|
01.17.12
New Report Affirms ACLU Study on Private Prisons
Study from The Sentencing Project Finds Private Prisons Yield Little or No
Savings and Provide Inferior Facilities
CLEVELAND - The Sentencing Project, a criminal justice reform organization based
in Washington D.C., has released a new report entitled Too Good to be True: Private
Prisons in America. The report details the history of private prisons in America
and comes to many of the same conclusions as the 2011 ACLU of Ohio report, Prisons
For Profit: A Look at Prison Privatization.
The Sentencing Project report shows that from 1999 to 2010 the use of private prisons
increased by 40 percent at the state level. In many cases privatizing prisons is seen
as a quick remedy for states looking to alleviate budget concerns, but, like the ACLU,
the Sentencing Project found that the cost effectiveness of private facilities is often
overstated and “largely illusory.”
“Private prison companies spend millions trying to convince policy makers and
local governments that these facilities save money,” said ACLU of Ohio Executive
Director Christine Link. “Instead, they create a short term infusion of cash,
then keep all future proceeds while slashing employee salaries and cutting rehabilitation
and education programs. So what you end up with is a facility that creates many more
problems than it solves.”
The Sentencing Project report tells the story of Littlefield, a West Texas town that
used city bonds to build a private prison in 2000. The town hoped that the prison would
create jobs; instead it closed after being “plagued by mismanagement, riots and
an inmate suicide.” In the end, the town had to raise taxes, slash services, and
cut jobs just to manage the $9 million debt left by the prison. The report claims that
this story is not unique and that private prison facilities can often leave a community
“in a worse situation than they were before.”
Ohio has its own troubled history with private prisons. In the 1990s, a private federal
prison was opened in Youngstown, but was closed a few years later after a string of
lawsuits, security breaches, and increased costs. Despite this history, In 2011 Ohio
lawmakers unveiled a plan to sell five prisons to private companies. One facility was
ultimately sold.
“Our prison system clearly has problems,” said Link, “But the answer
is to work toward stopping the flow of people into the system, not turning the operation
over to private companies who actually profit from increased incarceration.”
-30-
Read Too
Good to be True: Private Prisons in America.
Read Prisons
For Profit: A Look at Prison Privatization.
View the ACLU of Ohio Criminal
Justice page.
|
news center
volunteer