Research Question:
Are private prisons more corrupt than government prisons? An investigating look at the general statistics on which prison system is best for our society.
Aviram, H. (2014). Are Private Prisons to Blame for Mass Incarceration and Its Evils? Prison Conditions, Neoliberalism, and Public Choice. Fordham Urban Law Journal, 42(2), 411–449.
In this article, the scholars explain that private prisons are worse than public ones for philosophical and ethical reasons. Additionally, the prisons being run for profit shows there is no incentive for the corporations to improve the conditions of the prisoners. The scholars have used several examples to explain the conditions of these prisons, especially by minimizing the cost of operations through cutting cost for healthcare, employees, and maintenance on prisons.
The article is crucial for the research paper since they show how private prisons try to minimize operational costs at the expense inmates by neglecting basic human rights and allowing under par prison conditions. Despite being wrongdoers, inmates are still American citizens entitled to all their human rights. Ethically speaking, treating inmates like slaves and inhumanly to increase profits is totally wrong. This will help show evidence that private prisons have faults, but not necessarily worse than public prisons.
Cabral, S., & Saussier, S. (2013). Organizing prisons through public-private partnerships: A cross-country investigation. Brazilian Administration Review, 10(1), 100-120.
Sandro Cabral and Stéphane Saussier have explored both professionalism and corruption on both the public and private prison systems in this article. They do a cross examination between three countries, Brazil, France, and the United States. The US has the most private prisons out of all three countries and gives them more power. Prison personnel should be motivated by professionalism and a strong moral code., but corruption in both systems keeps dragging the facilities behind. A big point is that public employees take oaths to execute all laws faithfully, which means being corrupt can be perceived unjustifiable and even punishable by law. For private sectors, corruption acts result in the worker to terminated from their job duties.
The article is crucial because it explains why public prison officials are less corrupt than their private counterparts. This study allows us to compare three different countries to answer our research question. The criminal justice system in the US shows signs of injustice. Whether it’s a public or private institution, there seems to be evidence that reform is needed. The study has many variables to it and can pinpoint issues on both private and public prisons.
Camp, S. D., & Gaes, G. G. (2002). Growth and Quality of U.S. Private Prisons: Evidence from National Survey. Criminology & Public Policy, 1(3), 427-450.
The scholars in this article explain that private prisons around 8% of total prisoners in the country.
The private institutions often face many issues, including drug use, the escape of prisoners, and a high employee turnover. The private institutions have a significantly lower number of correctional officers compared to public prisons, making the guards more vulnerable. The private investors are more concerned about making profits and have no issues running an institution that is operated with a lower set of standards. Less Training, less pay and benefits, and less guards all contribute to major safety concerns.
The article is crucial in the study to show why private prisons are not necessarily worse than public institutions. The private prisons have less than 10% of total prison population in the U.S and have proved to be ran poorly and have poor conditions for both employees and prisoners. However, this does not mean that public prisons are any better. The main idea is that each prison system displays pros and cons. According to this article in 2002, more research will be needed.
McElreath, D. H., Doss, D. A., Jensen, C., Wigginton, M., Mallory, S., McElreath, L. S., & Flaschka, W. (2017). The Mississippi Hustle: Corrupting the financial principal-agency relationship at the Mississippi Department of Corrections. Crime, Law, and Social Change, 68(1), 17-27.
This paper looks at the Mississippi Hustle case, which was an investigation into government corruption in the Mississippi Department of Corrections. The Mississippi Hustle incident was an obvious violation of the financial principal-agency relationship in regard to trust, confidence, ethics, and morals. Financial fraud and contract scandals were brought to the public’s attention. The results of the investigation led to a corrections commissioner and a member of Congress both went to prison for a long time in prison.
The article will be crucial for the research question since it gives an insight into the financial frauds that also happen in public prisons. The authors explained that the individuals involved in the Mississippi Hustle were made into examples and to prevent new cases. A story like this does not make Mississippi look good. This will help me write a more unbiased paper because it focused on public prison corruption.
Perrone, D., & Pratt, T. C. (2003). Comparing the Quality of Confinement and Cost-Effectiveness of Public versus Private Prisons: What We Know, Why We Do Not Know More, and Where to Go from Here. Prison Journal, 83(3), 301-322.
Dina Perrone and Travis Pratt explain that the increase in private prisons is mainly caused by reducing incarceration costs on public agencies. Nonetheless, it is not conclusive whether private prisons are more cost-effective than private institutions. Also, there is no practical evidence to show that private facilities offer prisoners a higher quality of confinement. The scholars try to explain that the current studies show private prisons have both merits and demerits; thus, it is impossible to give a conclusive recommendation on whether they are better than private institutes.
The study is important for the research question because it recommends that methods used to study prison privatization need to be questioned. An imbalance of prison populations creates an issue in concluding whether or not public prisons are better than private institutes. This article also mentions correctional policymakers need more conclusive and unbiased information on approaching on governing these institutes. The legal, moral, and philosophical approaches all get examined. In time future actions will show both private and public prisons will effectively show the need to be more efficient. This was written in 2003 but gives a lot of information for both prison systems. This also helps create an unbiased approach.
Schwartz, M. D., & Nurge, D. M. (2004). Capitalist Punishment: Ethics and private prisons. Critical Criminology, 12(2), 133-156.
Martin Schwartz & Dana Nurge explain why government prisons are better than publicly owned prisons in this article. The operational costs to run private prisons are higher than in public institutions, construction of the facilities is questionable, and there are various other unethical aspects within the facilities.
Traditionally, private, and nonprofit prisons have been the main correction facilities, but recently, several prisons have been turned into private facilities. This examines private prisons that house federal or state inmates. It seems the inmates in the private sector are not valued as human beings only numbers.
The private system allows loopholes and almost invites corruption.
The article will significantly help answer my research question since it gives facts about why government prisons are better than private ones.
Inmates filling beds in private prisons to work is noted. People should be taken to prison to correct their behavior, so exploiting their mistakes to benefit from them makes private institutions unethical. This also happens in the public system. There is plenty of information provided for both systems and really describe faults in both systems. This was written in 2004 and really bashes the private prison sector.
DRYBURGH, M. M. (2009). Personal and Policy Implications of Whistleblowing. Public Integrity, 11(2), 155–170. https://doi-org.ezproxy.oswego.edu/10.2753/PIN1099-9922110203
This article examines the case of Richard Caruso and Steve Rigg, who blew the whistle on brutality toward inmates at California’s Corcoran State Prison. Caruso and Rigg were guards who informed the public of the brutality in the treatment of inmates. The article examines how this case can help with current issues the public administration and how it could impact future public policy. Whistle-blowers in civil service can help investigators learn about the ethical dilemmas by observing unethical behavior with-in the organization. An important note is that this article mentions that unethical activity can occur in any atmosphere.
The public system is called out in this article. This case prompted changes in policy surrounding corrections officials’ treatment of convicts not only at Corcoran, but throughout California’s prisons.
This is important for the research question because it emphasizes issues in both private and public prisons. Written in 2009, this helps with the back and forth about which system is worse.
Mitchell, L. E. (2015). Deferred corporate prosecution as corrupt regime: The case for prison. SSRN Electronic Journal
This is a law paper written by Lawrence Mitchell. He examines how the United States Department of Justice allows corrupt corporations to escape harsh penalties. Officials in private prison corporations are offered plea bargains to escape trials and prison terms. Mitchell also explains that our government is allowing an unjust system that allows white collar criminals to prosper illegally with no course of action. Holding these criminals accountable is the resolution offered.
This paper is noteworthy because it pinpoints several examples of laws being broken by private prisons officials. This paper also explains how private prison officials are given a slap on the wrist instead of being punished. It is crucial to mention in this research paper that private prisons escape punishment from the law. It starts in the courtroom and leads to public policy. This was written in 2015 and gives examples of how public and private prison officials are punished for unethical and unlawful acts.
