FRINK Linked Data Fragments server

Matches in SemOpenAlex for { <https://semopenalex.org/work/W3033885650> ?p ?o ?g. }

• W3033885650 abstract "President Richard Nixon declared a “War on Drugs” in 1971. President Ronald Reagan federalized and militarized this “war” in the 1980s. Shortly after the War on Drugs was declared, federalized, and militarized, a private for-profit company in Tennessee sprang up calling itself the Corrections Corporations of America (CCA). The creation of this private prison corporation ushered in a new carceral era where the traditional government function of adjudicating crime, punishment, and imprisonment became intertwined with the corporate governance principles and goals of profit maximization for shareholders; executive compensation based on profits and share price; forward-looking statements forecasting more robust prison populations; and increased profit levels built almost solely on human misery and degradation.In 1985, Professor Ira Robbins testified to the House Subcommittee on Courts, Civil Liberties, and the Administration of Justice that U.S. jurisdictions considering contracting with private entities for incarceration services should proceed cautiously because there may be serious constitutional and pragmatic concerns with such an arrangement. He penned a law review article further delineating reasons to approach private incarceration with caution and served as the reporter for the American Bar Association’s (ABA) Task Force on Privatization of Corrections. That Resolution was adopted at the February 1990 Midyear Meeting as 115B and “urg[ed] that jurisdictions considering authorization of contracts with private corporations or other private entities . . . do so with extreme caution . . . .” The Resolution further recognized that “the imposition and implementation of a sentence of incarceration for a criminal offense is a core function of government . . . and there is a strong public interest in having prison and jail systems in which lines of accountability are clear.” Despite passage of Resolution 115B in 1990, government reliance on private incarceration has since increased approximately sixteen-fold. Private prison corporation directors, executives, managers, and their hired lobbyists currently work doggedly diligently to increase shareholder profits by: (1) influencing carceral policy so that larger numbers of U.S. residents face incarceration; (2) exploiting individuals locked up through private prison labor contracts; (3) lobbying elected government officials to privatize entire state and federal prison systems and increase prison populations; (4) diminishing the quality of food and degree of safety for prisoners in order to cut costs at privately run facilities; (5) drafting legislation and lobbying elected legislators for passage of draconian sentencing guidelines including three-strikes and you’re out, mandatory minimums, and illegal immigration detention legislation; (6) bribing judges to fill private prison facilities with children on questionable charges; (7) requiring governments and municipalities that contract for their services to maintain capacity in their private prison facilities at 90% or in some contracts 100%; and (8) building new prisons despite no government contract or inmates to fill them. Despite Professor Robbins’s and the ABA’s warning to proceed into prison privatization with extreme caution, what seems undeniable now is that the warning went unheeded and today private prison corporations are driven by perverse and immoral incentives whereby an increase in crime and an increase in the number of human beings placed into America’s brutal prisons is good business news for that industry. In reflecting on the fact that United States prison conditions are cruel and dehumanizing, and that so many prisoners are low-level, nonviolent minor drug offenders, the question as to why we as a nation stand for private corporate profit in the realm of human imprisonment must be addressed and resolved. The perverse incentives that drive corporate profit are revealed when a growing population of imprisoned U.S. residents energizes corporate interests. A private prison analyst recently stated that the consistent yearly increase in the prison population “from a business model perspective[] [is] clearly good news.” Private prison executives and lobbyists seek to increase privatization of the industry by promising that their prisons are run more efficiently at lower costs, with greater safety records, improved facilities, and with greater outcomes for prisoners. However, studies and reports now show that these declarations by private prison executives and lobbyists are deceitful. Private prisons are increasingly being shown to cost contracting governments’ more, not less, are less safe, and less economical. The exchange of taxpayer funds from governments and municipalities into the hands of corporate shareholders and executives is nothing more than an unabashed transfer of taxpayer monies into the personal accounts of those with a stake in private prisons—which are being shown to provide no real benefit in return. Private incarceration makes no sense morally, and it is increasingly apparent that the industry makes no sense economically and, in fact, is likely unconstitutional. In 2005, Professor Robbins again addressed the issue of prison privatization. His conclusions have been updated, including that private prisons are a “lamentable experiment” and “that the concept . . . is bad policy . . . based on a tenuous legal foundation . . . [with] profound moral implications.” Robbins notes the many “routine, quasi-judicial decisions” private vendors make that affect prisoners’ welfare and legal status; the daily operations of private prisons that are conducted outside of public supervision; and the financial bias injected into circumstances where private corporations and key employees make more money when more people are imprisoned for longer periods are each lamentable outcomes of a failed experiment. Over the past few decades the United States has seen: the rapid, profitable growth and political influence of the private prison industry; how incarceration-for-profit ensures more incarceration, quashes alternatives to incarceration, and creates a financial bias in jailers against the release of prisoners; and, how mainstream religions have criticized private, for-profit prisons as immoral. There is increasing reason for concern that these private prison corporations will become even more involved at the front end of law enforcement by working with police agencies to make sure their facilities stay filled. This article will show: first, that mixing profit with the core governmental function of incarceration leads to damaging consequences for prisoners, employees (of both private and public prisons), and the public at large while benefiting a small group of executives and shareholders; second, that the implementation of for-profit incarceration in the United States hampers access to justice, particularly for already marginalized groups; and third, that the serious constitutional concerns noted by Professor Robbins have been borne out, and they now deserve consideration by the United States Supreme Court." @default.
• W3033885650 created "2020-06-12" @default.
• W3033885650 creator A5017538015 @default.
• W3033885650 creator A5081537163 @default.
• W3033885650 date "2020-06-18" @default.
• W3033885650 modified "2023-09-23" @default.
• W3033885650 title "Abolishing Private Prisons: A Constitutional and Moral Imperative" @default.
• W3033885650 hasPublicationYear "2020" @default.
• W3033885650 type Work @default.
• W3033885650 sameAs 3033885650 @default.
• W3033885650 citedByCount "0" @default.
• W3033885650 crossrefType "posted-content" @default.
• W3033885650 hasAuthorship W3033885650A5017538015 @default.
• W3033885650 hasAuthorship W3033885650A5081537163 @default.
• W3033885650 hasConcept C144133560 @default.
• W3033885650 hasConcept C162324750 @default.
• W3033885650 hasConcept C17744445 @default.
• W3033885650 hasConcept C190253527 @default.
• W3033885650 hasConcept C199539241 @default.
• W3033885650 hasConcept C2776154427 @default.
• W3033885650 hasConcept C2779915796 @default.
• W3033885650 hasConcept C2780300103 @default.
• W3033885650 hasConcept C3116431 @default.
• W3033885650 hasConceptScore W3033885650C144133560 @default.
• W3033885650 hasConceptScore W3033885650C162324750 @default.
• W3033885650 hasConceptScore W3033885650C17744445 @default.
• W3033885650 hasConceptScore W3033885650C190253527 @default.
• W3033885650 hasConceptScore W3033885650C199539241 @default.
• W3033885650 hasConceptScore W3033885650C2776154427 @default.
• W3033885650 hasConceptScore W3033885650C2779915796 @default.
• W3033885650 hasConceptScore W3033885650C2780300103 @default.
• W3033885650 hasConceptScore W3033885650C3116431 @default.
• W3033885650 hasLocation W30338856501 @default.
• W3033885650 hasOpenAccess W3033885650 @default.
• W3033885650 hasPrimaryLocation W30338856501 @default.
• W3033885650 hasRelatedWork W1492731358 @default.
• W3033885650 hasRelatedWork W1607766746 @default.
• W3033885650 hasRelatedWork W1646738011 @default.
• W3033885650 hasRelatedWork W1787428010 @default.
• W3033885650 hasRelatedWork W2101711989 @default.
• W3033885650 hasRelatedWork W2290993188 @default.
• W3033885650 hasRelatedWork W2415324645 @default.
• W3033885650 hasRelatedWork W2484264642 @default.
• W3033885650 hasRelatedWork W2524436381 @default.
• W3033885650 hasRelatedWork W2612986028 @default.
• W3033885650 hasRelatedWork W2765816760 @default.
• W3033885650 hasRelatedWork W2781203233 @default.
• W3033885650 hasRelatedWork W2796144532 @default.
• W3033885650 hasRelatedWork W2912868765 @default.
• W3033885650 hasRelatedWork W298395260 @default.
• W3033885650 hasRelatedWork W3193972440 @default.
• W3033885650 hasRelatedWork W3200841314 @default.
• W3033885650 hasRelatedWork W3212481969 @default.
• W3033885650 hasRelatedWork W609635014 @default.
• W3033885650 hasRelatedWork W74396630 @default.
• W3033885650 isParatext "false" @default.
• W3033885650 isRetracted "false" @default.
• W3033885650 magId "3033885650" @default.
• W3033885650 workType "article" @default.