Private prison
The only private adult prison in Canada was the maximum-security Central North Correctional Centre in Penetanguishene, Ontario, operated by the U.S.-based Management and Training Corporation from its opening in 2001 through the end of its first contract period in 2006.
[18] France's system is semi-private: so-called non-sovereign missions (kitchen, laundry, maintenance) are delegated to private companies, while guard and security functions are left to the State.
It is worth noting that in the UK, this problem is overcome by handing over all aspects of management, including both security and prisoners' work, to the operating company, thereby achieving the integration of the two.
As the case awaited decision, the first prison was built by the concessionaire, Lev Leviev's Africa Israel Investments, a facility near Beersheba designed to accommodate 2,000 inmates.
[23] On 24 July 2015, Serco's contract to run the Mount Eden prison was revoked due to numerous scandals and operation was given back to the New Zealand Department of Corrections.
[53] In early 2012, Frances Crook, chief executive of the Howard League for Penal Reform said Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Prisons encountered an almost nine-fold rise in restraint used in the previous year at Ashfield Young Offenders Institution, which holds 15- to 18-year-olds.
Allegations in the television programme included foul language and use of unnecessary force – such physical violence, overuse of restraint techniques (causing one teenager to have difficulties breathing) – on 10 boys aged 14 to 17, as well as a cover-up involving members of staff by avoiding surveillance cameras in order not to be recorded, and purposefully misreporting incidents in order to avoid potential fines and punishment; for example, in one exchange, it was claimed some staff don't report "two or more trainees fighting" because it indicates they've "lost control of the centre", resulting in a potential fine.
When the prisons inspectorate carried out a snap inspection at Medway it found detainees reported staff had used insulting, aggressive or racist language toward them and felt unsafe in facility portions not covered by closed circuit TV.
Reviewers agreed to the legitimacy of evidence presented by Panorama showing, "...targeted bullying of vulnerable boys," by employees, and that, "A larger group of staff must have been aware of unacceptable practice but did not challenge or report this behaviour."
[61] Following release of an extremely critical report regarding a G4S-operated jail, the Labour party's shadow justice secretary said they would be inclined to take control of for-profit prisons if the industry competitors had not met deadlines imposed upon them.
[65][66] In 1852, on the northwest San Francisco Bay in California, inmates of the prison ship Waban began building a contract facility to house themselves at Point Quentin.
[67] During Reconstruction (1865–1876) in the south after the Civil War, plantations and businessmen sought to continue exploiting Blacks after the United States ratified the 13th Amendment, which abolished all forms of slavery "except as punishment for a crime".
[65][68][69] Southern prisoners laid railroad tracks, worked on plantations, mined coal and performed other labor while enduring terrible conditions including torture as a form of punishment.
[70] Modern private prisons first emerged in 1984 when the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), now known as CoreCivic, was awarded a contract to take over operation of a jail in Hamilton County, Tennessee.
[76] Sociologist John L. Campbell and activist and journalist Chris Hedges respectively assert that prisons in the United States have become a "lucrative" and "hugely profitable" business.
[83] For example, Pecos, Texas is the site of the largest private prison in the world, the Reeves County Detention Complex, operated by the GEO Group.
According to Sessions, "the (Obama administration) memorandum changed long-standing policy and practice, and impaired the bureau's ability to meet the future needs of the federal correctional system.
She says while the state-run facilities are "horrific" for both staff and prisoners, "the profit motive in privatized punishment merely adds to the unconscionable harms and injustices of the American system of mass incarceration.
[98] The exact causes for this overwhelming increase cannot be assigned to individual policies as even similar types of criminal sentencing policies were associated with wildly different rates of incarceration in different communities due to powerful external factors such as income disparity, racial makeup, and even the party affiliation of the lawmakers [99] Correlated with the rise of incarceration rates in the United States was the abolition of loose sentencing guidelines for crimes.
This left judges with some room to increase or reduce the sentence in response to mitigating or aggravating circumstances but generally limited their discretion under penalty of automatic appeal through appellate review.
As a result of their static nature these policies were not well adapted to face the wave of drug related offenses created by the crack epidemic of the 1980s and the modern opioid crisis.
[114] Marie Gottschalk, professor of political science at the University of Pennsylvania, argues that the prison industry "engages in a lot of cherry-picking and cost-shifting to maintain the illusion that the private sector does it better for less."
[117] An example of private prisons' inadequate staff training leading to jail violence was reported by two Bloomberg News journalists, Margaret Newkirk and William Selway in Mississippi regarding the now-closed Walnut Grove Correctional Facility (WGCF).
Ten additional officials and consultants, including three former state legislators (two Republicans and one Democrat), were indicted in the Department of Justice's Operation Mississippi Hustle prosecution.
At least fifteen targets of the investigation, including ten sitting or former elected officials, the governor's chief of staff, and four lobbyists were considered for possible prosecution, and a dozen were indicted.
Under their Criminal Justice Task Force, ALEC has developed model bills which State legislators can then consult when proposing "tough on crime" initiatives including "Truth in Sentencing" and "Three Strikes" laws.
[130] By funding and participating in ALEC's Criminal Justice Task Forces, critics argue, private prison companies influence legislation for tougher, longer sentences.
CCA, now CoreCivic, closed their facility in Estancia, New Mexico as the lack of prisoners made them unable to turn a profit, which left 200 employees without jobs.
"[147] In the final quarter of 2013, Scopia Capital Management, DSM North America, and Amica Mutual Insurance divested around $60 million from CCA and GEO Group.
[148] In a Color of Change press release, DSM North America President Hugh Welsh said: In accordance with the principles of the UN Global Compact, with respect to the protection of internationally proclaimed human rights, the pension fund has divested from the for-profit prison industry.
