{"id":1405,"date":"2019-10-16T08:00:15","date_gmt":"2019-10-16T13:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/?p=1405"},"modified":"2019-10-15T18:20:04","modified_gmt":"2019-10-15T23:20:04","slug":"for-profit-prisons-and-the-immigrant-industrial-complex","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/2019\/10\/16\/for-profit-prisons-and-the-immigrant-industrial-complex\/","title":{"rendered":"For Profit Prisons and the Immigrant Industrial Complex"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Photo by the euskadi 11, Flickr CC<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Originally posted April 2017. We’re reposting this in light of California’s recent decision to prevent the renewal of contracts with for-profit prison companies.<\/em><\/p>\n

Last month<\/span>, Attorney General Jeff Sessions reinstated the use of private prisons<\/a> in the federal system. This move is welcome news to top corrections corporations such as <\/span>CoreCivic<\/span><\/a>, but human rights activists are concerned about this shift. Opponents claim\u00a0that these corporations bring\u00a0in large profits while their prisons remain rife with safety and healthcare deficiencies, as well as underpaid employees. While these concerns are important to consider, the private prison industry represents a small segment of the American correctional system. According to the <\/span>Bureau of Justice Statistics<\/span><\/a>, only 17% of inmates in federal prisons and 7% in state prisons were held in private facilities in 2015. <\/span><\/p>\n

During their initial inception, private prisons were believed to be a cost-effective option that could provide better services than government facilities. Despite these goals, much of the current evaluative research suggests that private facilities are no more cost effective than public facilities. Likewise, private prisons appear to perform worse in reducing recidivism than public correctional facilities and have similar (and sometimes worse) conditions than public facilities. In contrast, some evidence suggests that private prisons may be less overcrowded. Due to these ambiguities, scholars of the privatization debate are calling for more research into the qualitative differences between the private and public sector of prisons. <\/span><\/h5>\n