Are Prisons Increasing Incarceration for Profits?

Are Prisons Increasing Incarceration for Profits?

Introduction

There has been much debate about whether the prisons increase the incarceration time of the prisoners merely for profit. This debate has been sparked after the emergence of private prisons. There is a proposal from a company for the government which is ready to get the approval called the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA). The company is a for-profit corporation which has offered to buy and run the prisons of the nation. In exchange for this, the states have to make an agreement to keep the all the prisons at least 90% full (Smith, 2006, pp. 123). This shows that this privatization of the prisons is being done merely for generating profits and to increase the profits all they have to do is to make sure that the prisons remain full. This can be done through either catching more criminals or increasing the incarceration time of the prisoners. Mostly the latter option is adopted by the prisons so to ensure that the prisons are full. The United States has an incarceration rate of 762 per 100,000 people, compared to 152 per 100,000 in Britain, 108 per 100,000 in Canada neighbor, or 91 per 100,000 in France (Ashcroft, 2001, pp. 20).

Discussion

The private prisons proper by keeping itself full, their profits high and maintaining a low bottom line. For this they have different incentives for cutting the corners like low pays of the staff, recruiting less experiences staff, little accountability and overcrowding their prisons so that they generate increased profit. The increase in the number of the private prisons was initially fueled by the tough on crimes policies like the war on drugs (Christine, 2008, pp. 577). That resulted in the massive overcrowding of the prisons in the United States. A number of different policies like three strike laws, minimum sentencing, parole and probation and the de-emphasis on the diversion resulted in more individuals being incarcerated for such crimes that could have led to community control or rehabilitation. But instead these individuals were given incarceration time (Byron & Schwester, 2010, pp. 109). All of this was done for the gain and generation of profits for the private prisons. This resulted in the overcrowding of prisons which further led to countless problems.

As a result the overcrowding of prisons has become a serious problem in majority of the prisons in United States. The number of inmates in the prisons is increasing day by day as the result of war on drugs and other initiatives. While these prisons are happy to maintain this overcrowded population in their prisons. These private prisons or profit prisons do not provide rehabilitation programs for the individuals they just keep adding more and more prisoners and ensuring that they remain there. The overcrowded prisons makes the inmates potentially more aggressive, increase stress levels amongst the staff, increase the unhygienic conditions and inhumane treatment of the prisoners (Harel, 2008, pp.113). In the overcrowded prisons, there is a major chance of contagious ...