The cost of imprisonment — including who benefits and who pays — is a major part of the national discussion around criminal justice policy. But prisons and jails are just one piece of the criminal justice system and the amount of media and policy attention that the various players get is not necessarily proportional to their influence. In this report:. Our makf shows how wide and how deep mass incarceration and over-criminalization have spread into our economy. We find:. This report and infographic are a first step toward better understanding who benefits from mass incarceration and who might be resistant to reform. We have no doubt that we missed some costs, and we did not include some costs because they are relatively small in the big picture or are currently unknowable. Some of the lesser-known major players in the system of mass incarceration and over-criminalization are:. Instead, we have a federal system, 50 state systems, yhe thousands of local government systems. Sometimes these systems work together, although often they do not; and looking at just the does the state make money from prisoners picture can obscure the importance of state and local policy decisions. To be sure, there are ideological as well as economic reasons for mass incarceration and over-criminalization. But at this moment, when crime is near record lows and there is increasing attention to the role of privatization in the justice system, we need a far more expansive view of how our criminal justice system works, whom it hurts, and whom it really serves.
20. Michigan
How much do incarcerated people earn? For this update, we combed through the policies of state correctional agencies and any other available sources, and found information for every state. Despite the inaccessibility of data for some state prison jobs, this is the most comprehensive list of wages paid to incarcerated people available today:. Not everyone works in prison. Facilities face budget limitations and sometimes there is just not enough work to go around. But generally, correctional facilities assign incarcerated people to work as close to a regular day as possible. These work assignments fall into four broad categories, the first of which is by far the most common:. One major surprise: prisons appear to be paying incarcerated people less today than they were in The average of the minimum daily wages paid to incarcerated workers for non-industry prison jobs is now 86 cents, down from 93 cents reported in What changed? With a few rare exceptions , regular prison jobs are still unpaid in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, and Texas. The vast majority spend their days working in custodial, maintenance, grounds keeping, or food service jobs for the institutions that confine them. The wages listed above do not include any deductions, which in reality often leave incarcerated workers with less than half of their gross pay. In Massachusetts , for example, at least half of each paycheck goes into a savings account to pay for expenses after release. The question of wages paid for prison labor is an important one, especially when we consider the relative costs of fees charged and things sold to incarcerated people. The value of a dollar is different when you earn pennies per hour. And in six states, the wage is almost always zero pennies per hour. Making it hard for incarcerated people to earn real money hurts their chances of success when they are released, too.
Discuss…
The American incarceration boom has given rise to companies that provide products and services, like phone calls for inmates, to government prisons in rather unsavory ways. Cheery representatives from CrossBar, a Kentucky-based company, demonstrated the bendable electronic cigarettes that are sold in prison commissaries. I chatted with employees of Wallace International, which makes the automated front gates for jails. Sentinel, which makes ankle bracelets to track parolees, distributed slick handouts. A couple hundred more exhibitors were packed into a two-hundred-and-twenty-four-thousand-square-foot space in a New Orleans convention center, a space larger than three professional football fields, including the end zones. It was an education in the scale of the industry of profiting on America’s incarceration system. Many of these provide necessary equipment and services, of course, but some do so in rather unsavory ways. Short phone calls from prison can cost up to fifteen dollars, largely because the companies operate as monopolies within prison walls. The private companies also offer state and local authorities a percentage of their revenue, which contributes to the surging cost of the calls and creates other perverse incentives. Prison phone companies are hardly the only private venders that capitalize on a captive market. It is also the subject of numerous investigations and lawsuits. She also noted that the facility has since been reaccredited.
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These prisoners are there for a multitude of different crimes ranging from drug possession and petty larceny to grand theft auto and murder. This has given rise to the private, or for-profit, prison. The private prison system raises a lot of questions. One that many people wonder about is how can a private company legally incarcerate people?
The answer is yes, but the government does contract out quite a bit of their work. A public prison is one that is completely owned by the government. This means that they have to provide the prison building, staff the guards and administration, and oversee all of the prisoners and everything that happens in the prison.
Even with a public prison, many of the services are outsourced to private contractors such as the food service, cleaning services and maintenance. With a private prison, many of the burdens are taken off the government and put onto a private company. Instead of all the business that goes along with running a prison, the government simply has to supply the prisoners, and oversee the prison.
Now that begs the question of how a for-profit prison makes mmake. A public prison is naturally non-profit. The end goal is to house prisoners in an attempt to rehab them or remove them from the streets.
A private prison, on the other hand, is run by a corporation. In order to make money as a private prison, they receive a stipend from the government. This money from the government can be paid in a multitude of different ways. It can be based on the size of the prison, based on a monthly or yearly set amount, or in most cases it is paid based on the number of prisoners that the prison houses.
Makw spread is where the private prison makes their money. As in any business, saving money wherever possible increases the bottom line. Expanding also allows the business to bring in more money, does the state make money from prisoners it needs capital to do.
As a business grows it can make the choice to go public. With most businesses, exposure is the key to growth. The more people that know about the company, the more sales they can. Instead, they need capital boosts for two other reasons. By going publicthey can see a sudden influx of stat that would allow them to build that second prison. Still, there is a seedier reason to go public for a private prison.
In order to stay in business, these prisons doew a constant stream of inmates coming in to replace those that have served their sentence. This means that laws have to be enforced, contracts renewed, and in some cases, laws more strictly enforced.
To do so they have to buy politicians. This process is called lobbying and does the state make money from prisoners often frowned. On the surface, a private prison seems like a great idea. The problem lies in the economics behind prisoners. The goal of the prison system is to rehabilitate socially deviant individuals. This makes one wonder: is prison supposed to rehab the individual, or is it supposed to earn money?
If the goal is to earn money, then a high prison population is the end goal. Another problem that arises is the fact that these are for-profit businesses. This means if they can cut services from their list, then they save money. Cutting cleaning makes the company more money: but provides unhealthy and inhumane living conditions for the inmates. Cutting costs ultimately affects the prisoners and diminishes the quality of their living quarters. Finally, the law needs to be structured in such a way that allows a steady stream of new inmates.
This ties back to prispners lobbying aspect: stricter laws mean wtate people in the. More people in the system means more money for the prison. Many have argued that this is the entire reason that the war on drugs was started: another set of laws that could incarcerate thousands of people every single year. Many of these prisons save the government money, but some actually cost more per prisoner than a public facility would cost.
The capitalist mindset says any time an industry can be run privately it is better for the economy. The socialist mindset says that the government should be supplying those services. The realist says that the prison system is overcrowded as it is.
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The Pros and Cons of Privatization Privatization describes the process by drom a piece of property or business goes from being owned by the government to being privately owned. A homeowners association HOA is an organization that makes and enforces rules for a subdivision, planned community or condominium building; its members are residents. What Hte Racketeering? Racketeering typically refers to crimes committed through extortion or coercion. The term is typically associated with organized crime.
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These prisoners are there for a multitude of different crimes ranging from drug possession and petty larceny to grand theft auto and murder. This has given rise to the private, or for-profit, prison. The private prison system raises a lot of questions. One koney many people wonder about is how can a private company legally incarcerate people? The answer is yes, but the government does contract out quite a bit of their work. A public prison is one that is completely owned by the government. This means that they have to provide the prison building, staff the guards and administration, and oversee all stats the prisoners and everything that happens in the prison.
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