Pros And Cons Of For-Profit Prisons

America has the highest prison population in the world, totaling to over
2.2 million people. That’s higher than the population of New Mexico. As for the reason why, the War on Drugs plays a big role, but For-profit prisons take the cake. For-profit prisons, also referred to as private prisons, are third-party prisons that are contracted by a government agency. Private prisons originally began to exist in a variety of forms in the 1800’s, however they largely disappeared from the 1920’s to the 1980’s. For-profit prisons in their current form arrived after the mass incarceration following the War on Drugs. As of 2013 133,000 inmates were incarcerated in for-profit facilities, which is about 7% of the total U.S prison population.
Although designated as a facility to care for prisoners with special needs and serious psychiatric disabilities, it denies prisoners even the most rudimentary mental health care services. Many prisoners have attempted to commit suicide; some have succeeded.” The purpose of for-profit prisons is exactly that, to make profit. This usually leads to cutting corners and hiring guards with inadequate training and low pay, which leads to violence and escapes. In addition the “cost efficiency” results in abuse, insufficient medical care, and other civil rights violations of the incarcerated. Private companies continue to fail to make the decisions that benefit the inmates and community rather than themselves. Provide substandard medical care, resort to excessive violence, and hire unqualified guards which leads to unnecessary casualties. Have led to multiple lawsuits, fines at great cost to taxpayers, inmates and the community. A nationwide study has concluded that For-profit prisons have significantly more escapes, homicides, assaults, and drug abuse compared to government-run prisons. “Private prisons have an incentive NOT to rehabilitate criminals, because criminals that are successfully rehabilitated wouldn’t be committing future crimes and prisoner re-offence (known as recidivism) provides a consistent stream of inmates that the prison can be paid to house”(Hawkdebate) relapses of criminal behavior in public prisons in significantly higher than those of public. The profit motive of the private system directly clashes with the purpose of the prison system. In order to make more profit the cells are often more crowded which leads to agitation and violence. “While Congress passes anti-immigration legislations, government agencies enforce these laws and contract with PPCs to facilitate an increasing number of federally convicted detainees.” Private