Running a private business in Los Angeles makes economic sense, especially if you are a capitalist. Conversely, some urge the American government to offer essential services like correctional and rehabilitation centers. Public prisons are overcrowded, raising the need for private prisons (the prison population was 1,230,100 in 2022, a two percent increase from 2021). However, the importance of these facilities is a bone of contention. Please continue reading this article to learn whether the centers cross troubling lines by prioritizing economic benefits for defendants’ safety and rehabilitation.
What are For-Profit Prisons?
The for-profit prison system raises many questions. One thing that most individuals think about is how a for-profit company lawfully houses inmates. Many citizens believe that it is the government's responsibility to incarcerate inmates. However, the government also offers contracts to private companies to do some of their work on its behalf.
The government wholly runs and operates a public prison. Consequently, they staff the prison administration and guards and oversee the inmates and the happenings within the facility. However, some essential services, like cleaning, food, and maintenance, are contracted to private service providers.
On the other hand, in a for-profit prison, a private prison company takes on and lifts most responsibilities from the government. Therefore, the government’s obligations are narrowed down to sentencing, inmate classification, assigning inmates to different prison facilities, and offering oversight.
A Brief History of Private Prisons
Private prisons in the U.S. date back to the 19th century. However, the private-private movement did not gain modern appeal until the 1980s. The institutions came after the U.S. prison system was crowded with inmates, partially due to President Reagan’s decision to escalate the combating of illegal drugs.
In 1983, Doctor R. Crants, Thomas Beasley, and T. Don Hutto established the CoreCivic (Corrections Corporation of America). The CCA claimed the facility could run a bigger-sized prison with fewer employees than the public sector requires instead of using electronic surveillance cameras.
With the vast number of individuals arrested and convicted of drug offenses, the number of for-profit prisons rose. By 2008, there were 100 private prisons. Due to the surge in for-profit” prisons, the CCA has seen a five-hundred percent profit increase in the last 20 years; it remains the largest in the U.S.
The rationale behind the private prisons was to make profits from contracts obtained from the government. In return for offering inmates basic necessities like clothing, healthcare, and food, the government would pay these firms per defendant from the taxpayers. The deal attracted the government because it could shift responsibility to someone else.
The quality of private prison personnel could be more contentious because officers have less training than law enforcers in public prisons. The absence of experience and proper training affects the inmates’ living standards.
Typically, defendants held in private facilities work and create goods that the firms can sell. Most legislators do not like for-profit prisons because they create incentives that prevent rehabilitation and delay attempts to lower the prison population rate and reform brutal sentencing laws.
Additionally, private prisons run immigration detention spaces under the Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) program.
Private prisons held 121,718 inmates in 2017, accounting for 8.2 percent of the federal and state prison population. The Bureau of Justice Statistics reports that about 1,430,900 people were sentenced in 2019. Some states with the most inmates in for-profit prisons include Oklahoma, Hawaii, Tennessee, New Mexico, and Montana.
In 2016, President Obama's administration ordered the Department of Justice to lower the population of defendants sent to for-profit prisons. The government issued the memo following a Justice Department report that indicated higher contraband and violence in private prisons than cases reported in public detention centers. Regrettably, the Attorney General (AG) revoked the memo in 2017, and Trump did not intend to revise the policies.
Joe Biden’s administration has vowed to phase out the private detention centers and has signed an agreement not to extend these facilities’ existing contracts. While the news is a considerable win for judicial reform associations, the executive conduct is shallow because it does not terminate existing contracts.
Understanding How For-Profit Prisons Make Money
Public prisons are not money-generating entities; they aim to hold inmates with the duty to rehabilitate or take them off the streets. Conversely, a corporation operating a for-profit prison aims to generate profits from the goods or services it offers.
After the government awards a private detention center a tender to provide its services, the contract details the mode of payment to this corporation. The pay depends on the prison’s size, the monthly or annual agreed-upon amount, or how many inmates are in the facility.
Like any other business enterprise, saving money increases the company’s goal. Expanding also permits the company to generate more income but requires a capital injection.
Reasons for a For-Profit Prison Going Public
As a company expands, it can decide to go public. This move makes the business do things it could not do as a privately owned company.
For many companies, exposure is crucial to expansion. The more popular an enterprise is, the more sales it can make. Nonetheless, with a for-profit prison, exposure is not something they require. Instead, it needs capital injections for several reasons.
One reason is that the firm might get another government contract to develop a new prison in a nearby state. By going public, the company could have capital that would enable it to establish the second prison.
Another rationale for going public, relating to a for-profit prison, is to remain in business. Most private prisons are in constant need of new inmates to take the place of the others who have completed their terms.
The Challenges With For-Profit Prisons
Generally, a for-profit prison is a beautiful idea. If the government pays $200 daily to house an inmate, a private prison emerges and charges $150 daily. The government would save money while permitting a company to generate profits. The problem is found in the economic factors behind the prisoners.
One objective of the judicial system is to rehabilitate those incarcerated. According to the United States Department of Justice’s data from 24 states that calculated state recidivism rates between 2008 and 2018, the recidivism rate was 82 percent. The report makes the goal questionable.
Additionally, if incarceration were fully effective, these private firms would drive themselves out of business. It raises the question of whether the jail should rehabilitate defendants or make money. A massive prison population is the end game if the objective is to profit.
Another issue is that these companies are for-profit firms. It means they save money by cutting each employee's pay or benefits from their expenditure. Suppose a prison eliminates laundry services, and per-inmate costs are reduced by $90 daily. In this case, the company immediately makes an extra $10 daily, which adds up promptly if, for instance, there are one thousand detainees in the prison facility.
Reducing laundry makes the prison more profitable but provides inhumane and unsanitary living standards for the accused. Lowering costs eventually affects individuals' housing and reduces the quality of the inmates’ living quarters.
The Justice Policy Initiative says that for-profit prisons have a 28% higher rate of inmate-on-inmate assault and more than double as many staff-on-inmate assaults. The number of illegal weapons is twice as high in federal facilities.
The government should reform the law to permit a steady flow of new detainees. It goes back to the lobbying aspect; harsher laws lead to more individuals in the prison system. Many have said that was the sole objective for which the government initiated the war on narcotics. Introducing stricter laws would cause the imprisonment of thousands of individuals each year.
How the Government and Private Prisons Benefit From Their Partnership
Unlike a public facility, the government saves approximately $10,000 per year on each inmate sent to a for-profit prison. Therefore, the right strategy to lower costs is to send numerous inmates to private prisons.
For-profit prisons generate approximately $15,000 more per inmate per year when an individual is sent to their facility, in contrast to a public facility. Therefore, the right way to maximize profits is to have plenty of inmates in private prison facilities.
Privatization of Prison Results in More Inmates and Longer Sentences
According to a paper compiled by Washington State University scientists and published in a Labour Economics journal, when states privatize prisons, the number of defendants detained and the length of their sentences increase.
The research discovered that for-profit prisons grow 178 new inmates per one million population annually. The average daily cost of an inmate is sixty dollars, which is between $1.9 and $10.6 million a year if the judge sent these more defendants to private prisons.
Additionally, the period of incarceration increases with prison privatization, mainly for offenses for which judges have greater discretion in sentencing rules. The law creates every crime differently, and judges have more sentencing discretion regarding non-violent drug, fraud, and property damage offenses.
The researchers found two possible reasons for these facilities:
- Corruption — Private companies may influence legislators or judges to write laws carrying severe penalties or impose harsh sentences. A famous corruption instance is the “kids for cash’’ scandal, where a private detention company bribed two judges to sentence young offenders harshly instead of placing them on probation. The move aimed to increase capacity at the center.
- Increased prison occupancy — If a court is aware of prisons being full or overcrowded, it will be more reluctant to allocate marginal defendants to prison. However, when there is a private prison without capacity issues, that will cause more defendants to be imprisoned.
Inmates Worked Amidst the Coronavirus Pandemic
Prison inmates continued working as businesses and factories closed their doors during the pandemic. Sometimes, they would earn pennies an hour or even nothing, manufacturing hand sanitizer and masks to help protect others from the virus.
These inmates were also cut off from family visits for a long duration and would be charged twenty-five dollars for a fifteen-minute call. Additionally, they pay huge costs at the commissary for soap so they can clean their hands frequently. As the pandemic crippled the economy, leaving many jobless, it was devastating for loved ones to send money.
How Bright is the Private Prisons Future?
22 American states out of 50 do not have private prisons, and gradually, more states are following suit. Recently, California and Nevada passed laws that terminate business links with for-profit prisons and ban their business existence. In not-so-distant times, more states are expected to pass laws that abolish privately managed immigration detention facilities. By abolishing these facilities, states advocate for the welfare, humane treatment, and safety of illegal immigrants and inmates.
Despite the states making strides toward banning private prisons, current laws have substantial gaps that can hinder the eradication of these centers. This is because the law exempts educational and medical facilities.
It will take longer to pass laws to eliminate for-profit prisons; legislation passed in many states only affects facilities offering housing and custody. An effective way to entirely face out private detention centers is by passing laws without exceptions, as Nevada has done.
Whether for-profit prisons will continue to run is a matter of time. However, as that happens, reforming the criminal judicial system is essential. With many inmates in private, state, and federal prisons, it is challenging for public correction centers to offer the necessary beds and accommodations. The nation should find a lasting solution.
On top of reducing profit inducements from the judicial system, the nation should reverse some brutal crime legislation. That way, the U.S. will tackle the mass incarceration issue and accelerate facing out private prisons.
California’s Undertaking to Ban For-Profit Immigration Hit a Snag
California faced difficulty in its judicial battle against the GEO group and the federal government. Geo Group is a private prison firm. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Golden State cannot overrule the federal government’s resolution to hire private firms to operate immigration detention centers. Although California could appeal the verdict to the U.S. Supreme Court, it was improbable that the Court’s conservative super majority would decide in the state’s favor.
California’s advocates argued for the reduction of its dependence on private firms to manage detention facilities and to stop private companies from running immigrant private prisons, citing the welfare and health concerns of defendants.
In 2019, California enacted Assembly Bill 32, a legislation that had received much attention as the sole state in the U.S. that would prohibit private firms from running federal immigration holding facilities and state prisons.
Assembly Bill 32 banned the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation from renewing or signing a business contract with any private prison firm following January 2020. It also prevented California from holding defendants in immigration detention centers and private prisons beginning in 2028. Every eye was on the legal action contesting the new law enactment, given when the legislation was enacted. The state has ten private centers with approximately eleven thousand beds. Geo Group manages seven of these facilities.
The Trump Administration and Geo Group brought federal claims challenging this law in 2019. A California district judge in 2020 endorsed the law, stating that it did not interfere with the federal government’s operation. Additionally, the ruling recognized that the state had the power to confirm the welfare and health of detainees. The Trump Administration and Geo Group appealed this ruling, where the judges revoked the lower court’s decision.
In September 2022, the Ninth Circuit ruled that Assembly Bill 32 broke the supremacy clause of the U.S. Constitution because, to adhere to this law, ICE should stop its immigration detention operation in California. The ruling was a blow to California’s attempts against privatizing immigrant detention. Its effects also extend beyond the Golden State.
The political effects of this case are substantial, as President Biden’s administration has continued to follow this law. It is despite the president’s campaign manifesto to stop the U.S. government’s use of “for-profit” prisons for all detentions.
Biden’s 2021 executive order to stop using privately run detention centers does not affect immigration detention facilities.
However, the government has lowered its dependence on private companies to manage ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) detention facilities. It has eradicated contracts with more facilities holding non-citizen detainees and minimized Fiscal Year 2023 budget funding.
The government has requested more funding for Alternatives to Detention programs, in which technology will monitor undocumented families and individuals instead of being detained.
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Private prisons hinder access to justice and violate constitutional rights against unusual and cruel punishment. Mixing profits with the government’s core function of incarceration and rehabilitation results in damaging repercussions for inmates, prison employees, and the public at large while benefiting a small group of private companies. The length to which the companies seek to increase their profit margin knows no bounds, exposing inmates to overcrowding, poor sanitation, and poor food. The facilities are morally abhorrent and diminish equality in the criminal judicial system. The question of why the United States stands for private firm profits in human imprisonment should be resolved and addressed.
If you have been sentenced to a for-profit prison, please contact the Los Angeles Criminal Attorney at 424-333-0943 for more information about how these centers operate or to seek legal help.
