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Welcome to Texas! Home of bustling shops, welcoming strangers and friendly neighbors.
Home to beautiful skies and vast nature. And home of the nation's largest prison population.
*title slide* Beds For Sale: The Corruption of Private Prisons
Texas serves as an example for the nation as a whole, with the US coming in #1 against
all other first world countries in terms of prison population.
Resulting from the war on drugs that started in the 1970s, prison populations began to
increase dramatically. Additionally, the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984 created "tougher" sentences
to be imposed on those involved in drug related crime. This increase caused the gov't to begin
speculation about how to pay for all these new "criminals".
Their solution: capitalism.
*Amanda Interview* So the government allowed private corporations to bid for the management
of our prisons. By doing this, the burden was taken from the government and put on the
private sector.
In 1984, Correction Corporation of America was awarded a contract to run a prison in
Hamilton County, TN. This event marked the beginning of a major american industry. By
the year 2000 there were over 150 private prisons nationwide.
*Cut to video* So we asked a group of people, "Is it reasonable to privatize prisons and
prison management? Here are a few of the responses." A Corporate, one-size-fits-all approach to
crime, punishment, and rehabilitation is shortsighted and cruel. Prisons serve three purposes: protecting
society, punishing wrongdoers, and rehabilitation. Any person motivated by profit will fail at
all three. To win, one company must out produce and perform
competitors competitors. The result is a superb and effective product that is second to none.
By introducing concepts such as Overhead and profit into this system you introduce an incentive
to have the most amount of people in prison. The prison then would have no interest in
rehabilitating people and could potentially influence politics by toughening laws.
The opportunity to have private corporations actively bid alongside government agencies
will result in a more financially responsible and better managed system.
It is morally wrong and inevitably will end up with those profiting off prisons. Our society
should be structured toward lessening the number or people in prison, not increasing
the numbers.
Though small, we feel our sample is representative of the American population; with 43% saying
it is reasonable, and the other 57% disagreeing.
Ideally, this seems like a good course of action. The hope was that privatization of
prisons would lead to less of a financial burden on government, and better run facilities
in regards to issues such as overcrowding.
It appears as though ethical egoism is being applied to the current situation. The stakeholders
involved are the Government, the corporations running the prisons, the inmates, the taxpayers
and the Community In a perfect world all of these entities would
be working together to manage these facilities in a way that benefits all to the greatest
extent.
It is clear from the evidence that the ethics being applied is not beneficial to everyone
involved. Currently, the system is set up so that the interests of the individual companies
are being pursued - not the interests of the nation as a whole. Apparently the belief is
that through competition these private industries will try to be the best in order to get the
most business. However, because the service is being provided to those who do not have
a say, the inmates, and hidden from those who do have a say, the taxpayer, the competition
becomes not about who can provide the best service, but rather which company can bribe
and trick their way into housing the most inmates.
These companies are doing everything in their power to lower overhead and fill their beds
and classrooms simply to get more money. They are not taking into account the safety, health
or rehabilitation of the inmates, and they certainly are not taking into consideration
how this affects the surrounding communities.
The community, taxpayer and inmate clearly benefit more from the state run facilities.
It appears that the only individuals benefiting from the privately managed facilities are
the companies running them. It is also clear from the information gathered that the greatest
happiness for the greatest number would be achieved by the government either shutting
down these facilities or transitioning them to being run by the state or federal government.