Private Prison System
Things we need to Know
I have often wondered about the private prison system and how this (Private Prison) functions and operates. In this narrative the information you are about to read was taken from the website academy4sc.org.
Did you know that the United States has the largest prison population in the world? In 2020, there were 1.8 million people in the prison system. So, how does the government incarcerate that many people? And what happens when the government-operated jails run out of space.
As a result of federal prisons overcrowding, private corporations started developing their own facilities to house more people. Those who support privatizing the prison system argued that it saves the government money. However, as these private companies created more detention centers, public officials and activists questioned whether these new facilities were actually harmful to the criminal justice system.
In the 1970s, President Nixon declared a “War on Drugs”, which meant that he wanted “Tough on Crime’ ‘ policies which would enforce strict punishments for any drug related offense. In the 1980s, President Reagan announced that he would continue this agenda with even more force. The first private prisons, many of which were juvenile detention centers, were established during the Regan administration, but corporations continued to rapidly build new facilities throughout the next two and a half decades. One of the most famous cases of corruption in private prisons, known as the “KIDS for Cash” scandal, involved two judges in Pennsylvania who gave juvenile offenders unusually long sentences. Authorities found out that these judges had accepted over $2 million worth of bribes from private prison over the course of four years in exchange for sending children and teenagers to these facilities for longer periods.
In order to make money operating a private prison, these facilities need bodies/inmates, and the longer an inmate remains in a private prison the more the institution receives in payment for the federal or state government. The current private prison system does not save the government money in-fact this method could be an in some cases more costly. I believe that the inmate for cash immoral behavior still happens throughout this country. The unjust justice system….
Marvin Dixon/Founder
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