Private Prisons and Abuse of Power
Jovana Milosavljevic
My essay details the downfalls of private prisons and the hidden abuse
of power that goes on within them. I learned a little about private
prisons in the past and was confused on if they were good substitutes for
public prisons or not. The further I researched this topic, the more
passionate I became against private prisons.
Abstract
Private prisons are steadily growing in the United States, and all over
the world. The more private prisons are established, the more questions
arise. Used as a replacement for public prisons that are owned by the
government, private prisons are owned by companies or singular
owners. The reason why private prisons are so controversial at times is
because of the moral and ethical dilemmas they bring up. Some private
prisons have low safety and security, which leads to physical abuse and
needless suffering of prisoners. Another thing that many private prisons
are accused of doing is abusing their power on their prisoners. This
abuse means that they might be forcing their prisoners to work laborious
jobs for no pay or compensation. This is an ethical issue because the
prisoners are not given anything in return for their labor while the
owners of the private prisons reap the goods and profit their labor gives
them. This brings up another issue: if some owners of private prisons
make money from their prisoners forced labor, do they make money
from an increase in incarceration rates? This means that the more people
are being imprisoned, the more money private prisons make as they have