Why privatized prisons

As the public good suffers from mass incarceration, private prison companies obtain more and more government dollars, and private prison executives at the leading companies rake in enormous compensation packages. Private prison companies essentially admit that their business model depends on locking up more and more people.

The American economy should not include locking people in cages for profit. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, for-profit companies were responsible for approximately 7 percent of state prisoners and 18 percent of federal prisoners in the most recent numbers currently available. If overall prison populations continue the current trend of modest decline, the privatization debate will likely intensify as opportunities for the prison industry dry up and corrections companies seek profit in other areas of criminal justice services and immigration detention.

Between and , the number of people incarcerated in private prison facilities increased 47 percent while the overall prison population increased 9 percent.

The private prison population reached a peak of , in ; it then declined to , in , before rising again in to , At the state level 27 states utilized private prison beds, with contracts ranging from a low of 12 in South Carolina to a high of 13, in Texas See Table 2.

Six states have more than doubled the number of individuals in private prisons since Arizona had the largest increase, holding percent more people in private prisons in than in , followed by Indiana percent , Ohio percent , Florida percent , Georgia percent , and Tennessee percent. New Mexico had the highest proportion of its population held privately in both and , with respective rates of 40 and 43 percent, followed closely by Montana with a rate of 39 percent in The number of federal prisoners held in private prisons rose percent from 15, in to 34, in , while the number of state prisoners incarcerated privately grew by 31 percent over the same time period, from 71, to 94, A reduction in the overall federal prison population that began in resulted from changes in sentencing policy and influenced a modest decline in private prison use in Department of Justice However, in February , Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced the reversal of this plan, indicating that the Bureau of Prisons would continue to rely on these facilities.

This policy reversal was followed by a directive to prosecutors to pursue the most serious charges and toughest sentences in all federal cases. These changes are projected to increase prison admissions and sentence length, which is likely to contribute to an expansion of private facility contracting. Indeed, in May , the DOJ issued a new solicitation to increase capacity by 1, beds in privately-run Criminal Alien Requirement facilities intended for non-citizens charged with lower-level offenses, including drug and immigration offenses.

This was followed in January with a Bureau of Prisons memorandum to federal prison officials outlining goals for increasing population levels in private facilities and ordering officials to expedite transfers of people deemed eligible for placement in contract institutions.

Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Prisons. The Sentencing Project. By , that number had jumped to 26, people. This expansion of detention was influenced by a shift in immigration policy enforcement. By fiscal year the quota was raised to 34, beds. In , a major influx of migrants from Central America led to an expansion of immigration detention under the Obama Administration.

Flow of Central Americans to U. Surging, Expected to Exceed Numbers. The Washington Post. Incidents of assault, hunger protests, and medical neglect were reported at these facilities. Mother Jones. CBS News. According to ICE reports, arrests and detentions of immigrants have increased more than 40 percent since mid Arizona Public Media. In September ICE requested that a new immigrant detention center be constructed in South Texas, stating that it would need to hold approximately 1, more migrants.

This facility will be operated by GEO Group, and is expected to open in late Prison privatization has prospered because of claims that for-profit facilities are more cost efficient at providing services than publicly-run institutions.

The evidence does not support this assertion. In , the U. General Accounting Office GAO looked at four state-funded studies and one commissioned by the federal government assessing the cost benefits of private prisons. Similar conclusions were reached in a meta-analysis by researchers at the University of Utah that looked at eight cost comparison studies resulting in vastly different conclusions.

Research on Social Work Practice, 19, Pgs. Many of these findings have been replicated in individual states. In Ohio, state officials have contended that private facilities regularly meet or surpass the legal requirement of containing costs at least five percent below a state-run equivalent.

Accounting for these factors greatly reduced if not completely diminished the purported advantages of private prisons. Policy Matters Ohio. Private prison companies face a challenge in reducing costs and offering services necessary to maintaining safety in prisons while also generating a profit for shareholders.

The primary approach to controlling spending is by maintaining lower levels of staff benefits and salary than publicly-run facilities.

Labor costs normally account for 60 to 70 percent of annual operating budgets. Such savings, though, risk compromising safety and security within prisons. Corrections Officer Salary.

Oliver Hart, the winner of the Nobel Prize in economics, contends that for-profit prison contracts lack sufficient incentives for proper job training. The Economics of Private Prisons. The Brookings Institute. Consequently, there are higher employee turnover rates in private prisons than in publicly operated facilities. Maybe you can squeeze a half a percent out, who knows?

And at some point, you start to lose quality. These dynamics may contribute to safety problems within prisons. Studies have found that assaults in private prisons can occur at double the rate found in public facilities. Growth and Quality of U.

Private Prisons: Evidence from a National Survey. See note Our growth is generally dependent upon our ability to obtain new contracts to develop and manage new correctional and detention facilities.

This possible growth depends on a number of factors we cannot control, including crime rates and sentencing patterns in various jurisdictions and acceptance of privatization. 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.

Corrections Corporation of America. In order to overcome these challenges, private prison companies at times have joined with lawmakers, corporations, and interest groups to advocate for privatization through the American Legislative Exchange Council ALEC. The company contributed additional funds to sit on issue task forces and sponsor events hosting legislators.

The Arizona Republic ; Owen, S. Personal Communication. These policies promoted mandatory minimum sentences, three strikes laws, and truth-in-sentencing, all of which contribute to higher prison populations. ALEC also helped draft legislation that could increase the number of people held in immigration detention facilities.

When established in , Corrections Corporation of America pledged to build and operate prisons with the same quality of service provided in publicly operated prisons but at a lower cost.

Core Civic maintains more than 80, beds in over 70 facilities, including prisons, immigrant detention, and reentry centers. GEO Group operates a similar number of facilities. Moreover, at least one prison company appears to be acting in the personal financial interest of President Trump.

Private prison companies are seeking to expand their influence with state governments as well. Great Falls Tribune. The money had originally been set aside to allow the state to purchase the private facility.

The state is facing a major budget shortfall and many in the legislature are urging the governor to accept the offer. The companies also provide prison healthcare services and have established residential reentry centers.

GEO Group has also recently attempted to rebrand its services. The facility expects to enroll up to people and provide training, drug treatment and resources for reentry. The contract is an important foothold for GEO in a state without private prisons. It quickly became the main Southern supplier of textiles west of the Mississippi. Prison privatization accelerated after the Civil War.

Former slaveholders built empires that were bigger than those of most slave owners before the war. Lessees went to extreme lengths to extract profits. When they died from exhaustion or disease, he sold their bodies to the Medical School at Nashville for students to practice on.

Companies liked using convicts in part because, unlike free workers, they could be driven by torture. Whipping was common. An Alabama government inspection showed that in a two-week period in , prisoners were flogged. Lessees gave a cut of the profits to the states, ensuring that the system would endure. By the US commissioner of labor reported that, where leasing was practiced, the average revenues were nearly four times the cost of running prisons.

This maniacal drive for profits managed to create a system that was more deadly than slavery. Between and , some three thousand Louisiana convicts, most of whom were black, died under the lease of a man named Samuel Lawrence James. Before the Civil War, only a handful of planters owned more than a thousand convicts, and there is no record of anyone allowing three thousand valuable human chattel to die.

Throughout the South, annual convict death rates ranged from 16 percent to 25 percent, a mortality rate that would rival the Soviet gulags to come. There was simply no incentive for lessees to avoid working people to death. One dies, get another. States became jealous of the profits private companies were making, so in the early 20th century, they bought plantations of their own and eventually stopped leasing to private companies.