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Gaming the System: How the Political Strategies of Private Prison Companies Promote Ineffective Incarceration Policies
Gaming the System: How the Political Strategies of Private Prison Companies Promote Ineffective Incarceration Policies
Publication year:
2011
| Cataloged on:
Jun. 23, 2011
ANNOTATION: This article should be on everyone’s reading list who is interested in issues surrounding private prisons. It is sure to generate a lot of discussion. It observes that “[w]hile private prison companies may try to present themselves as just meeting existing “demand” for prison beds and responding to current “market” conditions, in fact they have worked hard over the past decade to create markets for their product” (p. 2). Sections of this report include: introduction to the triangle of private prison political influence and the two companies at the center of this influence—Corrections Corporation of America and the GEO Group (formerly Wackenhut Corrections Corporation); the stakes—more prisons mean more revenues for private prisons; the strategies—a three-pronged approach on influencing policy, creating more incarceration, and making more money; the losers of the game—taxpayers, communities, private prison employees, and the incarcerated; and recommendations.
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