Argumentative Synthesis Extremely Rough Draft
Between 1978 and 2014 the United State’s incarcerated population increased 408% (aclu.org). There is no shock that since then America has struggled to meet the demands of inmate housing. Privatization has long been used as a solution to America’s overcrowding problem within prisons, claiming to be cheaper without losing out on quality. However, despite their first institution in 1984 (Seiter 417), private prisons have not met their claims. There is no proof that private prisons save taxpayer money, prisons are still over capacity, and corruption soars. Rather than accommodating the pervasive mass incarceration problem in America, we should look to law reform to reduce incarceration and keep inmates …show more content…
Where this argument goes wrong is how the ACA is a private company as well, thus as a company it stands to gain from privatization as well for when private contractors pay for accreditation (Friedmann 558). Furthermore, accreditation is not perfect. Ottercreek Correctional Facility in Kentucky was discovered to have rape and sexual abuse between inmates and guards. Five guards were convicted of rape or sexual abuse of inmates and despite that the facility never lost accreditation during the scandal nor after (Friedmann 559). As far as public official monitoring, while this is true since private prisons are not government run facilities, even if shortcomings are found or standards are not being kept not much can be done. In a public prison one can be fired and replaced, but private prisons are ran by themselves and thus it is up to them to decide what to do. At most the contract may be cancelled between the state and the private owner but that happens rarely and requires a lot more than firing one person (Brickner and Diaz). Another argument Seiter posits is the expenses involved in building new prisons and how private prisons cost less for the taxpayer (420). In contrast Friedmann pointed out …show more content…
During the 1980s America developed a tough on crime mindset which has lead to increased incarceration for petty crimes and mandatory sentencing (Friedmann 563). Instead of incarcerating individuals for failure to appears and petty crimes like property damage we need to look to install community supervision and outside rehabilitation programs. Incarcerating nonviolent and non-serious crimes increases prison costs while outside resources can give the offender a better chance at rehabilitation and contribution to society (Brickner and Diaz). As far as the private prisons that exist now, shutting them down immediately would not be practical and would leave the government in a panic as what to do with all the inmates incarcerated in those facilities as well as those who lost their jobs, but what can be done is ceasing to privatize anymore facilities and working on slowly reintroducing the private prisons back into the public
Between 1978 and 2014 the United State’s incarcerated population increased 408% (aclu.org). There is no shock that since then America has struggled to meet the demands of inmate housing. Privatization has long been used as a solution to America’s overcrowding problem within prisons, claiming to be cheaper without losing out on quality. However, despite their first institution in 1984 (Seiter 417), private prisons have not met their claims. There is no proof that private prisons save taxpayer money, prisons are still over capacity, and corruption soars. Rather than accommodating the pervasive mass incarceration problem in America, we should look to law reform to reduce incarceration and keep inmates …show more content…
Where this argument goes wrong is how the ACA is a private company as well, thus as a company it stands to gain from privatization as well for when private contractors pay for accreditation (Friedmann 558). Furthermore, accreditation is not perfect. Ottercreek Correctional Facility in Kentucky was discovered to have rape and sexual abuse between inmates and guards. Five guards were convicted of rape or sexual abuse of inmates and despite that the facility never lost accreditation during the scandal nor after (Friedmann 559). As far as public official monitoring, while this is true since private prisons are not government run facilities, even if shortcomings are found or standards are not being kept not much can be done. In a public prison one can be fired and replaced, but private prisons are ran by themselves and thus it is up to them to decide what to do. At most the contract may be cancelled between the state and the private owner but that happens rarely and requires a lot more than firing one person (Brickner and Diaz). Another argument Seiter posits is the expenses involved in building new prisons and how private prisons cost less for the taxpayer (420). In contrast Friedmann pointed out …show more content…
During the 1980s America developed a tough on crime mindset which has lead to increased incarceration for petty crimes and mandatory sentencing (Friedmann 563). Instead of incarcerating individuals for failure to appears and petty crimes like property damage we need to look to install community supervision and outside rehabilitation programs. Incarcerating nonviolent and non-serious crimes increases prison costs while outside resources can give the offender a better chance at rehabilitation and contribution to society (Brickner and Diaz). As far as the private prisons that exist now, shutting them down immediately would not be practical and would leave the government in a panic as what to do with all the inmates incarcerated in those facilities as well as those who lost their jobs, but what can be done is ceasing to privatize anymore facilities and working on slowly reintroducing the private prisons back into the public