Privatization Of Prison Essay

Many factors have played into why minorities are so overrepresented within the criminal justice and corrections system, however, I will focus on two main reasons into why this disparity has existed. The first being, the manipulation of laws by elites targeting minority communities. For example, during the 70s and 80s, drugs in America became very popular and in particular crack-cocaine became a leading drug among consumers. For Caucasians, the drug of choice was cocaine which they would snort through the nose, for African-Americans it was crack which was cocaine, however, it was cooked into a rock while cocaine is a powder substance. During this time period both drugs were popular among both races, though, there was a bigger crackdown on crack and the minority community. This came in the form of mandatory sentencing or

Prison used to be looked at has a place to try a rehabilitate someone from their crimes so they may join society again has a law-abiding citizen, however, that has changed recently has we have begun to see the government turn these duties over to privately owned prisons. Turning the rehabilitation process into a form of business that has become very lucrative. The government did this to save money and cutback cost, however, with the correctional system turning into a large business it needs consumers, those consumers have come in the form of minority prisoners punished harshly for non-violent crimes now spending 2-8 years in prison in a lot of circumstances if not more. This factor has been a big aid in sending minority members to prison because private owners have spent so much money on facilities that they expect to have them occupied which in some cases puts pressure to provide prisoners. And in other cases elites work in cohort to make sure the prison population remains high so they may all benefit