Private prisons in America have been gaining influence for decades but more recently, they have been contributing to mass incarceration and a less effective penal system. Although private prisons have some benefits, maintaining democracy is of the utmost importance in today’s political climate and allowing for justice to be executed by private corporations is unacceptable. In addition to the increased use of private prisons, politicians are using the judicial system to benefit themselves rather than the public and accepting lobbying money. This Article discusses how the US prison system has been haunted by corruption and political interference through issues such as mass incarceration and privatization.
One example is mass incarceration, which can be seen as a form of exploitation as politicians are using it to benefit themselves rather than the public. According to Tony N. Brown, a sociology professor and associate chair at Rice University and Evelyn Patterson, a professor of sociology and law at Vanderbilt University, mass incarceration has a disproportionate effect on minorities, is unethical, and has negative economic effects. The recent rise in mass incarceration was largely caused by the “tough-on-crime, law-and-order, war-on-drugs” policies used by former Presidents Nixon, Reagan, Bush, and Clinton. These politicians used these policies to make it appear as though they were making America a safer country. One infamous example of these “tough-on-crime” policies is the 1994 Crime Bill. The bill incentivized states to build more prisons and impose longer sentences which made it one of many factors that exacerbated mass incarceration. $8.7 billion was promised to states which passed “truth-in-sentencing” laws, which established that those convicted of violent crimes must serve at least 85% of their given sentence. Time served by prisoners increased, causing more convicts to be held in prison at once, and states receiving money to expand their prisons. However, according to Jeremy Travis, former president of the Jay College of Justice in New York, “the trend of increased incarceration had already started two decades before 1994.” For that reason, the bill cannot be seen as the fundamental cause for mass incarceration as it is so often portrayed, but it can be cited as a factor that has contributed to the trend of mass incarceration in America. Even President Clinton later admitted, ‘I signed a bill that made the problem worse.” Mass incarceration also leads to another commonly exploited issue: prison crowding. Prison crowding is typically seen as a problem as it has been linked to increased stress, idleness in prisoners, and medical problems. However, it seems this issue which negatively impacts the actual prisoners, is being used by prison administrators and even prison reformers to reach their own goals. First of all, the negative perception of crowding helps prisons get more funding. In Arkansas circa 1970, inmate petitioners complained of cruel and unusual punishment in the form of isolation cells, being denied medical attention, and the guards’ failure to stop inmate-on-inmate assaults. Dorothy S. McClellan of Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi described the case as marking “…the end of the ‘hands-off’ era of the federal judiciary toward prisoners and the beginning of an era of prisoners’ rights.” Despite the positive effects of this case, it’s important to note the fact that it led to the Arkansas correctional budget increasing sixfold. This shows how prisons are incentivized to crowd their prisons as the backlash will lead to them receiving more monetary resources, while reformers use these issues as grounds to improve conditions. Unfortunately for prisoners, this leaves no one fighting to actually improve prison crowding because it’s too powerful a scapegoat. Overcrowding also makes prisons appear more efficient as administrators claim that having more inmates doesn’t increase the fixed costs and has a small impact on operating costs, so it is an economical solution. However, in the long term the most economical option actually starts at sentencing. By favoring sentences that do not send people to prison such as community service, the government can significantly reduce costs. To summarize, issues such as mass incarceration and overcrowding are being used by multiple parties in order to reach their own goals such as politicians appearing like stronger leaders and prison administrators using overcrowding as leverage to obtain larger budgets. However, this keeps these issues worsening over time and making the prison system dysfunctional.
The next culprit of the unjust American penal system is privatization. Private prisons primarily make the system less democratic because of their notable lobbying efforts. Companies such as the GEO group and the Correction Corporation of America have paid political candidates a sum of $10 million since 1989 and have spent $25 million in lobbying efforts. Private prisons are an unexpectedly profitable industry, accumulating a total $3.3 billion in annual revenue. According to a report by the Justice Policy Institute, the private federal prison population doubled from 2000 to 2010 and they detain 79% of immigrant detainees while that number was at 25% just two decades ago. In 2015, Senator Marco Rubio had received almost $40,000 in “campaign donations” from GEO according to the Washington Post. The issue with this is that these private corporations are gaining a large influence on law and who goes to prison. Politicians are not the only ones to blame in this situation. The Kids for Cash scandal where 2 Pennsylvania judges received a total of $2.6 million in bribes from private, for-profit juvenile detention centers for sending more minors to these detention centers and mandating longer sentences. Many of these children were not even given a fair chance at justice. According to the Juvenile Law Center, more than 50% of the children who appeared before one of the judges did not have legal representation and 60% of those children had been removed from their homes. This shows how the justice system has been impacted by the influence of private prison in a way that makes it less fair.
On the other hand, there are reasons why private prisons may be favorable. The most significant is that they are economically beneficial. By making cuts to expenses (less prison staff, lower salaries, less benefits, less maintenance, etc…), private prisons cost an average of $10,000 per year per inmate less than public prisons. Private prisons also make money based on how many prisoners are held in their facility, and many private prisons have terms in their government contracts that state they will receive money for prisoners that aren’t held in the prison if they are below their occupancy percentage. This consequently makes sending more inmates to private prisons seem like the ideal option as it creates profit for the prisons while saving money for the government. However, due to the fact that private prisons can often have inhumane conditions, it is clear that using private prisons holds ethical challenges which should be the priority for the government.
It is clear that the American prison system’s reform will be a lengthy process. However, it is something that must be done to continue improving the US and defending its ideals. The prison system’s current issues of mass incarceration and crowding which is hurting inmates is not making the system more effective. In order to create a more just prison system, it is most important to raise awareness on issues such as overcrowding in the system and their impacts, because harsher conditions do not make the system more effective. By making the public more aware of these problems, they may become a higher priority for policy makers. Consequent legal reform would be the best method of improving prisons and reducing corruption. Further analysis could include comparing the American prison system to a country like Denmark with effective and progressive prisons to highlight areas of weakness.