These days, everybody will read, see, and hear about all the people that are being arrested and sentenced to prison. For minor offenses like drugs, theft, and drinking, people can be locked away for many years.  In fact, it is estimated that 1 in every 100 Americans has been or is struggling with being restricted in some form; whether it be prison itself, house arrest, or other things. Outlawed in the beginning of the 20th century, private corporations are once again owning and operating prisons for profit. A private prison or for-profit prison is a place where people are physically kept or interned by an outsider that is contracted by a government agency. The privatisation of prisons should be banned once again because it leads to the prisons being in terrible conditions and an increase in violence and racial issues, it may be very expensive (although they claim it saves money), and it is unjust and unfair- instead of trying to protect America, they are jailing people for money, which leads to people being locked away for years for something that may be small and petty (not to mention someone like a child molester could just walk free while someone who simply smoked marijuana is stuck for 10 years).

The first and foremost reason that the privatization of prisons is wrong, is that it is quite simply leading to the unjust and unfair jailing of americans for profit-- and profit alone. It seems that the aspect of keeping America safe and ridding of real criminals is gone.  Minor criminals, from drug users to petty thieves, are being handed over to corporations for lengthy prison sentences which do nothing to protect society or prevent recidivism. This is the pinnacle of a disordered justice system which has come to characterize the United States, a justice system that is based on increasing the power and wealth of the corporate-state.

Supporters of private prisons will claim that it saves money. However the evidence for this is scrambled and unreliable, and private prisons may in fact cost more than governmental ones. Prison system costs now account for 1 out of every 15 state general fund discretionary dollars. Criminal justice is the second fastest growing section of state funds, (behind Medicaid), and 90% of that spending goes to prisons. Trillions of dollars are being wasted on an ineffective and unjust criminal justice system. Private prison companies basically admit that their business model depends on locking up more and more people. The American economy should not have to jail every person in sight for profit-- we have much more effective tools for preventing and responding to crime than prison.

Private prisons are also linked to having terrible conditions, violence, and even racial issues. "Mass incarceration on a scale almost unexampled in human history is a fundamental fact of our country today -- perhaps the fundamental fact, as slavery was the fundamental fact of 1850. In truth, there are more black men in the grip of the criminal-justice system -- in prison, on probation, or on parole -- than were in slavery then. Over all, there are now more people under 'correctional supervision' in America -- more than six million -- than were in the Gulag Archipelago under Stalin at its height." -- Adam Gopnik, "The Caging of America" When people are being locked up in prison left and right for profit, it’s no wonder that the prisons may become overcrowded. In many cases, this leads to increased violence and horrific conditions in the prisons. Statistics also show that within prisons there has been an increase in race-related issues. Of course these issues could appear in any prison, whether it be governmental or private, but making the prison private may very well cause many issues to occur.

No matter what many politicians or corporate heads might say, prison privatization is not fiscally responsible or keeping with principles of justice. It simply encourages putting people in prison for the sake of money, while causing millions of Americans (most of them minor, nonviolent criminals), to be handed over to prisons owned by corporations for extensive prison sentences which do nothing to protect society or prevent recidivism. This contradictory assumption of how prisons should be run, that they should be full at all times, and full of minor criminals, is wrong. Prisons should not ever become private.