Private prisons are supposed to save money and increase job opportunities in the states that contract with them. A new report issued by The Sentencing Project gives lie to those beliefs, and provides hard evidence that private prisons count on a high prison population to make money, therefore they lobby for harsh sentencing laws that will ensure that America will retain the title of “Incarceration Nation.”
The report, Too Good to be True: Private Prisons in America, details the rise in private prisons in America from 1999 through 2010, and provides state-by-state data on the number of private prisons in each state, as well as the number of each state’s prison population that is housed in a private prison. Some states, such as New Mexico, Florida, Mississippi, and Texas have seen a significant increase in prisoners incarcerated in a private facility. Other states, including Iowa, Kansas, Massachusetts and New York did not succumb to privatizing their prison system during the reported period.
One of the biggest selling points used by the private prison industry is that, besides saving money, job opportunities will increase with privatization. The report, however, cites a study that claims “prisons have not and are not likely to make a positive contribution to local employment growth,” and offers the example of Littlefield, TX as an example of what can go wrong when a town contracts with a private prison company.
Some highlights of the report show:
From 1999 to 2010 the use of private prisons increased by 40 percent at the state level and by 784 percent in the federal prison system.
In 2010 seven states housed more than a quarter of their prison population in private facilities.
Claims of private prisons' cost effectiveness are overstated and largely illusory.
The services provided by private prisons are generally inferior to those found in publicly operated facilities.
Private prison companies spend millions of dollars each year attempting to influence policy at the state and federal level.
Source: The Fortune Society and the David Rothenberg Center for Public Policy
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