Anaya Nolan
The laws for contract prisons are decided by a complex interplay of various factors, including government policies, economic interests, and political lobbying. Private prison corporations, such as GEO Group and CoreCivic, play a significant role in influencing these laws, often through lobbying efforts and campaign funding. These corporations have a financial stake in mass incarceration and seek to shape policies that favor their interests. While the profitability of private prisons depends on specific policies and practices, it is important to recognize that they are not the sole driving force behind the Prison Industrial Complex. A range of contracts and parties, including both private and public prisons, contribute to the complex dynamics of the correctional system. The use of private prisons has sparked debates and legal challenges, with critics arguing that transferring prison powers to private entities violates prisoners' human rights and undermines the legitimacy of the state's authority to enforce criminal law.
| Characteristics | Values |
|---|---|
| Location | The US, New Zealand, and Israel |
| Companies | GEO Group, Inc., CoreCivic, Inc. (CCA), Australasian Correctional Management (ACM), Serco, Leviev's Africa Israel Investments |
| Lobbying and Campaign Funding | Yes, to sway policies and politicians |
| Percentage of Prisoners in Private Facilities | 8.5% as of 2016 |
| Percentage of Private Prison Population in the US | 7% of state prisoners, 18% of federal prisoners |
| Private Prison Population Trend | Increasing, with a 39.3% increase since 2000 |
| Minimum Occupancy Clauses | Yes, guarantee 90%+ occupancy or payment for 90% occupancy |
| Annual Revenue | $3.3 billion as of 2015, $4 billion combined for GEO Group and CoreCivic in 2017 |
| Legality | Varies, ruled illegal in Israel in 2009, reintroduced in New Zealand after initially being stopped |
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What You'll Learn
Private prisons are lucrative
Private prison companies typically enter into contractual agreements with governments that commit prisoners and then pay a per diem or monthly rate, either for each prisoner in the facility or for each place available, whether occupied or not. About three-quarters of private prison contracts include minimum occupancy clauses, also known as "bed guarantees", which state that the government must maintain a specific percentage of occupancy at the prison. Such clauses, along with political lobbying efforts and campaign funding, help to ensure that correctional facilities remain in demand and that mass incarceration continues.
The profitability of private prisons is closely tied to policies and practices that uphold mass incarceration. For this reason, private prison corporations are heavily involved in political lobbying to maintain and strengthen carceral policies. For example, CoreCivic spent $10.6 million on immigration-related lobbying between 2008 and 2014, with $9,760,000 going toward lobbying members of the House Appropriations Committee Homeland Security Subcommittee, which funds immigration detention. The focus on immigration is strategic, as the majority of immigration detention facilities in the US are private.
While supporters of private prisons argue that they can save money for governments through privatisation, the evidence is mixed at best. In some instances, private prisons may even cost more than governmental ones. Furthermore, private prisons have been linked to numerous cases of violence and atrocious conditions. Critics argue that because private organisations always aim to maximise profit, they will seek to cut costs by skimping on prison facilities and paying their guards poorly, thus undermining prisoners' rights.
Despite the ethical concerns surrounding private prisons, their use has grown in recent years. In 2000, 8% of the imprisoned population in the US was in private facilities, compared to 8.5% in 2016. While the population in private prisons decreased significantly between 2012 and 2022, the overall prison population grew in 2022 for the first time in a decade, intensifying the debate around privatisation as corporations seek new opportunities for profit.
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Corporations lobby for mass incarceration
Prisons run by private corporations are referred to as "private prisons". In the US, two corporations, GEO Group, Inc. and CoreCivic, Inc. (CCA), manage over half of the private prison contracts. These contracts are extremely profitable; in the 2017 fiscal year, GEO Group and CoreCivic earned a combined revenue of more than $4 billion.
Private corporations, like any other business, have one major objective: to make the largest profit possible. In the context of private prisons, this means that corporations are invested in mass incarceration because incarceration is profitable for them. They ensure that correctional facilities are in demand through various techniques, including minimum occupancy clauses and political lobbying efforts.
Roughly three-quarters of private prison contracts include minimum occupancy clauses, also known as "bed guarantees", which state that the government must maintain a specific percentage of occupancy at a prison. In addition to these contract clauses, private prison corporations also engage in lobbying efforts and campaign funding to sway policies and politicians towards detention-focused policies that uphold mass incarceration. For example, an investigation by Grassroots Leadership found that CoreCivic spent $10.6 million on immigration-related lobbying between 2008 and 2014, with $9,760,000 going towards directly lobbying members of the House Appropriations Committee Homeland Security Subcommittee, which is responsible for funding immigration detention.
The focus on immigration makes sense because the majority of immigration detention facilities are private: 73% of people in immigration detention were held in privately-owned facilities in 2017, while only 8.5% of people incarcerated at the state and federal level were held in private facilities in 2016. CoreCivic's immigration-related lobbying is a clear example of how private prisons strive to influence policies and politicians to continue the cycle of mass incarceration and increase their profits.
The private prison industry experienced a boom due to the mass incarceration that followed the government's war on drugs in the 1980s. Since then, the for-profit prison sector has evolved into a billion-dollar industry, with thousands of companies involved in the Prison Industrial Complex (PIC). Despite enormous lobbying efforts by private corporations, citizens have started to reject the agenda of profiting from the criminal justice system and demand the return of prison management to public authorities. On January 26, 2021, US President Joe Biden signed an executive order directing the Department of Justice to phase out contracts with private federal prisons, marking a step towards ending corporate profits from incarceration.
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Private prisons violate human rights
In 2005, the Human Rights Department of the Academic College of Law in Ramat Gan, Israel, filed a petition with the Israeli Supreme Court challenging the law on private prisons. The petition relied on two main arguments. Firstly, it stated that transferring prison powers to private hands would violate the prisoners' fundamental human rights to liberty and dignity. Secondly, it argued that a private organisation's primary goal is to maximise profit, which may lead to cost-cutting measures such as inadequate investment in prison infrastructure and low wages for prison guards, ultimately compromising prisoners' rights.
In November 2009, an expanded panel of nine judges of the Israeli Supreme Court ruled that privately-run prisons are illegal. Supreme Court President Dorit Beinisch wrote:
> Israel's basic legal principles hold that the right to use force in general, and the right to enforce criminal law by putting people behind bars in particular, is one of the most fundamental and most invasive powers in the state's jurisdiction. Thus, when the power to incarcerate is transferred to a private corporation whose purpose is making money, the act of depriving a person of [their] liberty loses much of its legitimacy. Because of this loss of legitimacy, the violation of the prisoner's right to liberty goes beyond the violation entailed in the incarceration itself.
In the United States, the use of private prisons has been a subject of debate and legal action. The country has the largest private prison population in the world, and the number of people held in private facilities is rapidly increasing. Two corporations, GEO Group, Inc. and CoreCivic, Inc. (CCA), manage over half of the private prison contracts in the US, generating significant profits. These companies engage in lobbying efforts and campaign funding to influence policies and politicians to uphold mass incarceration, which ensures their profitability.
Human Rights Watch and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) have documented cases of serious abuses and violations of human rights in both private and government-run facilities in the US. These include inadequate medical care, abusive use of force, and the detrimental impact of solitary confinement on youth. In 2016, the US Justice Department announced it would stop using privately operated prisons for federal prisoners, acknowledging the challenges in ensuring the safety of prisoners in private facilities.
Additionally, there is criticism of prison labour programs in the US, which are said to violate fundamental human rights. Incarcerated workers are often paid very low wages, lacking protections against labour exploitation and abuse, while generating billions of dollars worth of goods and services. Mariana Olaizola Rosenblat, a UChicago lecturer in law, stated that "prison labour programs degrade, dehumanize and further cripple incarcerated workers," undermining the rehabilitative purpose of the prison system.
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Private prisons exploit inmates
Private prisons have been criticised for exploiting inmates for profit, with some operators viewing the millions of incarcerated Americans as a business opportunity. This has resulted in the creation of a legal, administrative, and supervisory quagmire, which is ripe for abuse and exploitation by profit-seeking organisations.
Private prison corporations have been accused of providing worse conditions for inmates than public prisons and making little to no effort to help inmates avoid reoffending. They have also been criticised for their involvement in political lobbying and campaign funding to sway policies and politicians towards detention-focused policies that favour their interests. For example, an investigation by Grassroots Leadership found that CoreCivic spent $10.6 million on immigration-related lobbying between 2008 and 2014, with $9,760,000 going towards lobbying members of the House Appropriations Committee Homeland Security Subcommittee, which is responsible for funding immigration detention.
The use of private prisons has been challenged on legal and ethical grounds, with critics arguing that transferring prison powers to private hands violates prisoners' fundamental human rights to liberty and dignity. Supreme Court President Dorit Beinisch wrote that "when the power to incarcerate is transferred to a private corporation whose purpose is making money, the act of depriving a person of [their] liberty loses much of its legitimacy".
Private prisons have also been criticised for their role in mass incarceration, with the profitability of these prisons contingent on specific policies and practices being upheld. In addition, private prisons have been accused of exploiting inmates financially, with prisoners being charged excessive fees for basic services such as phone calls, bank transfers, and healthcare. Inmates are also more likely to contract foodborne illnesses due to the poor quality of prison food, and many have died after being denied access to healthcare and medication.
The vast majority of those who enter the prison system are already extremely poor, and incarceration only further destroys their finances as they are forced to work for free and are treated as "captive profit centres" by private companies.
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Private prisons have a history of scandals
Private prisons, or jails, prisons, and detention centres run by private corporations, have a long history of scandals. The US maintains the world's largest private prison population, with 8% of its total state and federal prison population, or 90,873 people, incarcerated in private prisons in 2022. This figure has seen little change over the past two decades, with 8% of the imprisoned population in private facilities in 2000. However, fluctuations in the total number of incarcerated people have resulted in a 5% increase in the number of people serving sentences in private prisons.
Private prison corporations have been criticised for their involvement in political lobbying and campaign funding to sway policies and politicians and uphold mass incarceration. For example, CoreCivic spent $10.6 million on immigration-related lobbying between 2008 and 2014, with $9,760,000 going towards lobbying members of the House Appropriations Committee Homeland Security Subcommittee, which funds immigration detention. This focus on immigration is understandable, given that 73% of people in immigration detention were held in privately-owned facilities in 2017.
The influence of private prison corporations on government policy has been described as the prison-industrial complex. For example, GEO Group and CoreCivic manage over half of the private prison contracts in the US and earned a combined revenue of over $4 billion in the 2017 fiscal year. These corporations are invested in mass incarceration because it is profitable for them, and they employ various techniques to ensure the demand for correctional facilities, including minimum occupancy clauses and lobbying efforts.
The use of private prisons has been controversial in other countries as well. In Israel, the Supreme Court ruled in 2009 that privately-run prisons are illegal, as transferring the power to incarcerate to a private corporation whose purpose is monetary profit violates prisoners' fundamental human rights to liberty and dignity. In New Zealand, the contract for the Auckland Central Remand Prison (also known as Mt. Eden Prison) was awarded to Serco in 2010. However, in 2015, footage of "fight clubs" within the prison emerged, and Serco was criticised for failing to investigate until after the footage was screened. As a result, Serco's contract was revoked, and they were ordered to pay $8 million to the New Zealand government.
Private prisons have also been associated with high recidivism rates, with two-thirds of released prisoners rearrested within three years and three-quarters rearrested within five years. Additionally, some argue that the use of private prisons is a new form of slavery, with terrible conditions and torture as punishment. Overall, the history of scandals associated with private prisons raises serious concerns about the ethics and effectiveness of privatising the prison system.
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Frequently asked questions
The federal and state governments decide on laws regarding contract prisons, also known as private prisons.
Two of the largest companies managing private prison contracts in the US are GEO Group, Inc. and CoreCivic, Inc. (CCA). Together, they manage over half of the private prison contracts in the country.
Critics argue that private prisons violate prisoners' fundamental human rights to liberty and dignity. Private prisons also have a financial incentive to maximise profit, which may lead to cost-cutting measures that could negatively impact the rights and well-being of prisoners.
While only about 8.5% of incarcerated individuals in the US are held in private facilities, the number of people in private prisons has been increasing rapidly. Since 2000, there has been a 39.3% increase in the private prison population, compared to a 7.8% overall rise in the prison population.
There have been several scandals involving private prisons. For example, in 2015, footage emerged of "fight clubs" at Mt. Eden Prison in New Zealand, which was being run by a private company, Serco, at the time. Serco was heavily criticised for its handling of the situation and had its contract revoked.
