The Corruption and Future of Private Prisons
The American justice system is a corrupt one, riddled with systemic racism, justification of free labor, and punishment rather than rehabilitation. While the system as a whole has many disgusting practices, there is one practice in the U.S. that is, at its very core, an inhumane practice: private, or for-profit, prisons.
In the early 1980s, the War on Drugs, which directly targeted black and brown communities, led to far more incarceration and harsher sentences. Due to the high demand for prisons and the burden placed on federal and state prisons, private prisons were established. The first modern private prison was established in Shelby County, Tennessee in 1984, with 66 more private prisons established over the following six years.
As of 2017, 121, 718 people are incarcerated in private prisons, making up 8.2% of the state and federal prison population. While the overall prison population has increased by 7.8% since 2000, the number of people incarcerated in private prisons has increased by 39% in the same amount of time, giving the U.S. the world’s largest private prison population. This rapid growth is even higher in certain states, with the private prison populations increasing by 478% in Arizona, 310% in Indiana, and 277% in Ohio.
Private prisons are present in 28 states, and over half of them are managed by Core Civic and GEO Group, two corporations that made a combined revenue of 3.5 billion dollars in 2015. These corporations implement immoral practices to economically appeal to the federal government. Oftentimes these prisons don’t even save the government any money: research from Arizona found that inmates rarely cost less than those in federal prisons and can cost up to 1,600 dollars more per prisoner per year. A lower cost to run these prisons would be due to the lower standards for employees and the required payment for necessities from prisoners. These private prisons will usually employ non-union and low skilled workers at low salaries and offer limited benefits. Employees earn, at an average, 5,000 dollars less per year than those employed at government facilities. They also receive 58 fewer hours of training. This leads to higher employee turnover and decreased security within the prisons. A 2016 report from the Justice Department found that in private prisons there is a 28% higher rate of inmate-on-inmate assaults, more than twice as many inmate-on-staff assaults, and twice as many illicit weapons found.
As well as a lack of security in terms of violence, private prisons provide a lack of proper medical services. Private prisons save money by refusing to provide service for prisoners with severe illnesses or a history of violence. On average, these corporations are paid $1500 per prisoner per month, but inmates are still forced to pay five dollars for every doctor visitation and another five per prescription. Some prisons will even go without a full-time doctor for months. If prisoners cannot afford these visitations or prescriptions, as well as necessities like food and toiletries, the debt is added to their account which they have to pay off once they leave prison.
The revenue made by private prisons directly benefits the corporations, meaning that the more people charged with sentences, the wealthier the corporations become. Thus, corrupt courtrooms and politicians directly impact the successful manipulation by private prison corporations. In 2009, two judges in Pennsylvania were caught accepting money from the owner of two different private juvenile detention centers, and in return, the judges sent juveniles to these centers for very minor crimes. Private prisons act as a clear contribution to mass incarceration, including that of minors. A report from The Justice Policy Institute found that many corporation owners running private prisons developed relationships with and funded lobbyists and politicians to stop immigration reform, intending to keep undocumented immigrants in their facilities.
This funding has especially affected those in the Trump Administration. 26,249 people in immigrant detention centers were in private facilities, making up 73% of the total population in immigrant detention centers. The privately detained population of undocumented immigrants has increased by 442% since 2002, and the arrests of undocumented immigrants have increased by more than 40% since mid-2017, according to ICE reports; this is a clear result of Trump administration policies. A proposed budget by Trump in 2018 asked Congress for 1.2 billion dollars to add 15,000 more prison beds in privately owned immigration detention centers. The corruption of these practices is clear; the government, particularly the Trump Administration, and these private prisons feed off of each other. Private prisons fund politicians to create policies that directly benefit them by imprisoning non-dangerous, undocumented immigrants in facilities known for abuse and neglect.
The gradual closure of private prisons seemed to have a promising path in August of 2016 when the Obama Administration’s Justice Department announced plans to end the use of private prisons due to economic and safety concerns. This policy would have gradually phased out private prisons by either refusing to renew contracts with major corporations or reducing the scope of their presence. This policy was withdrawn in 2017 by former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, and mass incarceration within these systems has not only continued but increased.
A system that profits off of mass incarceration and imprisoning innocent undocumented immigrants, while leaving them in poor conditions and with underpaid and undertrained staff, is not one that should be supported by the government. As president, Biden plans to eliminate private prisons entirely. The Biden campaign promises to build off of the Obama Administration’s policy that will gradually decline the renewal of private prison contracts. This includes safer and humane centers for undocumented immigrants. Before all private prisons are eliminated, there would be a crackdown on the practices of these prisons, including removal of fees to phone call inmates. While Biden’s plans to reform the criminal justice system as a whole are not seen as adequate by many of his supporters, the elimination of private prisons is one of his boldest and most progressive plans. One that would alter the future of the American prison system: eliminating the corruption of the decades-old system and the unethical policies added by the Trump administration.
