Pros And Cons Of Mass Incarceration

A prominent political analyst and author Mark Braider recently made the case in a 2015 New York Times piece stating that corporations and their influence on our government is a major, often un-recognized pitfall of America. While many may be ignorant of the issue, those who are informed often come to the same conclusions as Braider in his argument about to which the extent of corporations in America affect our government and way of life; often for the worse. Looking at the macro scale at which government has an effect the lives we live; private prisons serve as the epitome in commercial-political interaction. The issue of private prisons the reason why I strongly agree with Braider’s controversial opinion about the importance of informing the ignorant of this pressing issue. American politics work somewhat simply at the legislative level in regards to their relationships with major companies and corporations.

In the documentary film Private Prisons, provides insight on how two private prisons industries, Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) and Geo Group, generate revenue through mass incarceration. It is no surprise that the United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world. The United States represents approximately 5% of the world’s population index and approximately 25% of the world’s prisoners due to expansion of the private prison industry complex (Private Prisons, 2013). The number of people incarcerated in private prions has grown exponentially over the past decades. To put into perspective, the number of individuals increased by 1600% between 1990 and 2005 (Private Prisons, 2003).

The prison-industrial complex is a corrupt political system that consists of overpowered politicians whose sole ambition is exploiting poor, uneducated, and under-privileged Americans to make money. Although, it wasn’t initially the purpose when Rockefeller started the war on drugs, but he started something bigger than he could’ve imagined at that time. The prison system has been proven to be ineffective, and costly waste of resources. However, it probably won’t be abolished due to the cash flow that it brings to some of the largest corporations in the

The authors Eve Goldberg and Linda Evans, writers, and filmmakers, published "The Prison Industrial Complex." This text discusses how the government and private corporations increase mass incarceration for profit. The text states, "For private business, prison labor is like a pot of gold. No strikes. No union organizing.

By the government allowing corporations to buy, and build new prisons gave that much more of an incentive to keep the prisons flowing with inmates. According to Vicky Pelaez “Private prisons are the biggest business in the prison industry complex. About 18 corporations guard 10,000 prisoners in 27 states. Private prisons receive a guaranteed amount of money for each prisoner, independent of what it costs to maintain each one.” (6) Once you get trapped inside this prison machine they can and will work for cents a day.

The Prison Industrial Complex allows for the incentivizing of incarcerated people in America because of the appeal of profits. The shared interests of government and private prisons allow for the use of surveillance, policing, and imprisonment to exploit incarcerated people for labor. The United States criminal justice system is also rooted in racism.

The amount of rapid growth in inmate population is almost as startling as the profit made from the prison industrial complex itself. Although it has substantial political power, the prison industrial complex consists of private companies and corporations. The key economic components revolved around the prison industrial complex are the use of inmates as basically free labor and the notion that more prisons indicate more jobs. As Angela Davis illuminated, the focus is on making a profit through punishment rather than rehabilitating individuals and providing them with services to help reduce the rates of crime.

Regardless which side of the political compass a person lies, Americans agree that too many individuals are imprisoned in the United States. In fact, the United States holds about 5% of the world population, but nearly 25% of the prison population (Ye Hee Lee 2015). The advent of dog-whistle politics combined with implicit racial bias has allowed for casual observers and social scientists alike to notice how minorities disproportionately make up the composition of prisons since the 1970s. While no single policy exists that can fix this "New Jim Crow," getting rid of private prisons offers the easiest first step toward mending contemporary racism. Simply put, policy that eradicates private prisons in the United States proves practical as they

The United States is one of the only countries in the world in which you can make money off of putting someone else into prison, without calling it what it is, in other countries this is simply called slavery. Slavery has been illegal for many years and that is why private prisons should also be illegal, it is essentially being paid to own another human being. While these people may have committed crimes they have committed crimes against the state and so should be held accountable by the state and not a third party contractor. These contractors do not care if you are rehabilitated and in fact it would be better for their business if you weren’t. Therefore; the privatized prison system is more of a trade school than a rehabilitation center.

In addition to greatly affecting the otherwise unlikely citizens of America, Tough on Crime policies have greatly affected minority groups in America; perhaps more so than of any other group of citizens. To begin, from the 1980 on through the year 1995, the incarceration rates among drug offenders increased by more than 1000 percent. Notably, by the year 1995 one out of every four inmates in any given correctional facility was a drug offender. In addition of that 1000 percent increase, drug offenders accounted for more than 80 percent of the total growth in the federal inmate population and 50 percent of the growth of the state prison population from 1985 to 1995 (Stith, web). In addition, once in the system, the probability of receiving harsher

“A good first step forward is to start treating prisoners as a human being, not profiting from their incarceration.” ( Bernie Sanders). The prison system is only thinking about money because they don't care the effect it has in people's life when they are sentenced unfairly. The U.S Prison system is unfair, and two of the most important aspects to understand about it are the war on drugs and racism. One important aspect of the U.S Prison system is the war on drugs and how they go to jail for an unreasonable amount of time for having a small amount of drugs on them and when they have to go to prison it affects the prisoner's family.

The privatization of prisons has many supposed benefits but also presents many weaknesses. While “proponents of privatization argue that by having private, for-profit businesses run jails and prisons, taxpayers end up paying less for incarceration of inmates” (Cincinnaticriminalattorney.com). However, “opponents argue that cost savings haven’t manifested as promised and that private prisons have a detrimental impact on society by failing to focus on rehabilitation of inmates, but instead on warehousing offenders in exchange for a fee per inmate.”

One of the major steps toward changing the justice system is to ban private prison because people are benefiting from

The United States has a larger percent of its population incarcerated than any other country. America is responsible for a quarter of the world’s inmates, and its incarceration rate is growing exponentially. The expense generated by these overcrowded prisons cost the country a substantial amount of money every year. While people are incarcerated for several reasons, the country’s prisons are focused on punishment rather than reform, and the result is a misguided system that fails to rehabilitate criminals or discourage crime. This literature review will discuss the ineffectiveness of the United States’ criminal justice system and how mass incarceration of non-violent offenders, racial profiling, and a high rate of recidivism has become a problem.

isn’t the only thing people believe needs to change; the reasons for arrests have been criticized by many. America incarcerates more citizens for drug related crimes than any other place in the world. Of the roughly 200,000 in federal prison, 52% are being held for drug crimes and only 8% are for violent crimes, such as: murder, assault, and robbery (Waldman, 2013). Many believe that the “War on Drugs” must become less aggressive because of its large contribution to the prison population. The distribution of prisoners by race has also raised concern among Americans.