The Penitentiary Rivalry: The American Prison System

Assignment: The prison system

The penitentiary rivalry has cause a lot of changes within our American prison system. The rivalry implemented design changes every so often which led to better prison population and control of the inmates within them, because every state wanted the best prison system. A few of the changes that came from these rivalries were how they built the inmate cells, they built them so that the inmates or criminals inside them could not see the other inmates or have contact with them. They also allowed inmates to eat with each other rather than separate but this had to be done in complete silence. This rivalry made different types of prisons come about, rather than put all offenders together regardless of crimes committed they
were separated by the severity of each crime. These types of prisons were known as maximum, medium, and minimum security units.

A lot of these designs that came from the rivalries are still used today in our modern prison system as well as other designs. Some of these designs are the radial, which is used for separation as well as control the courtyard style which was designed to look like a block which made only one way to get across the prison and that was through walking the courtyard. The telephone pole style design was used and intended to keep separation as well as control by keeping activities separate from others, the other style talked about is the campus style which is used mainly for minimum security prisons which keeps things more flexible.

Going from styles and changes of prisons to why privatize prisons rather than to keep them publicly funded.
So why privatize? Many think that they can save money by privatizing prison by keeping such services like trash service or road maintenance down. Many others think that there is no monetary gain from being private. The majority or prisons that are private ran are medium and minimum security prisons. Most employees from private ran prisons are paid very poorly and security breaches are high with little or no medical attention at all I myself have worked for a private company called MTC or management training company my mom worked for them as well as CCA or Correction Corporations of America. These companies like these are very poorly ran yes they may hold state inmates and they may have to uphold the states laws on holding inmates they are still very poorly ran. Some services that are offered at most state prison may or may not be offered at private prisons and this is not fair to all. The inmates at these types of prisons tend to complain or be more unruly than at others because they are not treated very well at all. Many of these companies have high escape rates and more inmate violence than
others.

The debate of whether to privatize or not will be an ongoing debate because there will always be ways that can be done cheaper or faster by someone else, but these ways may not always be the best way of getting things done especially through out the prison system. Where can you afford to skip on proper control of inmates by hiring poorly trained guards or none at all mostly because of the pay. When you start doing these things you are asking for trouble right from the start, your asking for more violence between staff and inmates, more violence between inmates you also tend to have more rapes within the private prisons mostly happen from staff on inmates (men vs. women) you have lots more violence between the inmates because they are think they are better than the system they are going through more than most with private prison. Yes they might be cheaper to run but in the long run I think they are much more of a risk factor than state ran prisons. The private prison side of things I feel are much more dangerous, yet cheaper but in the long run the best way I think is still to be state ran .