In every community and society, there is a rule of law which is to be followed to the latter. Where there is failure of this, there are consequences which are to be incurred by the offenders. The above notion is developed and embedded in all youngsters’ minds such that they grow up knowing that any wrong action done is subject to punishment. At the same time, they grow up knowing there is always someone in authority who is watching ad ensuring they are kept in line. For instance, when small, the authority figure was our parents or guardians. Any wrong actions would subsequently lead to a punishment of sorts, be it a time out, or a thorough beating. The authoritative figures change once more from parents to teachers. Students are taught how to obey their teachers and the rules provided within the institution, failure to which, one will find themselves being punished. For instance, where students are supposed to be in class but are caught in hallways, or other areas which they are not supposed to be, then they can be taken to detention. From the school environment, a student graduates to being a citizen of a given republic. The authority then changes to the police. The rules and regulations that once governed an individual’s conduct are now based on the constitution which acts as the law of the land. It is through the conference of the constitution that many individuals have found themselves on the wrong side of the law and serving their punishment in prisons which serve as a “time-out” for grown-ups. With time, the number of persons requiring a time-out has over the years grown and thus requiring the development of new prisons in different states and countries to accommodate the large number of individuals being sent to such institutions. Prisons have been largely used for the purpose of corrections. They serve as correctional facilities for many years, however, this purpose has over the years been bent so that prisons also serve as business opportunities for a select few individuals. The following paper seeks to show that prisons of today have lost their main and core purpose of serving as correctional facilities and now serve the purpose of business opportunities.
In the middle ages, the deliberation on what to do with members of the public who indulged in criminal acts was done by each individual in society. Well learned persons such as Thomas Aquinas were consulted in order to provide a suitable judgment on what to do with the offenders. For many, the answer was to “root out the bad roots” and this meant getting rid of the criminals as they were a poisonous bunch (Aviram, 2015). During this time, no matter the crime committed, the punishment could result in such severe punishment, for instance death. In most cases, these punishments were issued to members of the public who belonged to poor social classes (Alexander, 2012). The concentration during this period was not in the crime conducted and the various actions that could be done to deliberate on such criminal actions, rather, the concentration was on the punishment (Scott, 1970). However, as society evolved, and councils and other policies were developed, the nature of punishment for criminal offenses begun to take on a new face (Blackburn, Fowler, & Pollock, 2012).
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
With the development of constitutions, different governments are provided with road maps and guidelines on how to manage and operate prisons as correctional facilities. Depending on the location of the facility, the heads or members of state governing those particular states are provided with powers which allow them to monitor and manage the criminal rates within the society. The United States is said to home 5% of the world’s population, however out of these five, 25% of the people are in prisons incarcerated for petty crimes. Most of these individuals belong to the black American and Hispanic communities (Blackburn et al., 2012). American History, since the 17th century, has always depicted members of the black community as criminals. Since the airing of “Birth of a Nation” where blacks were depicted as animalistic people who could not stop their hunger for crime, the black race has been subjected to injustice with respect to the justice system. It is from “Birth of a Nation” that many people can trace the beginning of injustice for the black community. Where the persons were publicly humiliated and even hanged or flogged with no crimes recorded. During this period, the number of black persons who were arrested and incarcerated for crimes increased massively. More of the people were being slaughtered by the masses and their rights deprived. With this history, most of the crimes conducted in year to come, were depicted as a doing of these communities and thus many of the persons who were found to be conducting petty offenses were given harsh punishments simply to ensure they were put in prison. Even with the eradication of the Jim Crow laws and the provision of freedom from slavery, many black communities are still subjected to these racial stereotypes and hence form majority of the number of persons within prisons.
Since the development of the constitution and laws that governed the land, the presence of prisons as a punishment method for offenders was utilized, olden methods of punishment were eradicated. Currently, there are many persons who pay for their crimes in prison serving life sentences instead of death penalties. In many countries, prisons were places to which individuals were confined and allowed to serve their time while being monitored by prison wardens. In addition, these individuals, over the time they were there, were provided certain duties to perform and ensure they stayed useful. For most of them, they developed skills within the prison which they further utilized outside of the prison walls. The prisons are typically managed and operated by the state or federal government (Incarceration, Justice, Education, & Council, 2014).
To ensure the recuperation of individuals, there are various facilities provided which the inmates are expected to participate in. With managed time schedules, discipline, character modification and personality alterations are developed within the inmates to ensure that by the end of their time inside their facility, they are modified citizens who can better develop the society (Phelps, 2011). For instance, there are churches within the prison which aid the inmates to find religion, there are also libraries and other studying materials that are provided. In addition to this, there are supportive functions such as environment cleaning and other programs run by the prison wardens which serve as an opportunity for the prisoners to give back to the society. In addition, once released, the prisoners are provided with work opportunities which assist them in getting their life back together once they are released (Brickner & Diaz, 2011). This system prior to the 1970s proved to be successful. Prisoners were recording as high rates of rehabilitation. The period between the 1950s and the 1970s involved hiring of professionals within the penile system who would diagnose what was the problem with different prisoners and why they required to result to crime.
From this, these professionals were able to cure the mind-set, or psychological problems with the inmates (Phelps, 2011). Therapy was one of the key factors in rehabilitation of prisoners. The 1950 – 1970s marked one of the greatest periods with which innovations to the penile system were brought forth and rehabilitation rates recorded at an all-time high. However, after the 1970s, the state declared that there was no change in the criminal nature of individuals. The Rehabilitation process was said to yield no reforms to the individuals and thus publicly discredited. Different rhetorical strategies were then employed to the prison system in order to ensure the rehabilitation process is not considered as a measure to which success rates can be raised.
The Florida Department of Corrections in the year 2013 reported that 27% of all inmates who are released from the prison soon return to custody in under three years (Bales et al., 2015). In addition to this, since the 1980s, the number of incarcerations has more than tripled, even with the recording of a decrease in the number of violent crimes reported within the United States. Most of the people who are incarcerated American prisons are there due to drug offenses and not violent crimes. With the continued increase in the number of prisoners, public prisons have become so overcrowded it has taken the intervention of private institutions and other organizations to come to the aid of the government who have been unable to provide enough funding to guarantee the management of the prisoners. There are many scholars who believe that the change in the Rehabilitation Program of the 1970s was as a result of the investment and interference of the private industry to the management of prisons as a profit based industry and not in fact to continue the Rehabilitation process.
Due to the government’s need to ensure that there is little expenditure on the federal budget, the proposal by private firms to manage the prisons came to the state as an opportunity to increase and maintain its budget while reducing or cutting down on costs. However, the only condition for such a move for the Private Institutions was the guaranteed occupancy rate of over 90% (Browne-Marshall, 2014). Private Firms formed an agreement where prisons were now to accommodate 1000 beds. Of these 1000, there would be 900 inmates at all times. The private firms would provide security and buy the prisons. These conditions would be valid for at least 20 years. The above agreement was made by private organizations such as Corrections Corp of America (CCA) and GEO Group, as two of the examples (“Enlace | CCA and GEO,” n.d.). The idea itself was floated to 48 states in the United States. To this, the government had to ensure that at all times, there were enough people in prisons to guarantee the success of the agreement. Laws to increase the population within the prisons were then introduced in the American Constitution, for instance, the three strike law. Many people who surpass the three strikes are considered multiple felony offenders and can be sentenced to 25 years in prison as a punishment. Most of the persons who are prone to being placed with multiple felonies belong to the black or Hispanic races and are forced to serve most of their life behind bars. Even for petty offenses. The incarceration rate for blacks is recorded at 7% greater than the whites.
In addition to the above, CCA and GEO have continued improving on the conditions present within the prisons. They continually advertise for more people to come rather than the rehabilitation processes that are present. More prison spaces or prison blocks are being developed in order to house more inmates. In addition, the5e are continuous advertisements for the benefits of investing in prisons, as there is little competition. The rate to which prisoners are scheduled to be released and re-arrested back into the prisons is high, and the profit to be gained is more than 70%. In this manner, human beings are being used by private corporations as business opportunities to gain more capital and money from the industry through renting out of the human resources to conduct public works that would otherwise be provided by fully paid employees. For instance, where an organization requires the manufacture of a product, it can contact the corporations to provide the products at lower labour costs. These programs would be introduced as rehabilitation programs to the prisoners. In this manner, prisoners have become valid business opportunities for corporations over the years with a growing rate of incarceration (Brickner & Diaz, 2011).
In conclusion, it is evident that prisoners are not considered to be for the purpose of rehabilitation, rather, their purpose has changed. The number of organizations that continually run their operations within the prisons and are gaining large amounts of profits from such operations is numerous. These operations are not only in one state, but in almost all of the states in the United States. The development of prisons as business endeavours is fully enforced and maintains a rapid profitability growth rate. In addition, there are little efforts being provided to ensure the prisoners are able to reform and prevent recidivism. All this is being conducted under the guise that the government is tough on crime whereas there are underlying factors fuelling the move. It is from the above that we identify that prisons are no longer used as correctional facilities, rather, they have become business opportunities.
Word Count: 2093
References
Alexander, M. (2012). The New Jim Crow . The New Press.
Aviram, H. (2015). Cheap on Crime: Recession-Era Politics and the Transformation of American Punishment . Univ of California Press.
Bales, W. D., Clark, C., Scaggs, S., Ensley, D., Coltharp, P., Singer, A., & Blomberg, T. G. (2015, December 1). An Assessment of the Effectiveness of Prison Work Release Programs on Post-Release Recidivism and Employment. National Institute of Justice. Retrieved from https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwi09Ybz4LTWAhXMJcAKHUhfDlUQFggvMAE&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncjrs.gov%2Fpdffiles1%2Fnij%2Fgrants%2F249845.pdf&usg=AFQjCNEodVIwPQ3XDsGrQOUqhyPFqXEtVw
Blackburn, A. G., Fowler, S. K., & Pollock, J. M. (2012). Chapter 2: The American Prison Historical Perspective: Race, Gender, and Adjustment. In Prisons Today and Tomorrow (pp. 22–42). United States of America: Jones & Bartlett Publishers.
Brickner, M., & Diaz, S. (2011). Prisons for Profit: Incarceration for Sale. Human Rights Magazine , 38 (3). Retrieved from https://www.americanbar.org/publications/human_rights_magazine_home/human_rights_vol38_2011/human_rights_summer11/prisons_for_profit_incarceration_for_sale.html
Browne-Marshall, G. (2014, March 13). Why For-Profit Prisons House More Inmates Of Color. Retrieved September 20, 2017, from http://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2014/03/13/289000532/why-for-profit-prisons-house-more-inmates-of-color
Enlace | CCA and GEO. (n.d.). Retrieved September 20, 2017, from http://www.enlaceintl.org/cca-and-geo
Incarceration, C. on C. and C. of H. R. of, Justice, C. on L. and, Education, D. of B. and S. S. and, & Council, N. R. (2014). The Growth of Incarceration in the United States: Exploring Causes and Consequences . United States of America: National Academies Press. Retrieved from https://www.nap.edu/read/18613/chapter/6
Phelps, M. S. (2011). Rehabilitation in the Punitive Era: The Gap between Rhetoric and Reality in U.S. Prison Programs. Law & Society Review , 45 (1), 33–68. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-5893.2011.00427.x
Scott, P. D. (1970). Punishment or treatment: prison or hospital? British Medical Journal , 2 (5702), 167–169.
