How Much Money Do Private Pison Companies Make A Year

October 23, 2019

Mass incarceration isn't only unjust—it's large business organization.

We know information technology'due south no accident that our prisons and jails accept been filled to bursting over the past forty years. America imprisons more people than whatsoever other nation on world—a staggering 25% of all the world's incarcerated people are behind confined in the US. This lock-'em-upwardly culture has its roots in slavery and the racist "tough-on-crime" laws that started being passed back in the 1970s. Merely here we are almost l years later, with studies showing that mass incarceration doesn't make united states safer, with political leaders on both sides of the alley agreeing that the criminal justice system needs to be transformed, and yet mass incarceration is still with us. What's the reason for that?

We recollect in that location are billions and billions of them...

Let's be extra clear: Mass incarceration doesn't work. We don't need information technology. In fact, between 2005 and 2016, 35 states cut crime and their incarceration rate simultaneously—so much for the argument that throwing people in jail and prison is the only fashion to keep our communities rubber.

The Prison Policy Initiative has studied mass incarceration from every angle for most twenty years. They issued a report in 2017 final that our country spends well-nigh $182 billion on locking people up. That's a lot of money to spend on something that doesn't work.

But maybe it's all just a matter of how you lot look at it. Because while the arrangement causes great suffering for incarcerated people, their families, and their communities, there are others who call up information technology's working just fine. Private businesses that provide services (like nutrient and healthcare, for example) to prisons and jails are making billions of dollars from mass incarceration—which sounds to us like a very strong incentive for them to make certain that millions of Americans keep getting locked upward. It's no surprise, then, that these businesses spend then much on lobbying lawmakers to support policies that will keep prison house populations loftier.

An overwhelming majority of Americans of all political affiliations and backgrounds believe that we need to reform the criminal justice organization. Politicians are coming around to the same idea. A wave of newly elected prosecutors and even many law chiefs besides support reform. Only the bottom line is that locking lots of people up is making lots of money for lots of businesses, so change volition not be piece of cake.

Permit'south take a look at a few of the industries that are benefiting from other people's misery.

• Bond bonds

Every bit America's prison house population has grown, and so has the bail-bond manufacture—it now pulls in nigh $3 billion in profits every year. Most of the increase in incarceration has occurred in pre-trial detention—locking upwards legally innocent people as they await trial. And most of those people are in jail but because they can't afford bond. Depression-income defendants and their families often turn to a bail bondsman, who can pay the full bail amount once they receive a nonrefundable fee. The bail bond industry collects most $1.iv billion in nonrefundable fees every year, driving many families deeper into poverty. The industry, of grade, works hard to thwart reforms.

• Telecommunications

Monopolies have long been considered a large no-no in business organization. Just when it comes to prison phone companies, monopolies are standard operating process. While telecom companies dear this system, which has helped push the value of the unabridged industry to effectually $1.ii billion, it runs up costs on incarcerated people and their families. Charging more than $1 a infinitesimal is common, with some states seeing prices arroyo $25 for only a 15-infinitesimal telephone call. At these sky-high prices, low-income families frequently accept to determine between talking to their loved ones and paying their bills.

• Food and commissary suppliers

Supplying items like food, beverages, and hygiene products to prison or jail commissaries is a lucrative business, bringing in at least $one.6 billion beyond the land every year. In that location's no such thing as shopping effectually for the best toll when you're incarcerated, so inmates have no choice merely to buy what's in stock at whatever price is listed (which could exist much much higher than what you lot'd pay in stores). Prisoners earn and so niggling behind bars that families oftentimes have to ship money to brand up the difference. As for prison house food, companies similar Aramark make millions of dollars in profits supplying meals to about 600 prisons. The money keeps coming in even when they practice a terrible job.

• Healthcare

The jail and prison healthcare organisation is a giant mess. Well, that's truthful if you lot look at how effectively information technology tends to the health of people behind bars. From the perspective of profiteering, notwithstanding, things seem to be going pretty well. Companies like Corizon, which is raking in $ane.4 billion every year, are profiting from sick prisoners, despite having a dismal rail record when information technology comes to making sure they get well again.

Nosotros have a criminal justice system that's criminally low on justice. And then we have multiple industries that have risen around it to take advantage of that system and plow profits on the backs of those caught up in it. The drive for exploiting inmates knows no limits. These days, you don't even accept to be locked upwards to be taken advantage of. Defendants are existence charged for the use of electronic monitoring devices. Believe it or non, 49 states charge former inmates for the costs of their own incarceration.

We need to transform the system and we demand to do it now. It'southward fourth dimension to put people ahead of profits. Join the movement for criminal justice reform today.

Source: https://www.benjerry.com/whats-new/2019/10/prison-profiteering

Posted by: lacysaydrund68.blogspot.com

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