6. Current Issues in Prisons
Prisons today face difficult problems of operation and management. At the heart of many problems is prison overcrowding. Overcrowded conditions lead to many problems, including violent deaths, suicides, mental illness, and disciplinary infractions, increased litigation by prisoners and their advocates. Finally, overcrowding increases likelihood of the spread of AIDS.
Governments have devised several strategies to lessen or minimize prison overcrowding. One solution is greater use of diversion. In diversion programs, prosecutors temporarily suspend prosecution of a case for a period of time in which the offender must meet certain conditions, such as remaining employed or drug-free. If the conditions are met, the case may be dropped or the charge may be reduced.
Other front-door solutions include greater use of plea bargaining; limiting incarceration to only those offenders deemed most dangerous; assigning judges a fixed number of prison spaces so that they might rearrange their sentencing priorities and incarcerate only the most serious offenders; and decriminalizing certain offences to narrow the range of crimes for which offenders can be incarcerated.
An increasingly popular solution to prison overcrowding has been to use local jails in selected jurisdictions as accommodations for prison inmate overflow. Other back-door proposals include easing the eligibility criteria for early release or parole; changing the criteria for revoking parole in order to encourage fewer parole violations; allowing the governor or other officials to shorten the sentences of selected offenders; and expanding the number of community programs, including the use of intensively supervised parole for more serious offenders.
Chronic prison overcrowding has prompted the growth of prisons-for-profit, privately owned and run prison and jail operations. Private prisons are financed and operated just as other for-profit businesses. Governments seeking to house inmates in a private prison typically pay a set amount per day, per prisoner to the company. Private-enterprise operations in corrections have been particularly noticeable in the juvenile justice system, where minimum-security detention facilities are often privately organized and managed. In recent years, the increase in for-profit prisons, accompanied by the spiraling incarceration rate, has brought more attention to prison privatization.
Opponents of prison privatization raise legal, moral, and ethical objections to for-profit prisons. They question whether private enterprise can legitimately possess the authority to sanction offenders. Opponents are sure that only the state has authority to punish criminals, and that the imprisonment of criminals is inherently and exclusively a governmental function. Critics also say that private-enterprise officials are not sufficiently accountable for conduct relating to prisoner management and discipline. They fear that profit motives will cause prison administrators to overlook or fail to properly address possible violations of inmates’ rights by private prison staff. Opponents of private prisons also express concern that private interests will exploit prison labor. Finally, critics note that private prison operators have an incentive to increase the number of people imprisoned and to keep inmates in prison longer in order to increase profits.
Supporters of privatization argue that private enterprise can run prison operations more smoothly and effectively than government agencies and at a lower cost. They maintain that government agencies sacrifice efficiency by relying on the sluggish actions of legislatures and other political bodies for appropriations and approval before implementing new policies or engaging in new prison or jail construction. Supporters also claim that the private sector can more effectively negotiate with other private enterprises in the community to furnish necessary goods, services, and programs for offenders.