Introduction
The American prison system has for long been at the midst of controversy and widespread criticism for the ever increasing costs of running the prisons and correctional systems both for the government of the United States and the families of convicted individuals. Statistics reveal that the US government spends over 100 billion US dollars annually in the running of the prison systems, the statistics not including the costs of running the judicial system in addition to the logistics of the transportation of prisoners (Wagner & Rabuy, 2017). Including these costs would significantly increase the costs of incarceration within the US.
Families of incarcerated individuals are additionally affected by the imprisonment of their kin given the increase in the burden of providing for the families of those individuals who are in prison. This is together with the facilitation of community centers to integrated ex-convicts back to society and the financial costs incurred in the treatment of depression and anxiety among the children of prisoners and among the convicts themselves ( Abel, 2018) . Furthermore, research findings reveal that the prison system has been grossly ineffective in enhancing public safety or reducing the prevalence of crime in the United States despite the increase in the number of individuals who are incarcerated annually (Wagner & Rabuy, 2017). The United States of America has been found to be the globes leader in incarceration with more than two million individuals of its population currently locked up at prisons and other correctional and rehabilitation facilities.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
Despite the high rate of incarceration, the American prisons system has been immune to the various efforts made to reform the prisons to make them more habitable and humane for prisoners. This has been hampered by the vested interests of stakeholders in the prisons industry who have transformed the rehabilitation and imprisonment of individuals into a business with the privatization of prisons in the United States ( Abel, 2018) . The continued incarceration of individuals has therefore proven to be beneficial to specific parties who significantly profit from the state that prisons are currently in.
For instance, research indicates that bail bond companies reap profits from the mass incarceration of individuals through the collection of non-refundable fees from defendants or their families amounting to approximately 1.4 billion dollars (Wagner & Rabuy, 2017). Additionally, telephone companies have been revealed to benefit from mass incarceration by exorbitantly pricing calls between prisoners and their families, charging up to approximately 25 dollars for fifteen minutes of air time (Wagner & Rabuy, 2017). Moreover, commissary vendors also benefit significantly from the mass incarceration of individuals which reveals that the reform of the system to curb mass incarceration could indeed be hindered by the vested interests of private players.
Practices that take place in American prisons have additionally raised concern over the correctional and rehabilitative value of the prisons with the prevalence of vices that have been revealed to be detrimental to the health and psychological wellbeing of the prisoners ( Beck & Blumstein, 2018) . Research findings indicate that sexual abuse is on the rise in US prisons with prisoners indicating that the cases of sexual abuse are rarely reported and that cases that are reported are hardly recorded or treated with due care and diligence ( Abel, 2018) . Additionally, punitive and harmful practices like administrative segregation have been indicated to be prevalent among US prisons for disruptive and/or violent behavior by the prisoners. The application of such practices in correction has been revealed to have minimal effects with regard to instilling discipline among prisoners therefore leading to questions on whether it indeed is an effective practice with regard to rehabilitation of criminals. Additionally, questions on the socio-economic status and race of inmates have been raised with the glaring discrepancies becoming more apparent ( Beck & Blumstein, 2018) .
Population
The study will focus on prison inmates who have been incarcerated in prisons across the United States.
Thesis
Prisons in the United States have continued to be at the center of controversy for the detrimental conditions that exists in the facilities and institutions despite the fact that issues surrounding the privatization of prisons hinder the implementation of reforms in prisons.
Background
Prior to the eighteenth century, most mistakes and breaches to the law that were committed within the United States were either torts or civil in nature and therefore crimes were rare and met with harsh punishment. To this extent therefore, during the 18 th century, increase in the population of individuals in the United States led to the establishment of detention camps set up to punish those who engaged in criminal activities. However, given the advent of industrialization and capitalism amidst widespread immigration in the US led to rapid urbanization in the United States met with the establishment of poorly planned and sanitized towns with high poverty rates (Meskell, 1998). Furthermore, the gap between the poor and the middle class was wide which led to high crime rates in urban areas leading to the manifestation of reforms to prisons to make them larger. Additionally, given the normalization of the detention of individuals, the need to institutionalize prisons arose with the regulation of detention.
The establishment of institutionalized prison systems was further accompanied by the enforcement of the death sentence within the prisons systems of the US during the advent of imprisonment within the country (Meskell, 1998). The sentence was established to punish crimes that were regarded to have irresponsible social costs including murder, robbery with violence, treason, rape among other crimes regarded as taboos by the communities. Additionally, as an alternative to the death sentence, banishment was also considered as an option, which entailed the subjection of individuals to detrimental and dehumanizing conditions that were meant to be punitive in detention camps (Meskell, 1998).
Research findings indicate that reforms within the prisons systems begun during the end of the 18 th century when scholars delineated to the poor and insanitary conditions that American prisons were in raising awareness on both hygiene in prisons together with over-crowding. The reforms were focused on remedying the poor state of prisons during the period with a focus on reducing the prevalence of prisoner deaths due to poor conditions in jails together with curbing the rates of diseases and poor living conditions in prisons.
A notable change in the operation of prisons in the United States was also the privatization of prisons in the United States which begun as early as mid-19 th century, for instance the privatization of Louisiana penitentiary nine years after it was established. Private prisons during the advent of privatization were purely profit making corporations as they are today even though they were solely and openly committed to exploiting labor from the prisoners, for instance using prisoners for the manufacture of clothes. For instance, the privatization of Texas penitentiary shortly resulted in its manifestation as the largest textile manufacturer in the state and among the main suppliers within the region.
The privatization of prisons in the Unites States became prevalent after the civil war with private prisons used by the state to curb the high cost of running prisons whose populations had soared given the increase in crime rates during that particular period in the history of the United States. Detrimental conditions in private prisons were reported with research findings pointing to the permissiveness of the law to extreme punishment and even torture of prisoners by the companies that aimed to exploit human labor ( Wildeman et al., 2018) . Flogging was common in prisons up to the end of the 20 th century with the increase in practices such the leasing of prisoners which led to the exploitation of prisoners in extreme conditions. Research indicates that this led to deaths among up to 25% of the prisoners ( Wildeman et al., 2018) .
Additionally, findings delineate to the fact that the population of inmates in the US accounts for approximately 25% of the total number of individuals who have been incarcerated in prisons across the globe ( Wildeman et al., 2018) . This accounts for approximately 2 million Americans being imprisoned in correctional facilities across the country. Moreover, in addition to these individuals, a staggering 5 million individuals have been indicated to be on probation for minor offences committed or after being released from jail, all of whom are still covered by the corrections and justice system (Brian, 2018). All through history, a worrying trend has been the dominance of populations of individuals from minority communities in the US with blacks making up majority of the prison population followed by individuals of Hispanic descent ( Beck & Blumstein, 2018) . This has led to research interest in the phenomenon with research findings pointing to a wide array of reasons as to why discrepancies have been observed in the incarceration of minority communities as compared to the white population in the US ( Beck & Blumstein, 2018) .
Major Point 1
Statistics and literature publications indicate that the US prison system stands out as one of the most lucrative prisons system in the globe given its massive size together with the institutionalization and privatization of prisons within the US. Findings indicate that the turnover at US prison systems is worth approximately 80 million dollars with the bill for the exorbitant prices being footed by the American taxpayers (Brian, 2018). Corporations such as bail billing companies together with prison telephone companies have been indicated to reap billions of dollars in terms of revenues given the extremely high pricing of their services. Research findings indicate that in the year 2012, companies that delivered services to correctional facilities in the US reaped over 2.5 billion US dollars in profits arising from the extortionist pricing of the services which were rendered to the prisons (Brian, 2018). To this extent therefore, it is evident that the cost of running prisons is high and has a significant effect on the livelihood of Americans given that a large portion of the national budget is committed to the funding and running of prisons.
Research findings indicate that mass incarceration is the main reason for the increase in the cost of running the US prisons. Mass incarcerations have arisen from the gradual adoption of more punitive laws for specific crimes that have become prevalent among specific neighborhoods in the United States (Brian, 2018). More so, the passing of stipulations demanding for the establishment of definite sentences and the elimination of indefinite imprisonment has led to an increase in the number of inmates in US jails. Therefore, it is evident that the strain on the American taxpayer is bound to increase given the fact that the rates of incarceration are increasing and so is the cost of running the prisons.
Additionally, research delving into the costs of the prisons that are open in the US indicates that a majority of the costs that are incurred by the prisoners and their families together with the costs incurred by the states are unnecessarily inflated to benefit the suppliers of these services ( Beck & Blumstein, 2018) . To this extent therefore, privatization appears to be a considerable solution given the fact that all these costs are consolidated and subsidized for the government in addition to the absolving of the responsibility of prisoners and their safety from the US (Brian, 2018). This is amid establishing spending schemes to ensure that prison spending is regulated and controlled.
Major Point 2
Great efforts were put in place in America to transform the prisons system from an institution focusing on punishing the criminal to that aimed at rehabilitating the criminal and correcting wrong and immoral behavior. Reforms in the system were therefore focused on ensuring that the prisons systems in the US were committed to ensuring that the prisoners would be released into the community as reformed individuals (Wildeman et al., 2018). However, research findings indicate that the prevalence of the prisons systems and correctional facilities in the US have done little to deter the rates of crime in American cities and towns.
The rates of incarceration in the US continue to increase as repeat offenders also remain to be a significant portion of the population of US prisons. To this effect therefore, it might be safe to conclude that the US prisons systems either ceased or never even in the first place functioned as a Department of Correction. Given the prevalent cases of vices in prisons together with the huge costs associated with the system along with other factors, prison systems seem to contribute to the problem rather than solve it. The prevalence of wrongful incarceration for instance has been indicated to significantly contribute to dissatisfaction with verdicts which leads to the frustration among prisoners together with rebellion when they are in prison (Ewing et al., 2015). His has been revealed to lead to disruptive behavior together with the engagement of individuals in unlawful and detrimental activities while they are pin prison.
Moreover, findings indicate that the presence of prison gangs has led to the manifestation of gang related activities and rituals such as rape together with conflict and fight amongst prisoners ( Beck & Blumstein, 2018) . Prisoners who are arrested for gang related crimes and activities are indicated to rejoin their gangs or affiliations of their gangs where the individuals may continue to engage in activities such as the sell and abuse of drugs ( Beck & Blumstein, 2018) . The engagement n retrogressive activities while in prison together with the dissatisfaction with the justice system have been revealed to significantly influence the motivation of individuals to return to criminal activities after the end of the prison sentences.
Prisons however focus in engaging prisoners in constructive behavior such as the active reading of books through the provision of amenities such as libraries within prisons together with the creation of positively engaging activities for prisoners such as games. The engagement in constructive activities has been revealed to play a critical role in ensuring that prisoners are deterred from engaging in activities that are gang-related or that may prove to be detrimental to the well-being of the inmates ( Abel, 2018) . Moreover, the involvement of individuals in such activities has been proven to result in the reformation of individuals after the end of their prison terms with individuals who read indicate very few chances of re-entrance to the justice and corrections system.
Prisons are monitored through programs and systems such as probation which are set up to ensure that individuals maintain good behavior even after they are released for a specific period of time which ensures that they are properly integrated into the society ( Beck & Blumstein, 2018) . Moreover, this ensures that individuals are able to adjust to the changes in the lifestyle. Additionally, prisons have been monitored to ensure that they do not subject prisoners to conditions that may lead to the manifestation of criminal behavior once they are released from the prisons ( Abel, 2018) . More habitable conditions have been adopted at prisons with the implementation of policies ensuring the establishment of better amenities together with the provision of better security standards to inmates who are held in state and private prisons alike. This will ensure that prisons and correctional facilities serve the role that they are meant for.
Major Point 3
The prison business in the US is evidently massively profitable for the organizations that are involved in the running of the US prisons systems with profits of up to approximately 3 billion being recorded by companies that offer affiliated services alone. The private companies that run prisons receive sufficient funding from the government from the tax payers fund despite the poor state of private prisons around the United States of America (Wilson, 2016). Privatization in the US has been met by a myriad of challenges including the prevalence of fights, riots, deaths and general discontentment among both prisoners and their families towards the poor state of living conditions in the facilities that are privately run (Wilson, 2016). However, the rate of incarceration in the US is continuously on the rise despite the lack of resources and manpower by the government to run the state prisons which calls for the delegation of these duties to capable authorities.
To this extent therefore, private companies continue to remain relevant as far as the running of prisons is concerned which calls for reforms in the stipulations regarding the private running of prisons. The US government is however criticized for spending over 55 dollars per prisoner on private running of prisons which is strenuous on the national budget (Wilson, 2016). Moreover, a significant portion of this amount has been indicated to be spent on operating expenses of the prisons which has attracted both attention and widespread criticism from various quotas over the brazen waste of public resources. Additionally, prison staff have been revealed to significantly profit from the resources spent on the privately run prison with a majority of the staff showing reluctance for the implementation of prison reforms (Wilson, 2016). It is therefore apparent that the requirements and basic needs of prisoners are not at all prioritized within privately run prisons which leads to the prevalence of destitute facilities and amenities for prisoners coupled with poor living conditions.
While it is safe to conclude that no demographics are targeted by the United States prisons systems, it is futile to ignore the prevalence of a higher number of prisoners coming from minority communities and ethnic groups. This is due to the fact that blacks and Hispanics accounted for approximately 60 percent of the population of the inmates in US prisons. Findings have revealed that among black children, one in every fourteen has one parent or both imprisoned within the US correctional and justice system ( Beck & Blumstein, 2018) . The disparities in the race of individuals in prison has been associated with harsher punishments being appropriated to individuals of these races even though the evidence is not convincing enough ( Beck & Blumstein, 2018) . However, this points to the need for a keen interest to be paid to the rates of incarceration of individuals of minority communities and the reasons as to why individuals of these races are more likely to be imprisoned as compared to those of other races.
Conclusion
It is evident from the research findings highlighted in the paper that US prisons systems are far from what they should be with regard to the deterrence of crime together with the effective correction and rehabilitation of individuals. Even though the system experienced slight reforms during the 19 th century, the system was critically affected by the unprecedented increase in the number of prisoners who were incarcerated in prisons. This led to the proliferation of privatization of prisons which led to the prevalence of poor conditions in prisons given the profit incentive nature of the private prison industry. The increase in private prisons has led to an increase in discontented prisoners together with public outcry over increased costs of running prisons which largely benefit the service rendering private corporations ( Wildeman et al., 2018) . To this extent therefore, it is vital for the government to address the issues surrounding the privatization of prisons to ensure that private prisons are not only focused on reducing costs of running prisons, but also on reforming prisoners.
References
Abel, A. M. (2018). Prison Reform in Arizona: An Analysis of Approaches to Alleviate Overcrowding in Arizona Prisons.
Beck, A. J., & Blumstein, A. (2018). Racial disproportionality in US state prisons: Accounting for the effects of racial and ethnic differences in criminal involvement, arrests, sentencing, and time served. Journal of Quantitative Criminology , 34 (3), 853-883.
Brian, K. (2018). The Economics of the American Prison System. Retrieved from https://smartasset.com/mortgage/the-economics-of-the-american-prison-system
Ewing, W. A., Martinez, D., & Rumbaut, R. G. (2015). The criminalization of immigration in the United States. Washington, DC: American Immigration Council Special Report.
Meskell, M. W. (1998). An American resolution: The history of prisons in the United States from 1777 to 1877. Stan. L. Rev., 51, 839.
Wagner, P., & Rabuy, B. (2017). Following the money of mass incarceration. Prison Policy Initiative.
Wildeman, C., Fitzpatrick, M. D., & Goldman, A. W. (2018). Conditions of Confinement in American Prisons and Jails. Annual Review of Law and Social Science , 14 , 29-47.
Wilson, O. S. (2016). The Accountability of Private Prisons in America during the Era of Mass Incarceration.
