Abolition of the For Profit Prison System

by Troy Van Denover

In a research paper by Gregmar I. Galinato, WSU Pullman and Ryne Rohla, now working for the Office of the Attorney General Washington State

Private prisons proliferated in the U.S. since the mid-1980s. In 1984, Corrections Corporation of America (CCA, now CoreCivic) established the first privately-owned and -operated incarceration facility in Hamilton County, Tennessee (Mattera et al., 2001). The private prison industry experienced substantial growth through the late-1980s and early-1990s where annual industry revenues rose from $14 million in 1984 to $120 million in 1994 (Mattera et al., 2001). The capacity of private incarceration facilities increased from 3000 beds in 1984 to 20,000 beds in 1990, followed by annual increases of 50% until 1994 where it slowed to an annual increase of 25% for the latter half of the decade (Mattera et al., 2001).2

One hypothesis raised concerns the impact of private prisons on incarceration rates in the U.S., which is highest in the world (Walmsley, 2018). The American Civil Liberties Union asserts private prisons significantly increased the incarceration rate in the U.S. since the mid-1980s (Shapiro, 2011). Stringent crime laws along with the private prisons may have contributed to the rise in incarceration rates. For example, the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 ("1994 Crime Bill") increased funding for law enforcement and expanded punishments for a variety of offenses including weapons crimes, immigration violations, hate crimes, sex crimes, and gang-related crime. Such laws can facilitate underlying mechanisms which causally relate the increase in private prisons to incarceration rates.

One potential mechanism is through lobbying and direct contributions to politicians and officials in exchange for favorable policies which increase incarceration rates (Ashton and Petteruti, 2011). Two prominent examples illustrate the plausibility of this mechanism. First, in the “Kids for Cash” scandal in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, two judges received money from two private juvenile detention centers in exchange for harsh judgements on juvenile offenders to increase the number of residents in the centers (May, 2014). The judges sentenced minors convicted of misdemeanors to internment in private youth correctional facilities in exchange for $2.6 million in kickbacks. Second, lobby groups for private prisons supported California's three-strikes rule and Arizona's anti-illegal immigration law for harsher penalties on crimes and longer sentences (Cohen, 2015). CoreCivic lobbied for increased appropriation measures from the Office of Federal Detention Trustee and for Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to maintain or increase the “bed quota,” a policy mandating a minimum of 34,000 inmates at any given time regardless of illegal immigration levels (Ashton and Petteruti, 2011).

Another mechanism is overcrowding in public prisons (Wilson, 2014), which might dissuade judges from assigning marginal convicts to prison. Private prisons may reduce this capacity constraint, leading to more incarcerations. The role of these mechanisms remains unstudied. There is also gap in the literature in understanding the channels by which private prisons influence incarceration levels such as incentivizing arrest rates leading to more trials, influencing guilty verdicts, or changing the individual likelihood of incarceration over probation.

Scot Weybright, Washington State University

Today

Current U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi was previously a paid lobbyist for Ballard Partners who represented wealthy special interests including The GEO Group, a private prison company that has faced criticism for safety violations, providing inadequate health care, and poor management practices. according to the U.S. Senate Committee of the Judiciary. The GEO Group looks to rake in upwards of billions of dollars with the increased incarceration of those unlawfully detained by ICE and the current rounding up of the homeless and mentally ill.

What You Can Do

A Pennsylvania lawmaker is proposing legislation to prohibit state and local contracts with private prison facilities and corporations in Pennsylvania.

State Representative Perry Warren (D-31) says he intends to introduce legislation to prohibit private prisons in Pennsylvania, highlighting a range of issues associated with them.

Rep. Warren argues that criminal justice is the responsibility of the U.S. government, not for-profit private entities. The memo says that 99,754 individuals were incarcerated in privately owned prisons in the U.S. in 2020, according to the Sentencing Project.

He added that private prisons have a history and are often associated with questionable behavior and poor service when compared to state-run facilities.

According to the Office of Justice Programs, private prisons are often accused of prioritizing profit over inmate well-being, which can lead to increased violence, understaffing, poorly maintained facilities, and other issues.

The memo claims that private prison companies have little incentive to rehabilitate inmates.

“While we cannot change federal law, we must take action as a state to end the privatization of corrections, prisons and immigrant detention centers at the state and local level. There is no acceptable reason for private entities to be in charge of the custody, care and rehabilitation of any incarcerated individual,” the memo says.

The bill has not yet been submitted for introduction.

Please contact your state representatives to urge them to support State Representative Perry Warren in submitting this bill and getting it passed in Pennsylvania. We can lead the way locally and affect the national policy in the coming year.