in the United States” Abt Associates Inc. July, 1988. Web. November 29, 2011< http://www.abtassoc.org/reports/priv-report.pdf> Smith, A. “Chapter 36: Competing for Convicts: Private Prison Provision and Management.” Around the World in 80 Ideas. 2002. Web. November 29, 2011 Walker, D. “Privatization in Corrections.” Correctional Counseling and Treatment. Ed. Peter C. Kratcoski. Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press. 1994. Read More