During the 17th and 18th century, millions of slaves were imported from Africa to the United States of America. They were bound by chains and were not treated like humans. They were merchandise for people to use to make money off of. Slaves were later freed with the Emancipation Proclamation under President Abraham Lincoln, but the question that should be considered today is if privatization of prisons is modern day slavery. According to Suevon Lee’s article, “By the Numbers: The U.S.’s Growing For-Profit Detention Industry”, 128,195 prisoners were held in privately managed facilities as of December 2010. Though this may not seem like a massive number compared to the 2 million+ Americans in jail/prison, the second largest private detention company, The Geo Group, Inc., made around $1.6 billion total revenue in 2011. This much money was made by the 65 correctional facilities that The Geo Group, Inc. owns. Like slaves, prisoners are sent to these private prisons where they are seen as less than human while an outside source profits off of their struggles. Private prisons should be abolished from society. Their existence is immoral because the fact that people are being seen as subhuman and private prisons are profiting off the incarceration of people. We must further educate ourselves on what is truly happening with private prisons and reevaluate the United States prison system as a whole. Privately owned prisons should be gotten rid of because of their immoral nature.
Multiple human rights organizations, as well as political and social organizations, are condemning what they are calling a “new form of inhumane exploitation in the United States,” where a prison population of up to 2 million – mostly Black and Hispanic are working for various industries for a subsistence wage (Pelaez, 2008). For the businesspersons who have invested in the prison industry, however, it has been like finding a ‘pot of gold.’ All of their workers are fulltime, and never arrive late or are absent. Moreover, if they don’t like the pay of 25 cents an hour and refuse to work, they are locked up in isolation
developed—the first institution in which men were both “confined and set to labor in order to learn the habits of industry” (LeBaron, 2012, p.331). Although prisons had been designed to enforce and promote punishment, retribution and deterrence, they have also fallen into the conceptual belief that they were in many instances, nothing more than a sweat shop for the socially-undesired. At this point in history, there was very little reform and an immense lack of regulation for prisons or for the proper way they should be ran. Finances. In modern-day calculations, prison labor has been rather beneficial to the U.S. government, bringing in an average of 1.6 billion dollars in 1997.
In chapter 13 of Corrections in America, the author describes the history of private-sector involvement in corrections and identifies its advantages. The author also describes how prison inmates were considered slaves of the state. Overall, this chapter compares gatekeepers and rainmakers. A private sector correctional facility is any prison, for-profit prison, detention center, is a facility in which juveniles and adults are physically restricted, housed, or interned by a nongovernmental organization which is constructed by a public-sector government agency.
The prison-industrial complex is a corrupt political system that consists of overpowered politicians whose sole ambition is exploiting poor, uneducated, and under-privileged Americans to make money. Although, it wasn’t initially the purpose when Rockefeller started the war on drugs, but he started something bigger than he could’ve imagined at that time. The prison system has been proven to be ineffective, and costly waste of resources. However, it probably won’t be abolished due to the cash flow that it brings to some of the largest corporations in the
For example the federal state, lease system and county governments pay private companies a fee for each inmate. Which means that they are able to keep prisoners as long as they want to keep their facilities filled. “Important evidence of the abuse that takes place behind the walls and gates of private prisons, it came to light in connection with a lawsuit filed by one of the prisoners who was bitten by a dog” pg. 96.
Milakovich defines privatization as “a practice in which governments either join with, or yield responsibility outright to, private-sector enterprises to provide services previously managed and financed by public entities; a pattern especially evident in local government service provision, though with growing appeal at other levels of government” (2013, p. 39). This leads us to one of the issues facing the State of Florida: the privatization of prisons. The prison system in Florida has been slowly privatized and not much attention has been drawn to it until recently. A couple years ago, the state closed 19 prisons and many inmates were forced to move into old and rotting buildings. Some say that these privately owned prisons are more effiecient than state prisons and save money.
The creation of prisons were established around the time of the emancipation of slavery. The black community were released from the horrific life they faced when living in slavery, but slavery was not over. Once the African American’s were free society configured a plan that would put an end to the freedom of slaves. The creation of prisons, allowed society the ability to enact a formal genocide of black people by placing them in cages. The roles of prisons over time as established locations that conduct inhuman treatment of Americans, primarily those who are colored, immigrants and other communities labeled as inferior to whites.
Thesis: It is very important for the sake of Americans tax dollars that we change the way that prisons are run and increase the productivity of inmates so when they are released from jail they are ready to be a productive member in society and have the confidence to achieve new goals. Introduction: Day after day, millions of inmates sit in jail doing nothing productive with their lives. We are paying to house inmates that may not even have a good reason to be there. For example, drug offenders are being kept with murderers and other violent offenders.
The government treats prisoners as if they are nothing in this world. The U.S prison system needs to be reformed by building new and better prisons and making it more humane and fair. Looking back to the prison history. Incarceration has not always been a common form of punishment. Back then people wanted to reform and change the way
Inmates are constantly violated by cellmates and prison guards, both physically and sexually. Violence is often associated with prison gangs and interpersonal conflict. Prison guards are bribable and all kinds of contrabands including weapon, drug, liquor, tobacco and cell phone can be found in inmates’ hands. Crime within the fence is rampant, only counting those with violent act, 5.8 million reports were made in 2014. If the prison is really what it claims to be, shouldn’t prisoners be serving their time with regret and learning to be obedient?
Why the prison system is flawed The american prison system is flawed and should be changed because it is very expensive to keep it running the way it is, the prison system is helping gangs grow and it can be fixed it is possible. I believe that it needs to change so that cities will have more tax money to fix other things and the people who don't deserve to get released won't be. The prison system is very expensive for taxpayers because they have to pay to employ the officers, they have to pay for the building, the tools, the food for them to eat, there clothing and bedding.
Justin Jones, director for DOC, reported that private prisons in Oklahoma are all medium- or minimum-security prisons, and that stay completely away from maximum-security prisoners. These costly prisoners are shipped back to public prisons, sticking taxpayers with the cost, while the private prisons profits earn off the “easier” prisoners. This is more money out of the average American taxpayer's pocket, while the rich prison business owners make more money. However, there are still people who believe there is nothing wrong with the private prison
One of the major steps toward changing the justice system is to ban private prison because people are benefiting from
Those who find themselves sentenced to time in a penitentiary, jail, or prison are at risk of either being broken or strengthened by the time they spend behind bars. There is a great debate of whether or not the prison system in the United States is positive or negative. The following will briefly highlight the positives, negatives, and possible alternatives for our nation's prison system. First, there is a long list of negatives that the prison system in America brings. The prison system is filled with crime, hate, and negativity almost as much as the free world is.
I believe that the the abolition of private prisons would be the best course of action to take. It is completely unconstitutional, from my perspective, to allow enterprises to make a profit off of prisoners, who are, in reality, just people who have made a mistake. It is a given that there are exceptions to this, but as Representative Ellison stated, “Incarceration should be about rehabilitation, not profit.” The fact that nothing has been done due to the clutch these corporations have on legislators is terrifying to me, and taking a stance against them would be sending a message to all wealthy businesses across the U.S., making it clear that the government can not be bought out. In a cost-benefit analysis, as the Justice is Not for Sale Act provides, it is much more fiscally responsible to invest in the rehabilitation of inmates than it is to hire private prisons.