Who really owns the American prison system? The American people own the system. However, the control in the hands of a few corporates that offers correctional services. America, compared to other developed countries has one of the largest prison populations. As such, what really has led to America imprisoning such a large number of its citizens? In essence, a prisoner’s productivity is minimal while his maintenance in the prison system is extremely costly to the taxpayer. Therefore, the large number of prisoners should worry the financiers of this system. The prison population began to rise when President Nixon declared war on drugs in 1971 and the subsequent similar stands that were adopted by various state governors. The situation was escalated in the 1980s under Ronald Reagan in that stricter laws were introduced which stipulated tougher penalties for crack cocaine than powder cocaine (The Economist, 2015).
The boom in inmates was not matched with resources. As a result, the quality of the correction services deteriorated as only fewer services could be offered at the available budgetary allocation. As a case example, according to National Centre on Addiction and Substance Abuse, 65% of all inmates have a drug problem but only 11% of the entire population receives rehabilitation treatment majorly due to constraints budgetary provisions (The Economist, 2015). Therefore, the time spent in the facility was not transformative. The prison congestion led to the development of the concept private prisons. Although the intention, on paper, is good, the actual service offered does not match the expectation. Over time, it has been observed that the providers of this service only adhere to a bare minimum of their contractual obligation. According to Godard (2015), each year, many states laws provides that private correction system must guarantee a given percentage on saving compared to the costs that would be incurred if the prison were publically run. With this guarantee, the firms have still maintained a high margin, as high as 27%, in profitability. The situation means that the firm will be forced to cut down on its services to the prisoners. In addition, since the contract is based per individual inmate, reforming an inmate will mean elimination of return customer. As such, a private prison will not strive to reform their inmates since this eliminates their chances of repeat offense. As such, the situation shows the capitalist greed characterizing the private prisons.
Examining race, colored people populate the prison. Therefore, they are most affected by the failing correction system in the country (Ulmer, 2010). It is not surprising to observe that 46.9% of the convicts will be rearrested for the same offense while 51.8% are convicted for a new offense. Such values show that the convicts were not reformed as noted by the Bureau of Justice Statistics in 1993. The society and the police still play a role in repeat offenses since they still view the ex-convicts as likely offenders thus limiting their integration back to the society (Ulmer, 2010). As such, as opposed to feeling as outsiders, they will commit other crimes to return where they feel welcomed. The challenge mainly affects people of color.
References
Godard, T. (2015, November 19). The Economics of the American Prison System. Retrieved March 02, 2016, from https://smartasset.com/insights/the-economics-of-the-american-prison-system
The Economist. (2015). The right choices. Retrieved March 02, 2016, from http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21654578-americas-bloated-prison-system-has-stopped-growing-now-it-must-shrink-right-choices
Ulmer, J. T. (2010). Sociology of crime, law and deviance. Bingley: Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
