Notes

Introduction paragraph
Private prisons are prisons that are run by a company that has a contract with the government.

My first point is the origin of private prisons. Private prisons have increasingly become a problem in the US. The first private prison, San Quentin started in 1852. In the 1980s, private prisons started to gain more traction due to President Reagan. President Reagan pushed for war on drugs which leads to prison overcrowding and rising costs. Private prisons promised efficiency and cost-effectiveness for the government. This is a pretty picture meant to deceive the public because there are many underlying problems beneath this idea. Many studies have debunked the theory that private prisons are cost-effective for the government. Private prisons' true intention is to make money off of the number of prisoners in their facility.

This leads me to my second point, the reason for corruption in private prisons. Private prison systems are corrupt due to the workers that work in the prison and the companies that own them. The main reason why workers have found the need to become corrupt is money. Workers need more money than they are getting from their jobs so they have had to turn to alternate means to get that money. Therefore, many workers smuggle drugs into the prison to gain a quick buck. As stated by the USA Today, "That study also found that a guard at New York's Rikers Island made up to $900 daily by smuggling drugs and other contraband into the facility." In other words, a guard found that money could be made by smuggling drugs into prison. Not only are the workers corrupt, the companies are corrupt too. Companies want to make a profit and will try to gain this profit through any means necessary. This need to gain profit by any means necessary will lead to numerous negative impacts.

The previous statement provides the perfect setting to introduce my third point; the impacts of the corruption in the private prison system. Some dreadful impacts include unfair trials, bad living conditions, and unprepared workers. Unfair trials are the aftermath of the corruption in companies. According to the Huffington Post, "States with private prisons have been observed to dole out sentences double the time of state-run prisons." In other words, companies get more money since people stay in their facility longer due to longer sentences. This leads to corrupted judges since we all know who got the $$. On December 6, 2017, the Huffington Post reported, "Private Prisons could be bribing judges for more inmates. There is evidence that this is occurring regularly. That type of corruption means that your DUI could turn into a maximum sentence." Many companies also want to save any money they can scrounge up. This usually includes money used for good living conditions and preparing workers for their job. Therefore, many private prisons have inadequate living conditions and bad workers. As reported by the New York Times, "Security staff at East Mississippi earn even less than the $12-an-hour starting wage made by their public service counterparts, and private prison guards receive only three weeks of training - less than half the training time required of state prison guards."