Policy

Although public prisons tend to be more reliable, there are still existing benefits to having private prisons. These benefits show that both private and public systems are both valid methods of employing criminal justice. As such, our current system of public and private prisons is acceptable in handling inmates. However, to optimize our system, we have several policy recommendations.

Our research has shown that one of the benefits of private prisons is their role in solving the problems with overpopulation that public prisons face. However, because private prisons aim to generate profit and, by extension, cut costs, they often fail to adequately invest in creating living conditions that ensure inmate well-being. To resolve this issue, our main policy recommendation is the creation of a list of standards for which all private prisons must be held accountable. Furthermore, the government should enforce annual inspections of private prisons to ensure the standards are respected.

Our research has also shown that private prisons are incentivized to prolong the incarceration of inmates (Craig and Pond Cummings). The longer inmates are in prison, the more profit prions can make from them. The second standard that private prisons must follow is limiting the amount of annual profit they can obtain from any single prisoner by reducing that amount little by little over time relative to the total length of the sentence.

Lastly, one of the prevalent issues of private prisons is their rate of reincarceration. We discovered that private prison inmates are 17% to 22% more likely to be re-incarcerated when compared to publicly housed prisoners (Mamum, et al.). To solve this, we must simplify the inmates’ transition from prison life to the real world. The third standard private prisons must follow is providing quality rehabilitative resources for inmates. Examples of these resources include providing services to help physically and mentally ill inmates and initiating programs that prepare them for real-world jobs. Furthermore, private prisons must ensure that they adequately supply these services and programs with qualified staff. One of the issues with private prisons is that, even when they offer rehabilitative resources, they often provide fewer staff members to facilitate the programs. They only provided, on average, 4.3 staff members per 100 prisoners as opposed to the 6.8 staff members present in public prisons (Lukemeyer and McCorkle). By requiring private prisons to not only offer these rehabilitative resources but also provide more staff members to supervise them, we can reduce the likelihood of inmate reincarceration.