Good Private Prisons Essay Example

Abstract

The US has enhanced the nations’ capacity on increased offenders through private prisons. The private prisons are for-profit organizations established similar to public prisons. Differences between public and private penitentiaries have elicited mixed results on actual change management processes of offenders. The actual changes are witnessed based on the different models used by the two categories of prisons.
Criminal law has been the underlying legislation on the regulations against crime. Criminal law is legislation that discourages engagement in crime by individuals of the state (Baker, 2011). Most legislation derides consequences on the actions of the criminals such as capital and corporal punishment. However, conviction criminals are taken to prisons to serve the accorded sentence by the courts. The United States of America (USA) has the highest percentage of prisoners to the population. The current prisoner population in the USA is nearly 2 million inmates. The state has liberalized the prison sector and allowed private investment in the establishment and running of private prisons. The private prison sector is said to earn annual revenues of more than 1 billion US$. Some of the notable prisons are the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) and the Geo Group, Inc. the two enterprises are the largest private run facilities on revenue and total bed capacity. However, the industry is said to exploit the prisoners through contracted labour for firms such as Microsoft, Dell and AT&T. therefore, the institutions are unable to offer meaningful social skills and anger management unlike state run penitentiaries. The essay discusses options on social skills and anger management as prescribed by Hollin, in “The essential handbook of offenders’ assessment and treatment.”
Psychological distress has been a key factor on anger and aggression related criminal activities in the United States. Researchers have confirmed that in every 10 criminal cases at least two are related psychological distress. Most prisoners have enhanced counseling for the prisoners to enhance transformations of the individuals to rational beings. Social skills are interaction skills notable amongst individuals that enhance communication. Poor socialization skills have fuelled emergence of distressed individuals, rise in anger related incidents and aggression induced crime. Prisoners are often offered selective counseling treatment to assist the prisoners cope with the overlying vices in day to day activities. The penitentiaries offer different ranging initiatives to enhance transformation of the individual. However, there exist differences in the programmes among the public and private penitentiaries. There has been controversy recently in the running of private prisons, especially on initiatives meant to enhance transformation of the prisoners (Camp, 2002). The overlying issue has been that most private run prisoners are focused on outsourcing labor to large multinationals and paying prisoners less to adequately gain from the transaction. Corrections Corporations of America has earned record revenues from the business, earning 1.7 billion US$ in revenue.
The common programmes in most public and private prisons are the thinking for change (T4C) and the moral Reconation Therapy (MRT). The programmes are common in most states in the United States and are offered by volunteer and interested groups in the society. The programmes are intensive in nature and require adequate time for the tutors to actually weigh the prisoners’ changes based on the course. However, furore has been rife on the implementation of the programmes especially in private prisons. Furthermore, private prisoners are expansion have enhanced fears of improper handling of the prisoners, as in the murder case of a prisoner in one of the Geo Group, Inc facilities.
Public prisons adequately allow time for prisoners to enhance transformation and thought change through the programmes implemented in the penitentiary. The public prisons have efficient time structures both for work and change management courses. Behavioral change in human beings is presumed to be related to the interacting environment and actual ambitions of the person. Research has proved that most criminals are not crime induced to commit offences but can also re-engage in the crime in future. Therefore, the two programmes were strongly recommended by psychologists to enhance transformative change amongst prisoners. Public prisons enhance the prison environment to enhance gradual change in behavior by prisoners. However, most private prisons are operated like private business, squeezing every opportunity from the business. The prisons earn income from outsourcing labour to multinational companies for a fee. Moreover, the prisons also pay the prisons minimum wages below the actual lowest amount in public prisons. The prisons enhance income by enhancing maximization of labour by the multinational companies. Therefore, the prisoners are undertaken through the change management programme to enhance behavior change. Therefore, there exists a difference from the prisoners who have completed sentences from the public unlike the private prisons.
There exist system differences in the way private and public prisons are run. The liberalization of the corrections facility was initiated to reduce the strain on government resources on maintaining the facilities. The facilities experienced stagnation in growth in the initial years but have recently boomed with major companies enhancing lobbying activities in some of the states for private prisons. However, public and private prisons use different models to manage the facilities. Private prisons use sanctions in managing the facilities while public prisons majorly use incentives to enhance transformative change (Hallett, 2006). The two approaches are based on different rationalities. Private prisons enhance strict code of conduct enhanced by sanctions to enhance efficiency and operations of the facility. Most private institutions are dependent on income from outsourcing labour to major companies and are unwilling to lose contracts based on indiscipline of the prisoners. Therefore, the rational indicates that the private prisons are more concerned on incomes than change processes intended for the offenders. Public prisons also enhance strict code of conducts but enhance change management of offenders through incentives. The offenders are awarded on achieving various tasks on the context of change management. The approach is modeled on rational change management of the offenders. The differences are evident from the prisoners already completed sentence terms from the two different facilities. Recent data indicates that prisoners from private run prisons are twice likely to re-engage in crime unlike prisoners from the public prisons. Interestingly, there exist standards on the actual performance measurement of prisons to enhance the actual main process of change management. However, the model used for running the private run penitentiaries seems incomplete for the intended purpose.
Conclusively, the major difference in treatment options of social skills and anger management between private prisons and public prisons is entirely evident. Minimum requirements are met by the private prisons, though fully integration of the change management process is incomplete. Moreover, the evident lobbying of the private prisons backed moneyed investors from Wall Street has further worsened the situation. The public have raged on the controversy bitterly questioning the states silence on the matter. Integration of time for change management processes for the public prisons ahs adequately enhanced actual change management among the offenders. Furthermore, use of incentives in collaboration with maintaining strict conduct has enhanced evidenced changes by the offenders. However, private prisons have operated on the contrary and face implementation challenges on change management. Interestingly, the private prisons are expanding aggressively in the USA unlike any other nation in the world. Therefore, since change management processes are the intended cause for sentencing of offenders, the state should enhance achievement of the value in all penitentiaries.

References

Baker, D. J. (2011). The right not to be criminalized: demarcating criminal law's authority.
Ashgate Publishing, Ltd..
Camp, S. D., & Gaes, G. G. (2002). Growth and Quality of US Private Prisons: Evidence from a
National Survey*. Criminology & Public Policy, 1(3), 427-450.
Hallett, M. A. (2006). Private prisons in America: A critical race perspective. University of
Illinois Press.