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Issue of Prison Privatization

The purpose of this research is to examine the issues surrounding prison privatization in the modern period. The plan of the research will be to set forth the context in which the practice of running prisons for profit has arisen from the 1980s to the current period and then to discuss such related matters as corporate takeovers of prison systems and key implications of the sharing of public- and private-sector jurisdiction over incarceration of criminals.

The modern American penal system took shape because of reformist efforts of Philadelphia Quakers: "Before there were prisons, serious crimes were almost always redressed by corporal or capital punishment. . . . Jails existed, but primarily for pretrial detention. The closest thing to the modern prison was the workhouse a place of hard labor almost exclusively for minor offenders, derelicts, and vagrants" (Pray, 1987, p. 92). Philadelphia's Walnut Street Prison, established in 1790, was America's first prison as the term is commonly understood today and became the model for prisons throughout the country and around the world. Pray explains that conditions at Walnut deteriorated between 1790 and 1820. Solitary confinement on one hand and confinement of all prisoners in common and ill-maintained living spaces on the other produced squalid, overcrowded conditions. Accordingly, reformist efforts became directed at improvement of standards and practices affecting prisoners' nutritional, disciplinary, and hygienic well-being.

From the 1840s to the 1960s, rehabilitation, probation, and parole programs found their way into the penal system and dominated penal philosophy. The 1970s and 1980s saw reformist efforts to improve overcrowding, curb inmate violence, and prevent official policies of physical abuse of inmates. However, public dismay over brutality toward prisoners, which had spurred creation of the Walnut Street Prison, had been transformed into "a get-tough backlash . . . in t...

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Issue of Prison Privatization. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 19:05, March 28, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1689508.html