Private Prisons Dehumanization Essay

Finally, the cost and quotas associated with these particular prisons further promote dehumanization. Privatized prisons reduce the cost of housing inmates but at what cost? Private prisons have the authority to overcrowd their cells. This can be considered an aspect of dehumanization because the inmates would not have any space. The report from In the Public Interest dove into the areas of prison life that one would not even know existed such as minimum occupancy guarantees or low crime taxes that some states found themselves wrapped up in. In the Public Interest discovered a number of interesting statistics regarding occupancy clauses and low crime taxation rates:

In fact “65 percent of the private prison contracts analyzed by ITPI for this report included

Privatization of prisons will only increase from here on out because of the fact that it saves the states and increase revenues overall. It’s all a business and why not incarcerate more people just to make a profit it seems. According to Gragg, “Wackenhut corrections is part of a global empire which offers an array of services in fifty countries” (Gragg 2). Wackenhut corrections has diversified itself enough to set its foot in prisons but at the end of the day it is a business and the cost per inmate may take precedence over the overall safety of the inmates or the community that the prison’s presence can have on the community it surrounds. When a particular state signs a low crime tax or a bed guarantee they will be forced to source those inmates from the surrounding communities if they inmates are not sent from elsewhere. I am not implying senseless arrests but who really knows what goes on in the heads of police officers in this age of police brutality and