Private versus Public Sector Prisons

Private versus Public Sector Prisons

Did you know that one of the main reasons for mass incarceration in America is the privatization of prisons? Another name for private prisons is for-profit prisons, which means that their main incentives are profit and not rehabilitation of prisoners, which is the main reason prisons were made in the first place. Government agencies usually give contracts to private companies so that they can manage and operate prisons. However, the amount of money given to these companies by the government is based on the number of prisoners they hold in their prisons. As such, these companies get a financial incentive to ensure that they keep their occupancy levels at the highest. This essay contends that the privatization of prisons is detrimental to the operations, personnel roles, and overall practices within correctional organizations, factors that are all meant to ensure the successful rehabilitation of prisoners.

The first area of comparison between the public and private sector prisons is in the operation of these correctional organizations. In efforts to maximize their profits, private prisons take measures such as lowering staffing levels and providing fewer resources compared to their public counterparts, resulting in compromised safety and security within these facilities. Notably, Montes et al. (2023) found that men in private prisons have a higher likelihood than those in public prisons to view their institutions as understaffed. Besides, the pursuit of profit incentivizes cost-cutting measures, such as reducing educational and vocational programs, which are essential for prisoner rehabilitation and reducing recidivism rates. A study conducted by Freemon (2024) found that inmates in private prisons perceived these facilities as less safe compared to their public counterparts. The study also found that private prisons also had higher levels of criminal activity, whereby there was theft in addition to frequent fights. All these shortcomings are a result of efforts to reduce the cost of running private prisons. These efforts lead to understaffing and even a lack of necessary resources like psychological/psychiatric, substance dependency, and HIV/AIDS-related programs (Baćak & Ridgeway, 2018). Additionally, a literature review on private prisons found that prisoners in prisons live under extremely deplorable conditions, including being severely underfed and having no working lights and toilets (Marko, 2021). Further, Marko’s (2021) review also shows how extremely bad health conditions can get with one case of a prisoner who was denied medical care and ended up losing both his legs to gangrene.

The second area of comparison between private and public sector prisons is in correctional personnel roles and functions. In private prisons, the emphasis on cost-effectiveness can lead to inexperienced and underqualified staff. According to Crewe et al. (2015), public-sector prisons outperformed private-sector prisons in various areas, including the use of authority, staff‐prisoner relationships, and staff professionalism. The bad staff-prisoner relationships were mainly attributed to high rates of staff turnover as well as what prisoners said to be a lack of training and support from their employers. Further, the study also shows that top managers in private prisons did acknowledge that their staff members were not as capable as those in public sector prisons and that high turnover was a significant problem in their institutions. All these incompetencies in the institution had a deleterious effect on the security, safety, and control of private-sector prisons. Compared to public sector prisons, the study found that there were better staff-prisoner relationships, staff professionalism, and the use of authority, which had no misuse of power. Marko (2021) also highlights that private prisons have lower staffing levels, specifically 24 guards for 1500 prisoners, and fewer resources compared to their public counterparts, resulting in compromised safety and security within these facilities.

Finally, yet importantly, the issues of private versus public prison sectors are also in the correctional issues and practices. As mentioned before, one of the main purposes of prisons is the rehabilitation of prisoners so that when they are released back into society, they will be law-abiding citizens who also have the skills or knowledge to earn a livelihood without breaking the law. However, private prisons are paid depending on the number of prisoners they hold, meaning that less recidivism means less number of prisoners. Coincidentally, data shows that the recidivism rates of prisoners released from private prisons are up to 22% higher compared to those from public prisons (Marko, 2021). In addition, private prison corporations have been known to aggressively push for harsher sentences like the three strikes law and the mandatory minimums, all of which lead to an increase in the number of people imprisoned as well as longer sentences. These are but a few practices of the private prison system, which shows that its objectives are not the same as those of the public prison sector.

Proponents of prison privatization often argue that it leads to cost savings for taxpayers. While it is true that private prisons may initially offer lower operating costs, these savings often come at the expense of quality and safety. Further, privatization introduces profit motives into the correctional system, which can compromise ethical standards and lead to abuses of power. This essay contains numerous studies that have shown how private prisons cut corners in order to reduce their costs, for example, on healthcare services, resulting in inadequate medical care for inmates. Moreover, the pressure to maintain high occupancy rates has led private prison corporations to interfere with law enforcement policies in order to implement harsher sentencing practices, undermining efforts to promote alternative sentencing and rehabilitation initiatives. Lastly, even if the argument that private prisons reduce costs were true, the cons still outweigh the pros by a huge margin.

References

Baćak, V., & Ridgeway, G. (2018). Availability of health-related programs in private and public prisons. Journal of Correctional Health Care, 24(1), 62-70.

Crewe, B., Liebling, A., & Hulley, S. (2015). Staff‐prisoner relationships, staff professionalism, and the use of authority in public‐and private‐sector prisons. Law & Social Inquiry, 40(2), 309-344.

Freemon, K. (2024). Privatized jails: Comparing individuals’ safety in private and public jails. Journal of Criminal Justice, 90, 102134.

Marko, K. (2021). Serving the public good?—A corpus-assisted discourse analysis of private prisons and for-profit incarceration in the United States. Frontiers in Communication, 6, 672110.

Montes, A. N., Cochran, J. C., & Anderson, C. N. (2023). Private versus public incarceration: Incarcerated individuals’ experiences and perceptions of environmental quality. Crime & Delinquency, 69(13-14), 2765-2797.

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Write an 800-word argumentative essay that explains your selected position about the privatization of prisons. Your essay should incorporate supporting evidence that has been gathered from at least two scholarly resources. Include evidence that demonstrates the differences between private and public sector prisons about the following topics:

Private versus Public Sector Prisons

Operations of correctional organizations
Correctional personnel roles and functions
Correctional issues and practices
include a discussion of opposing arguments and provide brief rebuttals.