Foundation Briefs

Foundation Briefs
December 2014 PF Brief
Resolved: For-profit prisons in the United States

should be banned.
foundationbriefs.com
Page 1 of 159
Table of Contents
Table of Contents .................................................................................................................................................... 1!
A note .................................................................................................................................................................. 7!
Definitions............................................................................................................................................................... 8!
Private prison as a service contractor. DAT ............................................................................................... 8!
History..................................................................................................................................................................... 9!
Backgrounder on the public-private shift. DAT ......................................................................................... 9!
Current incarceration demographic data. DAT ......................................................................................... 10!
Topic Analysis One............................................................................................................................................... 11!
Topic Analysis Two .............................................................................................................................................. 15!
Pro Evidence ......................................................................................................................................................... 24!
Private Prisons Conditions Encourage Recidivism ......................................................................................... 25!
Basic rehabilitation services are often unavailable. DAT ......................................................................... 25!
Strategies to prevent recidivism. DAT...................................................................................................... 26!
Private prison are sorely lacking rehabilitation curriculum. DAT ............................................................ 27!
Private Prisons and Shocking Truths on their Conditions. PSM .............................................................. 28!
Gang Rules Private Prisons. PSM............................................................................................................. 29!
The Perverse Incentives of Private Prisons and Inmate Behavior. PSM .................................................. 30!
Poor Incentives Neglect Rehabilitation, Encourage Recidivism AMS .................................................... 31!
The impacts of public prisons superior training programs. DAT ............................................................ 32!
The economic impacts of discouraging recidivism. DAT ........................................................................ 33!
Corporations fully admit their profits depend on recidivism. DAT.......................................................... 34!
Private prisons internally lengthen sentence times. ...................................................................................... 35!
Private prisons are encouraged to increase sentence times on a per-inmate basis. DAT ......................... 35!
Profit-driven practices can deter inmates from getting paroled. DAT...................................................... 36!
Private Prisons are Legally Unrestrained.......................................................................................................... 37!
Federal prisoners cannot bring civil rights suits against private prisons. DAT ........................................ 37!
Family Blames Private Prison for Death of Inmate. PSM ........................................................................ 38!
Private contractors arent held accountable by the government or market forces. DAT .......................... 39!
Private prisons inmates have unacceptably narrow constitutional rights. DAT ...................................... 40!
Case study: Eighth Amendment violations in private prisons. DAT ........................................................ 41!
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Public prison officials have more legal leeway on whistleblowing. DAT ............................................... 42!
Overreliance on Private Contractors is Dangerous ........................................................................................... 43!
Too many agencies are reliant on the same contractor. DAT ................................................................... 43!
States use private system more rapidly than federal system. ASF ........................................................... 44!
The Federal Government relies more on private prisons than State systems. ASF .................................. 44!
Gladiator School and Idaho Correctional Centers Contracts. PSM .......................................................... 45!
Prison Privatization and Criticisms of Profiteering from Asylum Reforms. PSM ................................... 46!
Private Prisons and Patronage by Governments. PSM ............................................................................. 47!
Outsourcing of Prison Health Care to Private Companies. PSM.............................................................. 48!
Quotas Hurt Inmates and Taxpayers ................................................................................................................. 49!
Lockup Quotas AMS ................................................................................................................................ 49!
Occupancy Requirements Hurt Economies AMS..................................................................................... 50!
Private Prisons Oppose the Public Interest ....................................................................................................... 51!
Private contractors have a vested interest in retaining their own importance. DAT ................................ 51!
Private Prison Contracts and Mass Incarcerations. PSM .......................................................................... 52!
Criticism of Corrections Corporation of America. PSM .......................................................................... 53!
Prison Industry and Big Businesses or New Form of Slavery. PSM ........................................................ 54!
Profitability of Halfway Houses and Prisons. PSM .................................................................................. 56!
Larger Inmate Prison is Boon to Private Prisons. PSM ............................................................................ 57!
Jailing Americans for Profit. PSM ............................................................................................................ 58!
Prisons are the Problem Not the Solution and Criticisms by ACLU. PSM .............................................. 60!
Wrongful Imprisonment in California AMS............................................................................................. 61!
Private Prison Industry Opposes Taxpayer Interests AMS....................................................................... 61!
Economic Strain of CCA AMS................................................................................................................. 62!
Growth of Private Prisons Despite Critics ........................................................................................................ 63!
Growth of Private Prisons Despite Criticisms. PSM ................................................................................ 63!
Private Prisons Underperform Against Public Prisons ..................................................................................... 64!
Statistical Data on Performance of Private Prisons in Britain. PSM ........................................................ 64!
Exploring the Purported Cost Efficiency of Private Prisons. PSM .......................................................... 65!
Failed Instances of Private Prisons ................................................................................................................... 66!
Failing Private Prisons in England. PSM.................................................................................................. 66!
No More Privatization of Ohio Prisons. PSM .......................................................................................... 67!
CCA Profits from California Taxpayers, Hurts California AMS ............................................................. 68!
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Youth Service's International Fails AMS ................................................................................................. 69!

Prisons Strive to Cut Costs at Inmates' Expense AMS ............................................................................. 70!
Florida's Private Prisons Scandal AMS .................................................................................................... 70!
Money Spent on Lobbying for Private Prisons ................................................................................................. 71!
Prison Economics and Immigration Laws. PSM ...................................................................................... 71!
Private Prison Spend Millions on Lobbying to Increase Prison Population. PSM ................................... 72!
Private Prisons Lobby for Harsher Sentences. PSM ................................................................................. 73!
Prison for Profit May Indicate More Time Behind Bars. PSM ................................................................ 74!
Corruption in Private Prisons AMS .......................................................................................................... 75!
Private Prisons Sway Lobbyists AMS ...................................................................................................... 75!
Private prison companies use economic leverage in smaller elections. DAT .......................................... 76!
Private Prisons Hurt Non-Citizens .................................................................................................................... 77!
Prisons designed to hold non-citizens (CARs) are sub-par. ASF ............................................................. 77!
Public prisons have stricter regulation, leading to worse conditions in CARs. ASF................................ 78!
The BOP renews sup-par contracts. ASF ................................................................................................. 79!
Undertrained personnel are a liability in private detention centers. DAT ................................................ 80!
Private Prisons Block Need for Systematic Reform ......................................................................................... 81!
Private Prisons Block Need for Systematic Change AMS ....................................................................... 81!
The financial costs of continued mass incarceration. DAT ...................................................................... 82!
The opportunity cost of investing in private prisons. DAT ...................................................................... 83!
Private prison quotas run counter to federal incarceration-easing initiatives. DAT ................................. 84!
States are already implementing cost-effective measures. DAT .............................................................. 85!
Investing in more prisons is counterproductive, legally and economically. DAT.................................... 86!
Horrifying Conditions in Private Prisons.......................................................................................................... 87!
James Slattery's Corrupt Private System AMS ......................................................................................... 87!
Private Prisons Have Worse Conditions AMS ......................................................................................... 88!
Private Prisons Hurt Youth AMS ............................................................................................................. 88!
Scandals in Youth Prisons AMS ............................................................................................................... 89!
Dockery v. Epps Case Documents Poor Conditions of Private Prison AMS ........................................... 89!
Human Rights Violations.................................................................................................................................. 90!
Private contractors operational paradigms push human rights under the rug. DAT ............................... 90!
Private prisons skirt basic services for their inmates. DAT ...................................................................... 91!
Private prison operations are contingent on limiting freedom. DAT........................................................ 92!
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Basic medical care in private prisons isnt legally guaranteed. DAT ....................................................... 93!
Con Evidence ........................................................................................................................................................ 94!
Private Prisons Dont Provide Worse Services................................................................................................. 95!
Recidivism data has yet to link private management with increased relapses. DAT ............................... 95!
Research is unlikely to prove private prisons empirically worse. DAT ................................................... 96!
The Case for Private Prisons by CCA Employee. PSM ........................................................................... 97!
Private Prisons are Cost Effective. PSM................................................................................................... 98!
Private Prisons are More Cost-Efficiently Run. PSM .............................................................................. 99!
Private Prisons are Cheaper for Taxpayers. PSM ................................................................................... 100!
Experts from Temple University say Prison Privatization Provide Real Benefits. PSM ....................... 102!
All Prisons Should Have Competitive Neutrality ........................................................................................... 104!
Adding public management to private competitions improves quality. DAT ........................................ 104!
With competitive neutrality, there is effectively no public-private divide. DAT ................................... 105!
Private prisons are not definitively more or less cost-effective. DAT .................................................... 106!
Overhead operating costs need to be determined on a case-by-case basis. DAT ................................... 107!
The best solution is Success-Oriented Funding. DAT ............................................................................ 108!
Private Prisons Have Untapped Innovation Potential ..................................................................................... 109!
Private prison contracts can be used to efficiently reform the American prison system. DAT .............. 109!
Private prisons are a superior setting for rehabilitation. DAT ................................................................ 110!
Private Prisons Succeed in Private Operations. PSM ............................................................................. 111!
Private Prisons Implement Beneficial Changes AMS ............................................................................ 112!
Better Service of Private Prisons AMS................................................................................................... 112!
Private Prisons Outscore Public AMS .................................................................................................... 113!
Private prisons can still enhance savings by penetrating union-dominated markets. DAT .................... 114!
Private Prison Benefits from Lower Costs and Higher Efficiency AMS ............................................... 115!
Private Prisons Reduce Operational Costs AMS .................................................................................... 116!
Private Prisons are More Efficient .................................................................................................................. 117!
Private Prison Benefits from Lower Costs and Higher Efficiency AMS ............................................... 117!
Case study: Texas prison savings contracts. DAT .................................................................................. 118!
An economic projection of cost savings. DAT ....................................................................................... 119!
Private prisons often provide superior services at lower prices. DAT ................................................... 120!
Private Incarceration is Safer .......................................................................................................................... 122!
Private prisons have a higher rate of accreditation. DAT ....................................................................... 122!
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Public and Private Prisons Have Identical Deficiencies ................................................................................. 123!

Neither public nor private prisons meet democratic standards. DAT ..................................................... 123!
The systemic problems of public and private prisons are identical. DAT .............................................. 124!
Pro Counters........................................................................................................................................................ 125!
Private Prisons Are More Costly .................................................................................................................... 126!
Private prisons rely on the same funding mechanisms and encourage further spending. DAT ............. 126!
Private Prisons Dispute Criticisms on Efficiency. PSM ......................................................................... 127!
Private corporations face costly lawsuits which suck taxpayer money. DAT ........................................ 128!
Private prison contracts can financially wreck rural communities. DAT ............................................... 129!
Prison development fails to boost local economies. DAT ...................................................................... 130!
The promised savings from private prisons are empty. DAT ................................................................. 131!
Market competition doesnt make private prisons more efficient. DAT ................................................ 132!
Private Prisons Make Prison System Worse ................................................................................................... 133!
California's Private Prisons AMS ........................................................................................................... 133!
System Needs Reform AMS ................................................................................................................... 134!
Needless Prisoners AMS......................................................................................................................... 134!
Working in private prisons is demoralizing for prison staff. DAT ......................................................... 135!
The turnover rate at private prisons is too high to maintain security in the system. DAT ..................... 136!
Prison contracts incentivize recidivism and mass incarceration. DAT................................................... 137!
Corrupt Collaboration ..................................................................................................................................... 138!
CCA Prisons Maintain Relevance through Congressional Influence AMS ........................................... 138!
Union and Private Prisons Alliance AMS .............................................................................................. 139!
Private prisons undermine the democratic principles of the criminal justice system. DAT ................... 140!
Faulty Reporting on Private Prison System .................................................................................................... 141!
Reality of Private Prisons Exposed AMS ............................................................................................... 141!
Public Prisons Staff are not Paid Large Salaries............................................................................................. 142!
Costs in Prison System not a Result of Prison Staffing Salaries AMS................................................... 142!
Private prison staff are relatively underpaid and inexperienced, with disastrous results. DAT ............. 143!
Private Prison Accreditation Is Meaningless .................................................................................................. 144!
Even if a prison is accredited, it doesnt necessarily follow procedures. DAT ...................................... 144!
Con Counters ...................................................................................................................................................... 145!
Private Prisons Do Not Promote Overcrowding ............................................................................................. 146!
Private Prisons Do Not Cause Incarceration AMS ................................................................................. 146!
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2011 Case Declares Need for Private Prisons AMS ............................................................................... 146!
The Economic Savings Are Indisputable........................................................................................................ 147!
A decades worth of studies have a unanimous conclusion. DAT ......................................................... 147!
Case study: Rural economic benefits from private prisons. DAT .......................................................... 148!
Private Prison Conditions Arent Worse ........................................................................................................ 149!
Overcrowding isnt an issue. DAT ......................................................................................................... 149!
The state ties the hands of private contractor. DAT ............................................................................... 150!
Prisons Problems Trace Back to the Justice System ..................................................................................... 151!
American incarceration rates are too high for prisons to keep up. DAT ................................................ 151!
The state fails to set minimum standards for private prisons. DAT ....................................................... 152!
Private Prisons and Legal Constraints ............................................................................................................ 153!
Public and private prisoners alike have identical legal protections. DAT .............................................. 153!
Private prisons lobbies do not dictate prison legislation. DAT ............................................................. 154!
Contentions ......................................................................................................................................................... 155!
Pro Case .......................................................................................................................................................... 156!
Introduction:................................................................................................................................................ 156!
Contention One: Private Prisons Encourage Recidivism............................................................................ 156!
Contention Two: Costs ............................................................................................................................... 157!
Contention Three: For-Profit Prisons Block Need for Reform ................................................................... 157!
Con Case ......................................................................................................................................................... 158!
Introduction:................................................................................................................................................ 158!
Contention 1: Private prisons arent deficient ............................................................................................ 158!
Contention 2: Private prisons are an asset to the criminal justice system .................................................. 159!
Contention 3: Private prisons enable reform .............................................................................................. 159!
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December 2014
Note
A note
The abbreviations after our taglines (DAT, AMS, etc) are the initials of our authors.
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Definitions
Definitions
Private prison as a service contractor. DAT
Lundahl, Brad et al. Prison Privatization: A Meta-Analysis of Cost Effectiveness and
Quality of Confinement Indicators. Utah Criminal Justice Center. University of
Utah. 26 April 2007. Accessed 11/10/2014. Web. http://ucjc.utah.edu/wpcontent/uploads/861.pdf
Brad Lundahl is an associate professor at the University of Utahs College of Social Work.
Prison privatization involves a business contracting with a branch of the government to operate a prison facility.
Many of the large businesses operating prisons today are publicly traded companies (Chang & Thompkins,
2002). Private companies generally charge the government a daily rate per inmate to cover investment,
operating costs, and profit. Under this rate, private companies supply many or most of the services needed to
operate a prison system, including guards, staff, food, program costs, medical care (partial), and other services.
Private companies may also build new facilities without direct tax expenditures or public bonds (Lanza-Kaduce
et al., 1999).
This is different from what is technically considered privatization, wherein a business or industry dictates
the rules of their operation, in addition to building and managing the facilities.
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December 2014
History
History
Backgrounder on the public-private shift. DAT
Mitchell, Matthew. The Pros of Privately-Housed Cons: New Evidence on the Cost
Savings of Private Prisons. heartland.org. Rio Grande Foundation. March 2003.
Accessed 11/10/2014. Web.
http://heartland.org/sites/all/modules/custom/heartland_migration/files/pdfs/12247.
pdf
The Rio Grande Foundation is a New-Mexico-based research institute.
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, public backlash against soft-on-crime policies delivered a generation of
tougher judges to the bench. Levitt noted in 1996 that the incarceration rate in the United States has more than
tripled in the last two decades.1 Federal and state criminal statutesparticularly those dealing with
drugswere also strengthened and law enforcement budgets redoubled. Between 1982 and 1999, the
federal government increased its police expenditure by 485 percent ($35 to $40 billion dollars a year go to
the War on Drugs alone).2 Over the same period, states increased their police expenditures by 239
percent.3 Both trends out-paced inflation and overall growth in government spending by a wide margin.
The inevitable result was an explosion in the prison population. Between 1980 and 1999, the U.S. prison
population grew fifteen times faster than the population at large.4 By 1986, all but seven states were operating
their prisons in excess of 95 percent capacity.5
The overcrowded prisons begat quality lapses. In 1983, Only about one-fifth of all state and federal prisons
were accredited by the Commission on Accreditation for Corrections.6 More seriously, courts began to
intervene, asserting that states old and crowded facilities violated the Constitution.
When in the early 1980s Tennessees entire correctional system was found unconstitutional, the state
considered contracting with a private firm. The firm, the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA),
had been incorporated in 1983 to contract with the Federal Immigration and Naturalization Service to
detain illegal immigrants pending hearings or deportation.7 Tennessee refused CCAs offer. But not long
after, prison privatization began in earnest.
In 1985, Floridas Bay County contracted with CCA to operate its jail. The next year, CCA contracted with
Santa Fe County, New Mexico to run its jail. By 1987, there were about 3,000 people held in private prisons
nationwide. This represented little over one half of one percent of the entire prison population.8 By 2001,
the private prison population had soared to over 91,000 inmates. Despite such rapid growth, only about
seven percent of all prisoners were in private custody in 2001.
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History
Current incarceration demographic data. DAT

Blakely, Curtis, and Vic Bumphus. Private and Public Sector Prisons--A Comparison of
Select Characteristics. United States Courts. Federal Probation, Vol. 68 #1.
http://www.uscourts.gov/uscourts/federalcourts/pps/fedprob/2004-06/prisons.html
Curtis Blakely is a Truman State University justice systems professor.
Private prisons generally house younger, healthier, less risky populations. Keep this in mind when trying
to make apples to apples comparisons between the public and private sectors.
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December 2014
Topic Analysis
Topic Analysis One

Resolution: For-profit prisons in the United States should be banned.
Background
Post American Revolution: After the American Revolution, Great Britain officials were no longer able to ship
convicts to the colonies. Thus Great Britains officials began to use private contractors to deal with
overcrowding.
1980s: During the War on Drugs United States prisons suffered from huge overcrowding problems. At first
public prisons used private contractors for services to help manage the workload of running a prison.
1984: The United States first fully privately managed prison was established with the Corrections Corporation
of America in Tennessee.
1992: Worlds Prisons in the United Kingdom becomes the worlds first private prison. After the first prison,
more contracts were established for privately-managed prisons in the U.K. after the contract had ended, these
prisons were subject to re-competition when the public sector was eligible to bid on the operation rights. All
private prisons in the UK today are under the strict watch of Government monitors. These monitors keep
privately managed prisons in line with UK standards. Any failure to meet these standards leads to financial
penalties for the 11 privately managed prisons currently operating in the UK. While United States for-profit
prisons are also subject to federal regulation, much of the evidence in the brief will expose the flaws with this
system. The Failed Instances of Private Prisons and Horrifying Conditions in Private Prisons sections detail
instances of human rights abuse. Pro teams should use this evidence to argue for the banning of for-profit
prisons. Con teams on the other hand should acknowledge the need for reform in regulation and use success
stories to bolster their cases.
1999: The HM Prison Ashfield prison becomes the first UK for-profit prison to house juvenile offenders. While
the focus of this case must remain on the United StatesCon teams can use the UK examples to their
advantage as a global example of the problems with for-profit prison.
2013: As of 2013 8.4% of United States prisoners are held in for-profit institutions. The Corrections
Corporation of America has seen a 500% increase in the last 20 years.
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December 2014
Topic Analysis
Definitions
For-profit prisons
Prison privatization is defined as: a business contracting with a branch of the government to operate a prison
facility. Many of the large businesses operating prisons today are publicly traded companies (Chang &
Thompkins, 2002). For the purposes of this debate, teams may assume that private prisons or privatelymanaged prisons as for-profit.
in the United States
This self-explanatory piece of the resolution is sometimes abused in Public Forum debates. While using another
country as an example with the problems or potential for for-profit prisons is fair, be careful. It is easy for teams
to discredit any non-United States based evidence by claiming the system is too different. However, Con teams
can use successful global for-profit prisons to argue that the United States system, while requiring reform, has
great potential.
Banned
In legal terms a ban is: a proclamation or public noticeby which a thing is forbidden For the purposes of
this resolution, a ban on for-profit prisons would forbid the private management of prisons, but not prevent
public prisons from contracting private services in a publically-managed prison.
Sources
In a debate like this calling careful attention to a teams evidence can make the difference between a loss and a
win. One of the biggest controversies surrounding for-profit systems is the validity of statistics and studies done
on the subject.
Be wary of industry-funded studies. While industry funded studies paint a pretty picture of private prisons,
state-funded studies have pointed out flaws in these studies. Both teams will sound nave if they focus on only
one type of study. Draw evidence from independent institutes to prove the validity of your evidence.
Con teams should listen for the names of a source and ask questions about how studies were conducted. Keep in
mind that both publically-managed and privately-managed prisons have histories of human rights abuses,
unnecessary costs, and inefficiency. As long as a Con team has evidence of public prisons shortcomings, these
teams can argue that this point is moot.
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December 2014
Topic Analysis
Angles
Every debate is winnable for either side of the resolution. Be careful not to get blind-sided with one type of
argument or evidence. Pro teams need both statistics and ideological arguments. Con teams cannot get by on
potential based arguments alone. Con teams must show practical methods of reform and success examples to
win this debate.
Pro
The preponderance of the statistics on prison conditions favors pro in this debate. Use this to your teams
advantage. Include a few well-supported studies or statistics in your case to emphasize the failures of the forprofit prison system and the ways these prisons hurt taxpayers and inmates. With that said, be careful. Pro teams
must have more than statistics and examples of private prisons gone wrong to convince all judges. Pro teams
should emphasize the underlying problems with the concept of for-profit prisons.
Simply producing evidence of a couple failures does not prove the need to ban for-profit prisons. Instead Pro
teams must show that it is actually impossible to incorporate these systems into the United States criminal
justice system based on justice. Explain that privately managed prisons are motivated to fulfill quotas and
increase incarcerationgoals that run counter to the United States vision of criminal justice.
In a system based on the concept of innocent until proven guilty United States officials seek to provide
pathways to reform for convicts. Prisons motivated to keep their prisoners there cannot and will not fulfill that
goal.
Con
Con teams may struggle with the recent turn in public opinion against for-profit prisons. However, victory is
still very possible. First, Con teams should emphasize that one or two examples of a failed prison system does
not mean failure for the concept itself. Publically-managed prisons have plenty of instances of human rights
abusethis is not unique to for-profit prison systems.
Denying the problems with United States prisons is futile. Con teams should fully acknowledge the failures of
both public and private prisons. If a team denies the problems with private systems, they open the door to be
furiously pelted with statistics and horror stories from their opponents. This will make Con teams appear to be
hiding evidence from the judge. If Con teams openly acknowledge the failures, they can bring their debate to
their own terms and emphasize the ways that privately managed prisons are ideal for change in United States
criminal justice.
Con teams should stress that the United States criminal justice system is in dire need of reform and argue that
privately-managed prisons show great potential. Do not argue that either system is perfect. Instead stress the
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December 2014
Topic Analysis
need for reform and innovationtwo advantages for privately managed prisons with more freedom on different
methods of rehabilitation.
Final Advice
1. Understand the fundamental conceptual differences between private and public management. This
topic has consumed historians and economists since the beginning of Government. It is at the heart
of this debate. A clear understanding will allow you to make sound conceptual and convincing
arguments on both sides.
2. Do not get caught up in the numbers. Too often Public Forum debates boil down to a heated debate
over one particular study or number. This is a problem for both teams because it comes down to your
judges opinion on one thing and not your debating skill. Focus on your overarching arguments and
the big picture.
3. Familiarize yourself with the popular studies on this topic. You must be able to attack and defend the
biggest and most popular studies out there.
4. Do not conceal evidence from your judge. Both publically and privately managed prisons have a
history of some failures. Both teams must admit this and acknowledge the need for reform. This will
allow you to get down to the core issues of this debate rather than arguing who has the more
correct statistic.
5. Be wary of your source. Just because a fact was printed by a reputable source, does not mean that is
not the end all say all for the topic. Be prepared to defend your studies and point out flaws with your
oppositions.
Good Luck!
--Amanda Sopkin
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December 2014
Topic Analysis
Topic Analysis Two

Resolution: For-profit prisons in the United States should be banned.
The preceding topic analysis did an excellent job breaking down the terms of the resolution, its context, and
general strategies for both teams. Id instead like to take a look at some particulars of this resolutions
terminology and its background.
A Backgrounder on Contracts
For the vast majority of this analysis (and this brief), for-profit prisons and privately-managed prisons will be
construed as one and the same (for further analysis on this point, reference the previous topic analysis). Part of
getting to know this topic is figuring out where the private company ends and public oversight begins. For that,
Id recommend economist Bruce Bensons article on Privatization vs. Contracting Out. As applied to the
American prison system, private prisons are actually contracted out, not privatized. That is, a private
company has a contract with the government (federal or state) to provide a service (housing prisoners) which is
still overseen by the government. For the American prison system to be privatized would imply that business
interests control every facet of the prison system, including allocation, safety standards, etc. This is clearly not
the case. For a more thorough valuation of privatization vs. contracting out, economist Bruce Benson has a good
breakdown of the matter (simply search privatization vs. contracting out).
There are two facets to a prison: construction and operation. The initial growth of the private prison industry (I
wont be using contracting out in place of private because the industry is, in fact, private. Its just not
privatized.) occurred in both construction and operation. Between natural population growth, the lack of
public prison growth, the lack of public prisons to maintain quality standards, and the War on Drugs, America
found its prison capacity woefully inadequate beginning about 40 years ago This amounted to a deficit in both
construction and operation . Private interests gladly filled that void.
The offer from private interests was twofold: to assist public entities in the construction of badly-needed
prisons, and to then run those prisons.
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Topic Analysis
Assistance in construction was in the form of nominal privatization. Nominal privatization involves
physically allocating the prison as private property, in which a government contract would be fulfilled. This has
in turn led to the continuing development of prisons on spec: Essentially, private companies and communities
would jointly pitch the funds for the construction of a prison that, without any promise of a government
contract, meets all necessary state and federal requirements for a functional prison. The prison could then
compete for government contracts on the basis that the company and community already have a functional,
up-to-date prison prepared to fulfill the contract. This would, in theory, give the prison a leg up on its
competitors who would have to assume the costs of constructing a prison after the awarding of a contract. There
are several notable instances of derelict prisons in rotting American rural towns found in the general news and
throughout this brief. While relatively rare, they are a consequence of the on spec prison pre-building process
which does not have a real guarantee of future business.
The development of private management of prisons was less novel than the private construction of them. By the
time private corporations began managing prisons, they already performed a similar function for the
Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS)private firms would often build and operate detention centers
for illegal immigrants to be processed and held prior to deportations. The difference was thus simply of who
was housed: after the 1970s, privately-managed facilities began housing United States citizens as well. Keep in
mind, however, that for-profit detention centers are still found throughout the United States. In fact, CCAs
contemporaneous investor reports typically cite the management of detention sites as an isolated area of future
potential growth in light of the general decline in arrests of United States citizens.
The process of contracting the construction of a prison and contracting its management are largely the same,
and have been since the advent of the private prison industry nearly half a century ago.
1. The state decides to privatize a given facility (or construct a facility from scratch. This is where the on
spec prisons utility comes in)
2. The state issues an RFP: a request for proposals. It is open for bidding.
3. Companies bid on the contract.
While companies can win the rights to build and operate a prison, then, the state is ultimately in control. The
state determines the standards at the given prison, and the state determines the payout.
The entire premise of the for-profit management of a prison is a reduction of costs. If a contract for a prison was
valued at the same rate as the cost for the government to provide an identical service, there would be no purpose
to hiring out a private firm. Hiring out a private firm lessens the extent of control that the government has, so
any contracting needs to come with cost savings. Because private entities can typically promise cost savings
(which are often specified and embedded in the contract as mandatory), they have gained popularity across the
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Topic Analysis
United States, particularly in the last decade as state governments have found it increasingly difficult to meet
their obligations both to remain financially solvent and humanely house all their prisoners.
This places private corporations in a conundrum: they must make a profit while also being more efficient than
the state (otherwise the state has no reason to contract out its prison services). Private prisons thus must cut two
layers of cost: they must operate with a profit margin on their contractual terms, and that contract must be for
lower terms than the states cost of incarceration. Ill refer to these as the profit and contract margins,
respectively.
Private corporations, skilled in efficiency, are adept at maximizing both profit and contract margins. The profit
margin is the most variable, given that it can be increased to any extent that investors need it to be. The problem
lies in how this is done. Private corporations are expected to maximize their contract margin in order to win the
contract and leave their profit margin sufficiently intact while also providing equivalent levels of care and
service as their public equivalents. But the quality of a prison and the cost to run it are fundamentally
intertwinedapart from labor costs, there simply are few to corners to cut.
This link is the reason for some of the tragedies that have occurred in private prisons. A particularly glaring
instance of this is CCAs Youngstown facility in the late 1990s, where cost cutting involved rationing basic
supplies like food and toilet paper, housing maximum-security offenders in medium-security cells, and the
failure to prevent over forty assaults (as well as two stabbings) over the course of 18 months.
Why this matters for Pro teams
If it seems like the above two paragraphs present something of a Catch-22 for private prisons, thats good news
for Pro teams. If Pro teams truly wish to fulfill the terms of the resolution, its not enough to simply show that
the harm-benefit balance for public prisons is superior to that of private prisons; that still isnt reason enough to
outright ban them (and Ill get into this particular subject in a couple pages). One of the best ways for Pro teams
to establish outright that private prisons ought to be banned is to demonstrate that their existence under a
contemporary pretext is impossible: that the United States criminal justice system isnt functionally feasible
with private prisons. A relatively straight-forward way to do so would be the demonstration that creating both
contract and profit margins without sacrificing necessary quality is impossible. This is far from the only
method, but its a simple enough logical argument to make without excessive empirical evidence to needle
through.
Page 17 of 159
December 2014
Why this matters for Con teams
Topic Analysis
Based on the above, the situation would seem to be bleak for Con teams. This is compounded by the
preponderance of evidence, which falls squarely to the Pro side of the debate.
The weight and quantity of evidence are not necessarily related. What I have described in the preceding
paragraphs is the current state of private prisons: forced to create impossible margins via methods other than
quality reduction, which is impossible. Of course, this isnt the only option. More importantly, this broad
categorization fails to consider the many failings of the public prison system.
The reason the savings of private contractors are even in such high demand to begin with, as noted near the
beginning of this analysis, is that the state is cash-strapped. Under the standards of the state, there simply is not
enough revenue to sustain the state prison model. The responsibility is thus passed onto private corporations.
Under this pretense, the Con has (at least) two viable options.
The first option is to accept the above premise and work with it. This involves Con teams demonstrating that
private prisons can actually fulfill their operational imperative of equal service at lower cost. This can still
involve an analysis of the public prison system: Con teams can simultaneously demonstrate that the public
system has inefficiency (e.g. the mass unionization of public prison labor) and that private prisons are capable
of delivering efficiencies across every facet of the prison quality spectrum (our Con evidence section focuses on
providing evidence on this exact point).
A second option is to follow the advice of the previous topic analysis and accept that private prisons have their
failures. This should, of course, not be equated to giving up the resolution. By admitting that the imperative of
low cost and high quality is impossible to deliver, Con teams can open the door to direct comparisons between
the failures of the public and private sectors. Using both funding and quality data about public prisons (which,
again, we have attempted to provide in our Con Evidence section), Con teams can demonstrate that public and
private prisons failings fundamentally exist on the same level.
The logic of showing both public and private failings is unique to this resolution. This resolution implicitly uses
public prisons as the baseline by which to measure private prisons. That is, the banning of private prisons is
justified if they fall so short of public prisons that their existence is unacceptable. If this topic was simply a
harm-benefit comparison between public and private, admitting the harms of both and then attempting to show
them as equal would likely be an unacceptably risky debate strategy for either side. Because Pro teams must
surpass the harm-benefit comparison and go all the way to banning private prisons, Con teams have the leeway
Page 18 of 159
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Topic Analysis
to bring up private prisons flaws as a method to equate them to the public prison baseline without fear of
giving up the resolution.
For-profit
Before any discussion of private prisons begins, it is necessary to understand what a private prison is and how it
works. Throughout this brief, we set for-profit and private on equal terms: a private prison is one which operates
for a profit. This is inherent to the enterprise of privately running a prison: this is done by corporations with
investors, and the responsibility of the corporation to its shareholders is to deliver value in terms of profit. Its
typically safe to assume that the investors in a company like the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) and
the individuals which the corporation is responsible for incarcerating are two disparate groups.
As such, we typically conflate the idea of private and for-profit. However, therein lies one of the peculiarities of
the resolution: it fails to specify private prison. This would mean, then, that a publicly-managed prison could
technically be considered for-profit if it in fact was not run at cost to the state (by state, we mean whichever
government runs the prison. The word government will follow if we are referring to the state government).
While this may seem far-fetched, communities in the United States have in fact experimented with the idea of a
public for-profit prison. One way this would work is for local communities to act as a contractor for higher
levels of government. Under such a scheme, a rural town could submit a bid to manage, say, a federal prison,
and run the prison with lower operating costs than what is provided by the federal government for the
incarceration of its prisoners. As such, the prison would be operated as a simultaneously for-profit and public
facility.
As you will see in your research for this resolution, such is not actually the case for real-world prison
arrangements in the state. More often than not, local communities are simply providing the labor and land for
prisons. Given the rural economic collapse which occurred following the American oil boom of the 1980s,
many rural communities now face desperate situations in which the need for permanent jobs is equated to the
survival of the towns. Given that prisons are still seen as a guaranteed source of income, rural communities
essentially compete to land prisons, both public and private. In the instance of a private prison, a corporation
like CCA will construct a prison in a rural community alongside some sort of promise to use local labor and/or
material resources. As such, the prison remains under private control, although some measure of public bond
financing may be used to construct it.
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Topic Analysis
Given that this is almost exclusively the real-world prison scenario, the justification for for-profit prisons as a
publicly-managed boost to rural economies would involve Con teams simultaneously that private prisons are
cost-effective and worse-managed than their public counterparts, and that these two factors are not mutually
independent. The evidence for the former point is ample, so untangling management efficiency from cost
efficiency can well allow Con teams to run an advocacy of public for-profit prisons. Its certainly an interesting
prospect.
Why this matters for Pro teams
On a fundamental level, there are at least two ways that the idea of a for-profit prison plays into the hands of
Pro teams:
1. This swings empirical evidence to the Pro
2. This swings lay judges towards the Pro
The empirical evidence advantage is most relevant with respect to economic evidence. Its a common
assumption that the public system is overladen with bureaucracy and inefficiency, thus necessitating private
industrys application of operational efficiencies. Pro teams can use both empirical evidence and the inherent
qualities of private industry to demonstrate how, when applied to prisons, corporate logic is inappropriate.
The first area where this could be accomplished is in financial security. The news is rife with stories of towns
investing heavily in prisons, with promises from companies like Wackenhut and CCA of future guaranteed
revenue. This is sometimes followed by towns left in financial ruin, as the promise of prisoners and jobs never
pans out. Corporations like CCA have to secure funding and resources for their prisons; as such, local
communities are made promises of jobs and income. The company then has the requisite resources and backing
to begin a project like prison construction; even if the project doesnt pan out, the company is relatively
insulated from risk. Risk management is inherent to the running of any good business; but using case studies of
failed projects, Pro teams can turn this into a weakness of for-profit prisons.
Additionally, Pro teams can look at profit as an operational inefficiencyits money being spent on a prison
which is never applied to the actual costs of running the prison. Amid the inefficiencies of public industry,
profit is not one of them. Given the absolute wealth of empirical data about private prison security standards,
staffing numbers, staff experience, staff training, building quality, etc., Pro teams have enough evidence to link
substandard quality back to the profit inefficiency.
The previous analysis addressed the turn of public opinion against private prisons. This can extend to a debate
advantage for Pro teams. A simple way of doing so is to clearly demonstrate the purpose of a private
Page 20 of 159
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Topic Analysis
corporationto achieve financial security and prosperitywith the goals of a prisonachieving the security of
its prisoners. This disconnect puts a friendly rationale onto the increasingly widespread public rejection of
private prisons. While subtle, such a strategy can be enough to commandeer the attention of a lay judge.
Why this matters for Con teams
Again, Con teams face a winnable uphill battle. As noted in the previous analysis, it doesnt do Con teams any
good to deny or conceal the facts. The profit motivations of private corporations in the prison industry (in any
industry, really) is a ready-made source of fodder for Pro teams. It would be disingenuous and inappropriate for
Con teams to deny that investor-controlled motivations consider profit anything but a primary operational
imperative. Instead, Con teams would be wise to use this property to their advantage.
A fact to keep in mind from the two previous sections of this analysis:
1. Private prisons are not privatized. The corporation does not decide the fundamental standards upon
which the prison is run.
2. The state decides those criteria.
It would be prudent to additionally point out that private prisons are responsible for meeting those criteria and
face consequences for failing to meet either those criteria or legal standards.
Under this premise, then, Con teams can easily not only shift blame, but also show the potential of private
prisons for improving the United States criminal justice system. The key is that private prisons do not dictate
how they are run. As such, regardless of how much ammunition the Pro has to demonstrate that standards in
private prisons are too low, or that private prisons cut too many corners, the Con can silence those points imply
by demonstrating that private prisons are not at fault; the Con can admit that quality standards are abysmal so
long as teams make clear that it is the state, not corporations, which set those standards.
At this point, the Con has the upper ground to mount an affirmative advocacy. Having already established that
a) businesses strive ruthlessly to achieve profit, and b) private prisons are bound, operationally, to contracts
which they volunteer to fulfill, Con teams can simply advocate for more stringent, higher paying contracts.
Under such a premise, there could be the simultaneous assurance of quality and cost savings, something the
American prison system direly needs and achieves neither through public nor private means. The Don Draper
pitch for Con teams thus looks like this: give private industry the same money and quality standards that the
public sector gets, and see what happens.
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Topic Analysis
At the least, Con teams can insulate themselves from an inevitable onslaught of Pro evidence geared toward
proving that public prisons cost-benefit balances are superior to those of private prisons. Because private
prisons are inherently provided with fewer resources than their public peers, Con teams can quickly dispel the
legitimacy of such Pro comparisons on a procedural basis.
Banned
This resolution is the first which hasnt been a pure cost-benefit analysis. The term banned is crucial, and its
importance will likely grow as teams increase their familiarity and experience with the topic. The difference
between establishing that private prisons are inferior and that they ought to be banned is massive in terms of
both the empirical evidence required and the philosophical mindset behind it. Its more easily explained through
an analogy to the justice system.
There are two types of court cases: civil and criminal. Civil cases are what typically play out in courts of all
ranks across the nation: a plaintiff sues a defendant. For either side to win, it must show that a preponderance of
the evidencethe quantity of evidenceis on its side. Even a 51-49% evidence split is enough for a verdict.
Contrast this to a criminal case, where the state (the prosecution) is essentially suing a defendant for
wrongdoingmurder, larceny, etc. In such a case, the state can only win if it proves the defendant guilty
beyond a reasonable doubt; no matter how far the preponderance of the evidence leans toward the prosecution,
the defendant still wins if there are any holes in the evidence.
In most PF cases, where the debate is over cost-benefit on some topic (e.g. public financing of sports stadiums).,
the absolute preponderance of evidence can decide the debate. With the term banned however, this resolution
essentially turns into a criminal case, and the Pro is the prosecution.
The responsibility rests on the Pro to show that for all cases, private prisons are not only an inferior option but
are outright unacceptable. While the evidentiary standard is obviously lower for Pro teams than for the
prosecution in a criminal case, the proof burden is still similar.
This doesnt actually impose many additional burdens on the Pro; instead, it opens up some interesting case
possibilities. For starters, the absoluteness of ban gives the Pro more leeway with the preponderance of
evidence. Over the course of a standard harms-benefits debate, redundant empirical evidence on the same point
is unnecessary. But in this case, one strategy the Pro can take is that banning private prisons is a logical option
if a severe preponderance of evidence demonstrates their total lack of efficacy. This then opens the door for Pro
teams using the full might of all their empirical economic and quality evidence in the debate. Additionally, the
Page 22 of 159
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Topic Analysis
use of banned opens up the possibility of more LD-style values arguments. Banning something is a
philosophically-based legislative judgment; as such, both sides have slightly more leeway with the empirical
nature of their evidence. This places more of the Pros evidence about basic human rights on the table, for
instance.
The use of banned in the resolution allows for some clever advocacy work on the part of Con teams as well.
For one thing, the term acts as an insulator for Con teams willing to admit the flaws of the criminal justice
system as a whole, including those of private prisons. Con teams, as long as they establish that the criteria for
banning are more stringent than simply showing private prisons failures, can open the door to a discussion of
the criminal justice systems failures as a whole. From there, Con teams are free to explore the failings of public
prisons individually, public prison management as a whole, and the overwhelming problems of the criminal
justice system as a cohesive entity. From there, the path to shifting the attack from private prisons to the system
in which they must operate becomes a clear one.
Final remarks
Throughout this analysis, it may seem like Im recommending one way forward in each section for Pro and Con
teams alike. There are a vast multitude of ways to treat this resolution, and by no means have I prescribed the
only (or the best) methods. This brief is intended as a starting point for the organic growth of novel cases
theories and rebuttals; as such, I have tried to put myself in the shoes of a debater in the earlier stages of
preparation and then covered the elements I would not have noticed or thought important in the resolution.
I always found that mixing unorthodox evidence points into debates both enlivened them and threw opposing
teams off. While sound speaking styles and conventional evidence are always a must, this is certainly a factor I
consider when analyzing brief. This topic in particular is exciting for the number of different perspectives each
team can take on how to approach it: how to treat banned, how to classify a for-profit prison, how to work
with the general inadequacy of the United States criminal justice system. All this should add up to a month of
debating that never ceases to introduce teams to new perspectives. The bleakness of this subject aside, this
resolution certainly looks like a fun one. Happy debating!
Daniel Tsvankin
Page 23 of 159
Pro Evidence
Page 24 of 159
December 2014
Pro: Recidivism
Private Prisons Conditions Encourage Recidivism

Basic rehabilitation services are often unavailable. DAT
Palta, Rina. Why For_Profit Prisons House More Inmates of Color. npr.org. 13 March
2014. Accessed 3 November 2014. Web.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/codeswitch/2014/03/13/289000532/why-for-profit-prisonshouse-more-inmates-of-color
"The rate of violence is higher at private prisons, and recidivism is either worse or the same than in public
prisons," says Alex Friedmann, the managing editor of Prison Legal News and the associate director of the
Human Rights Defense Center, a group that opposes private prisons. Friedmann says part of the trouble is
attributable to lower-paid, lesser-trained staff used in private prisons. But some of it, he adds, may be due to this
higher-risk, younger population in private prisons.
So, Browne-Marshall asks, what are private prisons doing for their age-specific populations?
"Public prisons are devoting a lot of resources to the age-specific needs of their prisoners," she says, such
as building medical facilities, bringing in highly paid medical staff, and providing expensive mental
health care services. "What about the specific needs of the private prison population?"
Younger, higher-risk private prisoners need different kinds of services especially since they're likely to get
out of prison, back into society. And historically, younger prisoners are more likely to reoffend, which BrowneMarshall suggests addressing with education, drug counseling, anger management and other social services.
The trouble: While courts have intervened to require prisons to have good medical and mental health care
as constitutional necessities things that benefit older and sicker prisoners programs that mainly
benefit younger prisoners aren't usually required. (Another reason why they're cheaper to house.)
The article previously mentioned that prison populations are generally younger and less white than their
counterparts in public prisons. As such, any debate involving the cost-effectiveness of private prisons
should include qualifiers detailing the myriad services private prisons fail to provide (and the
accompanying cost savings).
Page 25 of 159
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Pro: Recidivism
Strategies to prevent recidivism. DAT

Wright, Kevin. Strange Bedfellows? Reaffirming Rehabilitation and Prison
Privatization. Journal of Offender Rehabilitation, 49:74-90. 20`0. Accessed 4
November 2014. Web.
https://www.academia.edu/640575/Strange_Bedfellows_Private_Prisons_and_Reaffi
rming_Rehabilitation
Kevin A. Wright is an Assistant Professor in the School of Criminology and Criminal
Justice at Arizona State University.
An emerging body of research on what works provides the impetus needed for a change in correctional
philosophy. Programs and policies that emphasize rehabilitation and treatment are likely to be successful
in reducing offender recidivism (Lipsey & Cullen, 2007; MacKenzie, 2006; Sherman et al., 1997). Equally
important is knowing what is likely to be ineffective in reducing recidivism. Programs that rely almost
exclusively on coercion and punishment (without a treatment component) are unlikely to result in
positive outcomes in terms of reduced offending (Finckenauer & Gavin, 1999; Palmer, 1995; Petersilia,
1999; Petersilia & Turner, 1993). Private prisons could thus be rewarded for employing programs that have
been empirically shown to reduce recidivism (e.g., in-prison therapeutic communities) while avoiding those that
do little to curtail future criminal behavior (e.g., boot camps). In short, prison privateers would be encouraged to
avoid the correctional quackery that often characterizes the current corrections system (Latessa, Cullen, &
Gendreau, 2002; see also Flores, Russell, Latessa, & Travis, 2005).
Perhaps more important is the contribution of research indicating the specific components of programs that are
effective in reducing recidivism. Several scholars have repeatedly emphasized that there is no magic bullet in
corrections, and that what is delivered to whom in what fashion is the important distinction between successful
and unsuccessful programs (Andrews et al., 1990; Andrews & Bonta, 1998; Gendreau & Ross, 1987; Palmer,
1991). Andrews and colleagues (1990) observed that appropriate service is comprised of three principles. First,
successful programs match level of service intensity to level of offender riskwith higher risk offenders
receiving more rigorous and frequent attention.3 Second, successful programs target what is known to
influence crime (e.g., antisocial attitudes) while avoiding variables unrelated to criminal behavior (e.g.,
self-esteem). Finally, successful programs deliver services in a manner that is consistent with the learning
styles of offenders and typically involve behavioral and social learning principles. Programs that adhere to
these principles of effective intervention have been found to be successful in reducing recidivism (Lowenkamp,
Latessa, & Holsinger, 2006; Lowenkamp, Latessa, & Smith, 2006; Lowenkamp & Latessa, 2004, 2005).
This card establishes a baseline for teams to evaluate the efficacy of programs in prisons, public in
private. Even if no final recidivism data is available, evidence that the above criteria are fulfilled could be
enough to deem a prison policy effective.
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Pro: Recidivism
Private prison are sorely lacking rehabilitation curriculum. DAT

November 2014. Web.
Kevin A. Wright is an Assistant Professor in the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Arizona State
University. Perhaps the best indication of the extent to which private prisons are currently implementing inmate
programming is by consulting the Census of State and Federal Corrections Facilities. The Bureau of Justice
Statistics (BJS) conducts this national census every five yearsthe most recent of which yielded information on
over 400 private facilities. Earlier analyses using these data painted a dismal picture of the availability of
programming in private prisons. As compared to state and federal facilities, private institutions were less
likely to offer educational programmingincluding basic adult education, secondary education, special
education, and vocational training. To be sure, 12.4% of private prisons were without an education program,
as compared to 8.8% of state prisons and 0% of federal prisons (Harlow, 2003). Additionally, although 17% of
staff in private facilities were professional, technical, or educational employees, a percentage comparable to
state facilities, the number of inmates per employee in this category was 25.9 (as compared to 20.4 for state and
8.9 for federal) (Stephan & Karberg, 2003). These conclusions are reinforced by analyses from the most
recent census in 2005. In addition to providing less educational programming than federal and state,
private prisons were less likely to offer psychological, HIV= AIDS, or sex offender counseling and were
more likely overall to not have work assignments available to inmates.4 A major shortcoming of these data,
however, is that they cannot provide an indication as to the quality of programming available in these
institutions.
While health services are required by regulations, ancillary services such as those listed above are not.
Given that the value proposition of private prisons lies in their ability to deliver cost-effective housing,
providing these services isnt the largest imperative, despite their existence being in the interest of the
public good.
Page 27 of 159
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Pro: Recidivism
Private Prisons and Shocking Truths on their Conditions. PSM

Lavender, George. "Shocking Photos From Inside Private Prison." . In These Times, 09
Jun 2014. Web. 1 Nov 2014. <http://inthesetimes.com/prisoncomplex/entry/16817/shocking_photos_from_inside_private_prison>.
A privately-run prison in Mississippi holding seriously mentally ill prisoners stands accused of being dirty,
dangerous and corrupt. East Mississippi Correctional Facility, operated by Management and Training
Corporation (MTC), is the subject of a lawsuit brought on behalf of several prisoners at the facility.
After widespread criticism of conditions inside the same prison the previous operator, the GEO group,
discontinued its contract with the state in 2012. At the time, the GEO group said that the prison was
"financially underperforming."
A lawsuit first filed a year ago by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Southern Poverty Law
Center alleged that grossly inhumane conditions have cost many prisoners their health, and their limbs,
their eyesight and even their lives.
Photos taken as part of a tour of the prison, showed charred door frames, broken light fixtures and toilets,
exposed electrical wires, and what advocates said were infected wounds on prisoners arms and legs, according
to the New York Times.
The Mississippi corrections commissioner, Christopher B. Epps, who won praise several years ago for reducing
the use of solitary confinement in the state, and the other defendants have denied the lawsuits allegations. Mr.
Epps declined to answer questions about the prison but said by email that conditions there had improved
tremendously since Management and Training Corporation, or M.T.C., began running it.
I have toured the facility and have seen the improvements firsthand, he said. We are committed to running a
constitutionally sound prison and look forward to communicating that point in court.
But current and former inmates described an atmosphere in which prisoners lived in fear of attacks by gang
members allowed to move freely through prison units and were forced to beg for basic medical treatment.
They said some set fires using contraband matches or loose wires, according to advocates to get the
attention of guards, who sometimes ignored the flames, simply allowing them to burn out.
Christopher Lindsey, 28, who was released from East Mississippi in July, said in an interview that he had gone
blind after months of not receiving appropriate treatment for the glaucoma he has had since childhood.
I was crying in the cell, my eyes were hurting, bloodshot red, and I was slowly losing my eyesight, he said.
Page 28 of 159
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Pro: Recidivism
Gang Rules Private Prisons. PSM

Newkirk, Margaret, and William Selway. "Gangs Ruled Prison as For-Profit Model Put
Blood on Floor." Bloomberg, 11 Jul 2013. Web. 2 Nov 2014.
<http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-07-12/gangs-ruled-prison-as-for-profitmodel-put-blood-on-floor.html>.
In the four privately run prisons holding Mississippi (BEESMS)inmates last year, the assault rate was three
times higher on average than in state-run lockups. None was as violent as the Walnut Grove Youth
Correctional Facility.
The for-profit detention center, surrounded by razor wire and near the forests and farms of centralMississippi,
had 27 assaults per 100 offenders last year, more than any other prison in the state, according to an April court
filing. Staff shortages, mismanagement and lax oversight had long turned it into a cauldron of violence, where
female employees had sex with inmates, pitted them against each other, gave them weapons and joined their
gangs, according to court records, interviews and a U.S. Justice Department report.
It was like a jungle, said Craig Kincaid, 24, a former inmate. It was an awful place to go when youre
trying to get your life together.
More than 130,000 state and federal convicts throughout the U.S. -- 8 percent of the total -- now live in
private prisons such as Walnut Grove, as public officials buy into claims that the institutions can deliver profits
while preparing inmates for life after release, saving tax dollars and creating jobs.
No national data tracks whether the facilities are run as well as public ones, and private-prison lobbyists for
years have successfully fought efforts to bring them under federal open-records law. Yet regulatory, court and
state records show that the industry has repeatedly experienced the kind of staffing shortages and worker
turnover that helped produce years of chaos at Walnut Grove.
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Pro: Recidivism
The Perverse Incentives of Private Prisons and Inmate Behavior. PSM

W.W., . "The perverse incentives of private prisons." . The Economist, 24 Aug. 2010.
Web. 2 Nov 2014.
<http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2010/08/private_prisons>.
LAST week authorities captured two fugitives who had been on the lam for three weeks after escaping from an
Arizona prison. The convicts and an accomplice are accused of murdering a holiday-making married couple and
stealing their camping trailer during their run from justice. This gruesome incident has raised questions
about the wisdom and efficacy of private prisons, such as the one from which the Arizona convicts
escaped.
Mother Jones reporter Suzy Khimm, writing at Ezra Klein's spot, observes that the portion of Arizona's prison
population now residing in privately owned and operated facilities is 20% and growing. "Nationally," Ms
Khimm notes, "there's been a similar surge in private prison construction as the inmate population has
tripled between 1987 and 2007: Inmates in private prisons now account for 9% of the total US prison
population, up from 6% in 2000." Should we welcome this development?
The dominant argument for private prisons is that they will save taxpayers money, as for-profit owners have an
incentive to seek efficiencies bureaucrats overseeing government institutions lack. Anyway, that's the
theory. According to the Arizona Republic, the reality is that private prisons in the Grand Canyon State so
far cost more on a per-prisoner basis than do public institutions. Some experts contend that firms in the
prison business reap profits by billing government for rather more than their initial lowball estimates
while scrimping in ways that may make prisons less secure.
As the economist and legal theorist Bruce Benson has observed, it is important to distinguish between
"privatisation" and "contracting out". To fully privatise a government service is to get the government out of
the business altogether. Consider garbage collection. If a municipal government decides to sell its garbage
trucks and buy the service from a private company with taxpayer money, that's not privatisation. That's
contracting out. In a fully privatised scheme, households deal directly with privately-owned garbage-collection
services. In that case, government is cut out of the loop entirely.
When we add to the mix the observations that America already puts a larger proportion of its population behind
bars than does any other country (often for acts that ought to be legal), and that the US already spends an
insane portion of national income on the largely non-productive garrison state, it is hard to see the
expansion of a for-profit industry with a permanent interest in putting ever more people in cages as
consistent with either efficiency or justice.
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Pro: Recidivism
Poor Incentives Neglect Rehabilitation, Encourage Recidivism AMS

Short, April. 6 Shocking Revelations about How Private Prisons Make Money. Salon.
September 23, 2013.
http://www.salon.com/2013/09/23/6_shocking_revelations_about_how_private_priso
ns_make_money_partner/
Salon magazine provides news and expert opinions on the most relevant stories and
current issues. It has been nominated for the National Magazine Award.
Three privately run prisons in Arizona have contracts that require 100 percent inmate occupancy, so the state is
obligated to keep its prisons filled to capacity. Otherwise it has to pay the private company for any unused beds.
The report notes that contract clauses like this incentivize criminalization, and do nothing to promote
rehabilitation, crime reduction or community building.
[These contracts run] counter to many states public policy goals of reducing the prison population and
increasing efforts for inmate rehabilitation, the report states. When policymakers received the 2012 CCA
letter, some worried the terms of CCAs offer would encourage criminal justice officials to seek harsher
sentences to maintain the occupancy rates required by a contract. Policy decisions should be based on creating
and maintaining a just criminal justice system that protects the public interest, not ensuring corporate profits.
Simmons, Matt. Punishment & Profits: A Cost-Benefit Analysis of Private Prisons.

August 7, 2013. Oklahoma Policy Institute. http://okpolicy.org/punishment-profitsa-cost-benefit-analysis-of-private-prisons The Oklahoma Policy Institute (OK
Policy) is a nonpartisan think tank located in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The Institute
researches political and economic issues for the state of Oklahoma.
With an ever increasing rate of incarceration Oklahomans should be thinking about more than locking up
offenders as cheaply as possible. It would be far more cost-effective to prevent crimes and reduce the need for
incarceration. Yet a study comparing recidivism rates in private versus public prisons in Oklahoma concluded
that private prison inmates had a greater hazard of recidivism in all eight models tested.
Page 31 of 159
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Pro: Recidivism
The impacts of public prisons superior training programs. DAT

Lundahl, Brad et al. Prison Privatization: A Meta-Analysis of Cost Effectiveness and
Quality of Confinement Indicators. Utah Criminal Justice Center. University of
Utah. 26 April 2007. Accessed 11/10/2014. Web. http://ucjc.utah.edu/wpcontent/uploads/861.pdf
Brad Lundahl is an associate professor at the University of Utahs College of Social Work.
Understanding the interpretation of small effect sizes based on prison management is difficult given the
complex issues and goals involved in the criminal justice system. The largest average effect size was found
for skills training where publicly managed prisons outperformed privately managed prisons. The average
effect size (d = .10) suggests that publicly managed prisons are 4% better at skills training (Lipsey &
Wilson, 2001, p. 153). An example may help in interpreting the impact of this level. If a matched comparison
was made between a privately and publicly prison, for every 100 inmates in a privately managed prison who
received skills training there would be 104 from the public section. Does this level of advantage represent a
significant value? It depends on (a) the presumed or proven relationship between skills training and healthy
living and (b) the scope or number of prisoners affected. That is, does skills training result in lowered
recidivism, better employment, or fewer social and emotional difficulties? If there is a relationship, then the
value would be significant for the additional 4 inmates (per 100) and their families who received skills training.
The benefits to society as a whole would need to be considered in relation to the costs and benefits of skills
training. Unfortunately, our lack of expertise in this area limits our ability to comment authoritatively on these
issues. That said, our evidence suggests that the costs of publicly managed prisons is not statistically
different from privately managed systems. Thus, the 4% benefit in skills training may be free.
Pro teams eschew the need to weigh the positive externalities achieved by public prisons vs. their
additional costs if they can show these benefits as being, as indicated in this card, free.
Page 32 of 159
December 2014
Pro: Recidivism
The economic impacts of discouraging recidivism. DAT

Too Many laws, Too Many Prisoners. The Economist. 22 July 2010. Accessed
11/10/2014. Web. http://www.economist.com/node/16636027
Crime is a young man's game. Muggers over 30 are rare. Ex-cons who go straight for a few years generally
stay that way: a study of 88,000 criminals by Mr Blumstein found that if someone was arrested for
aggravated assault at the age of 18 but then managed to stay out of trouble until the age of 22, the risk of
his offending was no greater than that for the general population. Yet America's prisons are crammed with
old folk. Nearly 200,000 prisoners are over 50. Most would pose little threat if released. And since people age
faster in prison than outside, their medical costs are vast. Human Rights Watch, a lobby-group, talks of
nursing homes with razor wire.
Jail is expensive. Spending per prisoner ranges from $18,000 a year in Mississippi to about $50,000 in
California, where the cost per pupil is but a seventh of that. [W]e are well past the point of diminishing
returns, says a report by the Pew Center on the States. In Washington state, for example, each dollar invested
in new prison places in 1980 averted more than nine dollars of criminal harm (using a somewhat arbitrary scale
to assign a value to not being beaten up). By 2001, as the emphasis shifted from violent criminals to drugdealers and thieves, the cost-benefit ratio reversed. Each new dollar spent on prisons averted only 37 cents'
worth of harm.
The costs of imprisoning a human being, particularly an older one (which constitutes a greater percent of
returning criminals) are vast. This card is helpful for Pro teams who need to qualify the importance of
this entire section in context of a debate centered around multiple issues, particularly economic ones.
Page 33 of 159
December 2014
Pro: Recidivism
Corporations fully admit their profits depend on recidivism. DAT

Kirchhoff, Suzanne M. Economic Impacts of Prison Growth. Federation of American
Scientists. Congressional Research Service. 13 April 2010. Accessed 11/11/2014.
Web. http://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R41177.pdf
The Congressional Research Service (CRS) works exclusively for the United States
Congress, providing policy and legal analysis
Cornell Companies, one of the nations largest private prison firms, in releasing its fourth quarter 2009 earnings
report on February 24, 2010, noted mounting state budget pressures. But the firm said there was still sufficient
state and federal business to support growth.95 In its 2008 annual report, for example, Cornell said state and
federal authorities would need 35,000 to 40,000 beds annually for the next few years, while only about 12,000
to 15,000 a year were in the pipeline. The company also predicted that the weak economy would make it harder
for individuals released from prison to find work and avoid situations that could lead them back into
confinement:
At core, demand for beds results from high rates of recidivism among released offenders and an
increasing length of sentence for those repeat offenders. Recidivism itself is highly correlated with
employment opportunities for offenders; getting a job helps keep an exoffender straight.
Moreover, the probability of employment for an ex-offender increases substantially with in-prison
programs for adult basic education, substance abuse treatment and vocational training followed by reentry via a halfway house program. Unfortunately, in this economy, these factors, unemployment
and budget cuts to those in-prison treatment, education and vocational programs, lead one to
conclude that demand for prison beds will likely remain strong, while the ability of government
agencies to build their own beds remains constrained. As an industry, private corrections can provide
beds quickly and cost effectively.96
There is a clear conflict of interest between companies, responsible to investors to guarantee profits, and
the people they help incarcerate.
Page 34 of 159
December 2014
Pro: Recidivism
Private prisons internally lengthen sentence times.

Private prisons are encouraged to increase sentence times on a per-inmate basis. DAT
Dolovich, Sharon. State Punishment and Private Prisons. Duke Law Journal. Duke
University. December 2005. Accessed 11/11/2014. Web.
http://scholarship.law.duke.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1274&context=dlj
Sharon Dolovich is a Professor of Law at the UCLA School of Law.
Take, for example, the disciplinary context. Discipline in prisons is kept by guards, who have authority to
write upthat is, to issue disciplinary tickets (D-tickets) toinmates caught violating prison regulations.
Following the receipt of a D-ticket, the inmate will be called to a hearing (D-hearing), at which time evidence
may be entered and testimony heard and after which the hearing officer will issue the verdict and pronounce
sentence.317 Depending on the infraction, penalties may include revocation of good-time credits318 and
thus the extension of the inmates term of incarceration.319
Because inmates have no right of counsel at D-hearings,320 it is generally their word against that of the guard
who wrote up the infraction. Under such circumstances, even in the public sector, the inmate is at a considerable
disadvantage: given the solidarity among corrections officers, which can frequently devolve into a mentality of
us against them,321 the hearing officers sympathies tend to lie with the disciplining officer. When the
facility is run by a private, forprofit corporation, the worry is that the process will be skewed even more
strongly against the inmate. The guard writing up the infraction, and in many cases the hearing officer as
well, will be employed by a corporation with a direct financial stakeindeed, a paramount interestin
maintaining a high occupancy rate.322 This arrangement raises the concern that official testimony and
judgments rendered at D-hearings will not reflect the treatment that the inmates deserve or that is consistent
with the states interest in imposing only legitimate punishments, but will instead reflect the financial interests
of the company running the prison.323
Private prisons can thus dictate their own profits by retaining prisoners for as long as their sentences can
possibly allow.
Page 35 of 159
December 2014
Pro: Recidivism
Profit-driven practices can deter inmates from getting paroled. DAT

The same can be said for parole decisions. In the decision of any parole board, the inmates disciplinary record
while in prison carries great weight. Indeed, in many cases, prison officials are called upon to provide parole
boards with testimony [and] parole recommendations.324 Again, the worry is that private contractors
financial interest in the outcome of parole proceedings may impair private officials objectivity in a
way that yields parole denials for otherwise qualified inmates.325
Little study has been made of this aspect of private prison life, and as a result little definitive proof exists of
widespread abuses of discretion of the type just postulated.326 Given the demands of the integrity condition,
however, to raise a salient parsimony concern it is not necessary to have definitive empirical proof that the
feared abuses have in fact taken place. It is enough that the policies in question create an appreciable risk
that illegitimate interests will affect the nature and scope of punishments imposed by the state.
The harm is already in the fact that there is an active motivation to deny human beings freedom from
imprisonment.
Page 36 of 159
December 2014
Pro: Legally unrestrained
Private Prisons are Legally Unrestrained

Federal prisoners cannot bring civil rights suits against private prisons. DAT
Palta, Rina. Why For-Profit Prisons House More Inmates of Color. npr.org. 13 March
2014. Accessed 3 November 2014. Web.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/codeswitch/2014/03/13/289000532/why-for-profit-prisonshouse-more-inmates-of-color
Federally contracted facilities also come with their own baggage and civil rights questions.
Federal prisoners in public facilities, as well as state prisoners in private and public facilities, have the right to
bring lawsuits based on alleged civil rights violations. This means state inmates in California could sue the state
prison system for providing inadequate health care. Arizona inmates in a private facility could do the same
against the private corporation that owns their prison and against the state of Arizona.
However, federal prisoners in private prisons cannot bring such lawsuits, according to a recent U.S.
Supreme Court ruling.
A prisoner of this status could sue for actual damages but could not bring a civil rights suit against a
private prison the kind of suit that usually forces major changes in how prisons operate in the public
sphere.
The implication here is that federally-contracted private prisons can act with an extra layer of impunity,
since their actions cannot be challenged with civil rights suits by the prisoners they house.
Page 37 of 159
December 2014
Family Blames Private Prison for Death of Inmate. PSM

Allen, Ginger. "Another Family Blames Dawson State Jail For Inmate Death." . CBS
DFW, 14 Jun 2012. Web. 2 Nov 2014. <http://dfw.cbslocal.com/2012/06/14/anotherfamily-blames-dawson-state-jail-for-inmate-death/>.
I thought all she needed was medication, and all my daughter needed was antibiotics, said Reni Palmer,
Parks mother.
Parks family blames the staff at Dawson State Jail for not recognizing Ashleighs illness sooner. They
say they filed a lawsuit but later dropped it.
The medical personnel in ICU told me there was basically nothing they could do for her. And these are the
people at the hospital (who) told us that the prison killed my sister, said Grady. His anger and grief was
renewed in April when he saw a CBS 11 investigation which raised troubling questions about a lack of
medical care at Dawson State Jail.
In our previous report, CBS 11 spoke with the family of Pam Weatherby, an inmate who died while serving a one
year sentence for drug possession. Weatherbys parents believe their daughter didnt receive adequate treatment
for her diabetes while in jail.
Anne Roderick, another inmate, said Weatherby was very ill, but no one moved her from her cell from for
medical treatment. Roderick claims the inmates tried desperately to keep Weatherby alive.
Nearly 20 former inmates have also contacted CBS 11 saying they were afraid to talk when they were at
Dawson but now want to speak out about a lack of medical care.
Dawson State Jail is run by Corrections Corporation of America, a private prison management company
based in Tennessee that has a contract with the State of Texas.
CBS 11 obtained internal CCA documents that show the chief of security reported that the supervisors did not
follow proper procedures by failing to call for help for Pam Weatherby.
He recommended terminating a shift supervisor. But when CCA had to file an incident report with the State of
Texas, the warden wrote staff acted in accordance with TDCJ procedure and concluded that no training
needs have been identified.
When contacted about Ashleigh Parks death and other issues for this story, CCA reiterated that it is not
the health care provider at Dawson State Jail, and did not comment further concerning how its staff
handles inmates who complain of illness.
The public should be aware we are looking into it, said Rep. Jerry Madden (R Plano) who chairs the
Criminal Justice Board which oversees the state jails. Madden reviewed our findings. On the day we visited his
office, he worked to get more information from TDCJ.
If everything is true, there are things that need to be looked at, said Rep. Madden. His interest in the
investigation gives Ashleigh Parks family hope that the state will take action to ensure the safety of
inmates at Dawson State Jail.
Page 38 of 159
December 2014
Private contractors arent held accountable by the government or market forces. DAT
Mary Sigler, Private Prisons, Public Functions, and the Meaning of Punishment, 38 FLA.
ST. U. L. REV. 149 (2010). Accessed 11/11/2014. Web.
http://diginole.lib.fsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1106&context=fsulr
Mary Sigler is Associate Dean of Faculty and Professor of Law at Arizona State
Universitys Sandra Day OConnor College of Law.
The traditional market mechanisms for disciplining poor performance may not operate effectively in the private
prison setting. As an initial matter, the beneficiaries of the contractinmatesare not the purchasers of
prison services. Thus, unlike the market for private education, for example, where families can research
alternatives, make informed selections, and withdraw from unsatisfactory arrangements, inmates do not
have a say in the decision whether to enter or terminate a private prison contract. Although the same is
true when governments contract out for garbage collectionthe beneficiaries of the contract are not a
party to the contractdissatisfied citizens, unlike inmates, are in a strong political position to demand
improved service. Inmates, by contrast, are virtually powerless to effect change in the face of unsatisfactory
prison conditions. Most lack the basic right to vote; and in any case, they constitute an unpopular minority
without political influence or efficacy.
Even governments may not be well positioned to respond to noncompliance by private prison contractors.
Public officials dissatisfied with a contractors performanceor rate increasescannot realistically
cancel the contract before finding alternative placements for hundreds of inmates. The high start-up
costs for prison operations ensure that a relatively small number of players will (and do) dominate the
market, giving them considerable leverage when negotiating with governments desperate to place
inmates.60 Although a handful of states have canceled contracts for noncompliance, they appear reluctant to
rescind promptly even in cases of extreme inmate abuse.61
Between the lack of legal recourse mentioned previously and the logistically powerful positions
mentioned here, private prison corporations approach too big to fail status from both legal and
economic perspectives.
Page 39 of 159
December 2014
Private prisons inmates have unacceptably narrow constitutional rights. DAT

Arguably, any dangers private prison inmates face could be neutralized through lawsuits brought by them or on
their behalf. Not only might abused inmates thereby get a remedy, but the threat of lawsuits and the
accompanying possibility of major financial liability could provide incentives for private prison providers not to
cut corners in ways likely to harm inmates.161 However, given the current state of the relevant law, the
courts are not likely to provide a meaningful check on abuses in private prisons, notwithstanding the
Supreme Courts ruling denying private prison guards qualified immunity from Section 1983 actions.162
Apart from a brief period in the late 1960s and early 1970s, judicial attitudes toward challenges to prison
conditions have been marked by considerable deference to the judgment of prison officials.163 As a
consequence, the constitutional rights of inmates have been interpreted extremely narrowly.164 For this
reason, even instances of serious physical harm to inmates may not qualify for legal relief. Moreover, the
mechanisms through which private prison providers might seek to save money could combine with the
deferential standard of review under the Eighth Amendment to make it even less likely that private prison
inmates could make out a successful constitutional claim.
There is a legal distinction between the harms that can be judiciously addressed in private and public
prisons. For debaters wishing to get both legally and philosophically thorough treatment of the private
incarceration issue, we recommend reading the source material in full.
Page 40 of 159
December 2014
Case study: Eighth Amendment violations in private prisons. DAT

Consider, for example, the use of force by prison officials against prisoners. For an inmate to have a viable
Eighth Amendment claim against a prison official for use of excessive force, the inmate must show that the
prison official acted maliciously and sadistically, with the intention to cause harm.165 So long as the prison
official can make necessary, the prisoners claim will fail.166 For example, even assuming that the
corrections officers at a privately run jail in Brazoria, Texas, who forc[ed] prisoners to crawl, kicking
them and encouraging dogs to bite them,167 engaged in this abusive treatment because they were
insufficiently trained in less-abusive inmate control techniques, the prisoners themselves could have no
constitutional recourse so long as the guards could plausibly claim to have thought their actions
necessary to preserve internal order and discipline.168 Under these standards, private prison inmates
suffering harm traceable to contractors inadequate investment in labor are even less likely to recover than
public prison inmates: guards who are insufficiently trained may well resort to force more readily than guards
with adequate training and experience, motivated in doing so not by a malicious and sadistic desire to cause
harm, but by their own ignorance and fear.16
This card works well in tandem with evidence about private prison guards relative lack of experience.
Page 41 of 159
December 2014
Public prison officials have more legal leeway on whistleblowing. DAT

Headley, Andrea, and Jean-Claude Garcia-Zamor. The Privatization of Prisons and its
Impact on Transparency and Accountability in Relation to Maladministration.
International Journal of Humanities, Social Sciences and Education, Vol.1 No. 8.
August 2014. 11/11/2014. Web. http://www.arcjournals.org/pdfs/ijhsse/v1-i8/4.pdf
Jean-Claude Garcia-Zamor is a Professor in FIUs Department of Public Administration.
Notwithstanding the aforementioned issues within the public prison environment, there have been measures in
place to ensure that publicly operated facilities are accountable and that information is accessible. For instance,
there is the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), the Administrative Procedures Act (APA), the Government in
the Sunshine Act, and various other state stipulations on public access and public records laws. These acts have
all been established to provide better and more efficient access to information. In addition to these public access
laws, the Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act (CRIPA) was implemented to protect the civil rights of
those imprisoned in state and local institutions and allow intervention when necessary if any institutionalized
individual s rights are exploited. Unfortunately, private prisons are not subject to or covered under any of these
acts. This means that private prisons housing federal prisoners are neither required to report on what
goes on inside the facilities in regards to inmate incidences (such as inmate violence, rape, assault, death,
escapes, etc.), nor are ex-offenders given public access to their own records while detained within private
facilities (Treadwell, 2012).Moreover, under the Whistleblower Protection Act government employees are
afforded the right to report any form of misconduct or violation, without having to deal with any
repercussions from their employer, whereas private sector employees do not have such protection.
Theres essentially no legal mandate for transparency, which makes legal enforcement in federallycontracted prisons logistically impossible.
Page 42 of 159
December 2014
Pro: Reliance dangerous
Overreliance on Private Contractors is Dangerous

Too many agencies are reliant on the same contractor. DAT
The Department of Justices Reliance on Private Contractors for Prison Services.
justice.gov. United States Department of Justice. n.d. Accessed 3 November 2014.
Web. http://www.justice.gov/oig/reports/plus/a0116/final.pdf
Because of the cross-cutting nature of the DOJs use of private prison contractors, we believe the components
should also coordinate their efforts in developing contingency plans to prevent conflicts and duplication of
effort. The BOP, the INS, and the USMS rely on the same contractors for prison space and, in some cases,
are competing for the same resources. For example, CCA provides prison space for USMS prisoners in
17 of its facilities. INS prisoners are housed in at least 11 CCA facilities and BOP prisoners are housed in
4 facilities. Eight of the 24 CCA facilities used by the components are shared by more than one
component. Thus, a disruption of service from a single contractor could affect all three components.
Consequently, the components should coordinate the development of their plans to ensure that they do not
conflict with or duplicate one another.
Without coordination and oversight of contingency planning, there is an increased risk that any disruption of
contractor services would affect not only a single component but all three components, rendering the DOJs
reaction to a crisis ineffective. In a worse case scenario, the DOJ could find itself having to house
thousands of offenders throughout the country on a daily basis without any planning and without the
required resources to address the problem. Such a prospect raises serious public safety concerns, and we
believe that the DOJ should accelerate its contingency planning efforts accordingly.
INS: Immigration and Naturalization Service; BOP: Bureau of Prisons; USMS: U.S. Marshals Service.
Instead of each agency operating its own facilities, they all rely on the same pool of contractors and
facilities. While this increases economic efficiency, it does so at the expense of reliability and safety, which
are easy to prioritize as being more important.
Page 43 of 159
December 2014
States use private system more rapidly than federal system. ASF
Sabol, William J. PHD. Minton, Todd D. and Harrison, Paige M. BJS Statisticians.
"Prison and Jail Inmates at Midyear 2006" Bureau of Justice Statistics. March 12,
2008. http://www.floridatac.com/files/document/pjim06.pdf
On June 30, 2006, the number of State and Federal prisoners housed in private facilities reached 111,975, an
increase of 10,255 prisoners (or 10.1%) since midyear 2005. State prisoners held in private facilities
increased 12.9%; those under Federal jurisdiction increased 2.1%. The proportion of all prisoners under
State or Federal jurisdiction housed in privately operated facilities reached 7.2% at midyear 2006, up from
6.5% in 2003 (table 6).
Texas, Indiana, Colorado, and Florida accounted for more than half of the increase in prisoners held in private
facilities between midyear 2005 and 2006. With an additional 2,806 prisoners in private facilities, Texas
accounted for 27.3% percent of the total increase.
The Federal Government relies more on private prisons than State systems. ASF
Sabol, William J. PHD. Minton, Todd D. and Harrison, Paige M. BJS Statisticians.
"Prison and Jail Inmates at Midyear 2006" Bureau of Justice Statistics. March 12,
2008. http://www.floridatac.com/files/document/pjim06.pdf
For the 12 months ending June 30, 2006, State systems reported a larger increase than the Federal system
in the number of inmates housed in private prisons. State prisoners held in private prisons increased by
12.9% to reach 84,867. Federal prisoners in private facilities increased by 2.1% to reach 27,108. The Federal
system housed a larger share of prisoners in private facilities (14.2%) than the State systems (6.2%).
This is interesting to note because it expands the ground the affirmative can attack from. Normally the
contract argument works on the level of states sentencing their own prisoners of the state level judicial
system to facilities. Here we see that in actuality the Federal government can transfer them, and the
contract would still be fulfilled because the private prison and State just want to meet a quota, they dont
care where the prisoners come from.
Page 44 of 159
December 2014
Gladiator School and Idaho Correctional Centers Contracts. PSM

Stroud, Matt. "The Private Prison Bracket." . Politico, 24 02 2014. Web. 1 Nov 2014.
<http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/02/private-prison-racket103893.html
As inmate populations have soared over the last 30 years, private prisons have emerged as an appealing solution
to cash-starved states. Privately run prisons are cheaper and can be set up much faster than those run by the
government. Nearly a tenth of all U.S. prisoners are housed in private prisons, as are almost two-thirds of
immigrants in detention centersand the companies that run them have cashed in. CCA, the oldest and largest
modern private prison company, took over its first facility in 1983. Now its a Wall Street darling with a market
cap of nearly $3.8 billion. Similarly, GEO Group, the second largest private-prison operator, last week
reported $1.52 billion in revenue for 2013.
But while privatizing prisons may appear at first glance like yet another example of how the free market
beats the public sector, one need only look at CCAs record in Idaho to wonder whether outsourcing this
particular government function is such a good idea.
In July 2000, Idahos then-Governor Dirk Kempthorne made a decision similar to Jerry Browns. He opened the
Idaho Correctional Center, the states first private prison. But it wasnt long before the facilitybuilt and
operated by CCAbegan to draw concerns. Prisoners in the 2,000-bed facility dubbed it Gladiator
School for the rampant fighting that took place inside. A 2008 study by the Idaho Department of
Corrections obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union showed that there were four times as many
prisoner-on-prisoner assaults there than in all the states seven other prisons combined.
The ACLU sued CCA in 2010, alleging that violence had become an epidemic in the facility, and the
Associated Press released a video showing a prisoner beaten unconscious while correctional officers stood
around watching. A 2011 settlement required CCA to keep more officers on staff, but the company apparently
didnt bother to do that. Last year, a review of CCAs staff records showed that prison employees had falsified
as many as 4,800 hours over the course of seven months; they had understaffed the prison on purpose and
fudged records. The end result: Idaho's private prison experiment with CCA will end in June.
Page 45 of 159
December 2014
Prison Privatization and Criticisms of Profiteering from Asylum Reforms. PSM

Tencer, Daniel. "Prison Privatization Canada: Refugee Asylum Reforms Will Benefit
Private Prison Companies, Critics Charge." . Huffington Post, 12 Mar 2012. Web. 1
Nov 2014. <http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2012/12/03/prison-privatization-canadarefugee-asylum_n_2232701.html>.
Critics of private detention centres point to the United States as a cautionary example of what can
happen when private companies build an industry out of detaining would-be immigrants.
The U.S. has seen an enormous boom in the portion of detention facilities being run for profit, with nearly half
of all detainee beds now in private hands, compared to around 10 per cent just a decade ago.
Over the past 10 years, the industrys largest U.S. companies spent some $45 million on lobbying and
campaign donations to ensure more business for themselves, the Associated Press reported. In that
time, immigrant and refugee detention reached record highs.
Federal officials have admitted that privately run facilities dont necessarily translate into lower bills for
taxpayers, the AP added.
The Harper government has moved cautiously on the issue of prison privatization, officially denying that it
plans to privatize federal facilities while at the same time meeting with lobbyists pushing for more private
involvement in prisons.
According to a report at CTV earlier this fall, the federal government hired auditor Deloitte & Touche to study
private prison models in seven foreign countries, to determine their relevancy to [the] Canadian market.
According to a report at Bloomberg, U.S. private prisons faced with shrinking prison budgets and hits to
their reputation at home are lobbying for work in Canada. Federal documents showed the Correctional
Service of Canada may consider contracting out some prison services.
The Guardian reported this past summer that two of the largest U.S. private prison operators Geo
Group and Management and Training Corp. (MTC) are lobbying Ottawa for business, and
representatives of Geo Group met with Public Safety Minister Vic Toews last year.
Page 46 of 159
December 2014
Private Prisons and Patronage by Governments. PSM

Krugman, Paul. "Prisons, Privatization, Patronage." . New York Times, 21 Jun 2012.
Web. 2 Nov 2014. <http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/22/opinion/krugman-prisonsprivatization-patronage.html?_r=2&>.
But if you think about it even for a minute, you realize that the one thing the companies that make up the
prison-industrial complex companies like Community Education or the private-prison giant Corrections
Corporation of America are definitely not doing is competing in a free market. They are, instead, living
off government contracts. There isnt any market here, and there is, therefore, no reason to expect any magical
gains in efficiency.
And, sure enough, despite many promises that prison privatization will lead to big cost savings, such savings
as a comprehensive study by the Bureau of Justice Assistance, part of the U.S. Department of Justice,
concluded have simply not materialized. To the extent that private prison operators do manage to
save money, they do so through reductions in staffing patterns, fringe benefits, and other labor-related
costs.
So lets see: Privatized prisons save money by employing fewer guards and other workers, and by paying
them badly. And then we get horror stories about how these prisons are run. What a surprise!
So whats really behind the drive to privatize prisons, and just about everything else?
One answer is that privatization can serve as a stealth form of government borrowing, in which governments
avoid recording upfront expenses (or even raise money by selling existing facilities) while raising their long-run costs in
ways taxpayers cant see. We hear a lot about the hidden debts that states have incurred in the form of pension liabilities;
we dont hear much about the hidden debts now being accumulated in the form of long-term contracts with private
companies hired to operate prisons, schools and more.
Another answer is that privatization is a way of getting rid of public employees, who do have a habit of
unionizing and tend to lean Democratic in any case.
But the main answer, surely, is to follow the money. Never mind what privatization does or doesnt do to state
budgets; think instead of what it does for both the campaign coffers and the personal finances of politicians and their
friends. As more and more government functions get privatized, states become pay-to-play paradises, in which both
political contributions and contracts for friends and relatives become a quid pro quo for getting government business. Are
the corporations capturing the politicians, or the politicians capturing the corporations? Does it matter?
Now, someone will surely point out that nonprivatized government has its own problems of undue
influence, that prison guards and teachers unions also have political clout, and this clout sometimes
distorts public policy. Fair enough. But such influence tends to be relatively transparent. Everyone knows about those
arguably excessive public pensions; it took an investigation by The Times over several months to bring the account of
New Jerseys halfway-house-hell to light.
The point, then, is that you shouldnt imagine that what The Times discovered about prison privatization
in New Jersey is an isolated instance of bad behavior. It is, instead, almost surely a glimpse of a pervasive
and growing reality, of a corrupt nexus of privatization and patronage that is undermining government
across much of our nation.
Page 47 of 159
December 2014
Outsourcing of Prison Health Care to Private Companies. PSM

Kutscher, Beth. "Rumble over jailhouse healthcare." . Modern Healthcare, 31 Aug. 2013.
Web. 2 Nov 2014.
<http://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20130831/magazine/308319891>.
Healthcare services in Florida's prisons are undergoing a big overhaul this summer as the state hands over care
for its more than 100,000 inmates to a private company.
The beneficiary of the five-year, $230 million contractpushed through by Republican Gov. Rick Scott, the
former Columbia/HCA leader who is a strong advocate of privatizationis a private equity-backed company
called Corizon, the nation's largest private prison healthcare provider.
Corizon's contract in Floridawhich came after a lengthy legal fight by two labor unions to block the
state's attempt to privatize prison servicesfollows its winning a five-year contract in February to serve
34,000 inmates in 10 Arizona facilities. The prison healthcare provider essentially serves as the HMO for a
captive patient population.We're definitely growing here, said Rich Hallworth, CEO of Brentwood, Tenn.based Corizon and former chief operating officer of Tufts Health Plan in Boston.
The company's expansion in Florida is part of the broader, and controversial, movement by state and
local governments to outsource prison healthcare to private contractors. About 20 states reportedly have
outsourced all or part of their prison healthcare to vendors to cut costs. While hard data are not available on the
prevalence of privatization, Dr. Marc Stern of the University of Washington, who formerly served as medical
director of that state's corrections department, estimated that half of all state and local prisons and jails have
outsourced healthcare services, and that these contracts are worth roughly $3 billion a year.
There is debate, however, about whether outsourcing actually saves money for corrections agencies. And
the growth of private prison healthcare providers has fueled sharp criticism from prisoner advocates and
legal aid groups that warn of a negative effect on quality of care, and from labor unions that see union
jobs going to nonunionized private-sector contractors.
Powerful political and ideological pressures drive decisions about the provision of healthcare to prisoners. For
one thing, it's hard for governors and state legislatures to support higher spending and better quality for inmates'
care because of the punitive public attitudes toward prisoners. Some question why prisoners should receive
healthcare at all.
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December 2014
Pro: Quotas hurt
Quotas Hurt Inmates and Taxpayers

Lockup Quotas AMS
September 23, 2013.
http://www.salon.com/2013/09/23/6_shocking_revelations_about_how_private_priso
ns_make_money_partner/
Salon magazine provides news and expert opinions on the most relevant stories and
current issues. It has been nominated for the National Magazine Award.
A new report from In the Public Interest (ITPI) revealed last week that private prison companies are striking
deals with states that contain clauses guaranteeing high prison occupancy rates. The report, Criminal: How
Lockup Quotas and Low-Crime Taxes Guarantee Profits for Private Prison Corporations, documents the
contracts exchanged between private prison companies and state and local governments that either
guarantee prison occupancy rates (essentially creating inmate lockup quotas) or force taxpayers to pay
for empty beds if the prison population decreases due to lower crime rates or other factors (essentially
creating low-crime taxes).
Some of these contracts require 90 to 100 percent prison occupancy.
Page 49 of 159
December 2014
Pro: Quotas hurt
Occupancy Requirements Hurt Economies AMS

September 23, 2013.
http://www.salon.com/2013/09/23/6_shocking_revelations_about_how_private_prisons_make_money_par
tner/
Salon Magazine is a respected source on current issues. The magazine strives to

present new evidence and expert opinions. Salon Magazine has been nominated for
the National Magazine Award.
Here are six of the most shocking facts about prison privatization and corporatization, from the report.
65 percent of the private prison contracts ITPI received and analyzed included occupancy guarantees in
the form of quotas or required payments for empty prison cells (a low-crime tax). These quotas and lowcrime taxes put taxpayers on the hook for guaranteeing profits for private prison corporations.
Occupancy guarantee clauses in private prison contracts range between 80% and 100%, with 90% as the most
frequent occupancy guarantee requirement.
Arizona, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Virginia are locked in contracts with the highest occupancy
guarantee requirements, with all quotas requiring between 95% and 100% occupancy.
Though crime has dropped by a third in the past decade, an occupancy requirement covering three for-profit
prisons has forced taxpayers in Colorado to pay an additional $2 million.
Three Arizona for-profit prison contracts have a staggering 100% quota, even though a 2012 analysis
from Tucson Citizen shows that the companys per-day charge for each prisoner has increased an
average of 13.9% over the life of the contracts.
A 20-year deal to privately operate the Lake Erie Correctional Institution in Ohio includes a 90% quota, and has
contributed to cutting corners on safety, including overcrowding, areas without secure doors and an increase in
crime both inside the prison and in the surrounding community.
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December 2014
Pro: Oppose public interest
Private Prisons Oppose the Public Interest

Private contractors have a vested interest in retaining their own importance. DAT
The Perverse Incentives of Private Prisons. The Economist. 24 August 2010. Accessed 3
November 2014. Web.
http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2010/08/private_prisons
From an economic point of view, we should expect firms that compete for and rely on government contracts,
such as weapons manufacturers and prison operators, to maximise the spread between the amount billed and the
actual cost of delivering the service. If contractors can get away with providing less value for money than
would the government-run alternative, they will. Moreover, contractors have every incentive to make
themselves seem necessary. It is well-known that public prison employee unions constitute a powerful
constituency for tough sentencing policies that lead to larger prison populations requiring additional
prisons and personnel. The great hazard of contracting out incarceration "services" is that private firms may
well turn out to be even more efficient and effective than unions in lobbying for policies that would increase
prison populations.
When we add to the mix the observations that America already puts a larger proportion of its population behind
bars than does any other country (often for acts that ought to be legal), and that the US already spends an insane
portion of national income on the largely non-productive garrison state, it is hard to see the expansion of a
for-profit industry with a permanent interest in putting ever more people in cages as consistent with
either efficiency or justice.
At some point in the debate, an explicit valuation of prison functions needs to be made. While prisons are
meant to house people efficiently, the most efficient way to do so would be the minimization of people
being imprisoned to begin with. With an interest in maximizing their populations, private prisons do not
fulfill this imperative.
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December 2014
Private Prison Contracts and Mass Incarcerations. PSM

Bowling, Julia. "Do Private Prison Contracts Fuel Mass Incarceration?." . Brennan
Center for Justice, 20 09 2013. Web. 1 Nov 2014.
<http://www.brennancenter.org/blog/do-private-prison-contracts-fuel-massincarceration>.
Private prisons have weathered a wave of criticism recently, as revelations about their poor security and lack of
oversight have gone public. Now, a new report from In the Public Interest confirms that government contracts
with private prisons not only fleece the taxpayer, but often create perverse financial incentives for states to
lock up more people.
The study examined 62 private prisons contracts in 21 states. It found that the majority of these contracts
guarantee that the state will supply enough prisoners to keep between 80 and 100 percent of the private
prisons beds filled. If the state fails to fulfill this bed guarantee, it must pay a fine to the company running
the prisons in effect, paying for each prison bed regardless of whether it holds a prisoner. This incentivizes
states to send prisoners to private prisons rather than state-run prisons in order to meet the bed guarantee,
regardless of the prisons distance from families, their security level, or health conditions.
In effect, this bed guarantee payment structure penalizes taxpayers for low incarceration rates. This is a
system that hurts both taxpayer and prisoner. Bed guarantees funnel taxpayer money into private prison
profits at a time when states should see overall cost savings from successful attempts at curbing crime. Instead,
when states reduce incarceration rates below lockup quotas, they compensate companies lost revenue at the per
day rate, adding up to millions of dollars in fines.
Under basic economic principles, firms that compete for and rely on government contracts want to decrease
their costs while maximizing their revenue. Private prison companies are no exception they reduce costs by
cutting reentry and educational programs that would help reduce recidivism, and raise revenue by keeping
government funding consistent through lockup quotas. Unsurprisingly, many private prison companies
actually lobby for harsh criminal justice policies like mandatory minimums and truth-in-sentencing laws
and against efforts to reduce mass incarceration.
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December 2014
Criticism of Corrections Corporation of America. PSM

Brogdon, Louie. "Critics point finger at CCA: For-profit prison operator taken to task for
campaign giving, operations." . Times Free Press, 05 May 2014. Web. 2 Nov 2014.
<http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/2014/may/05/critics-point-finger-at-ccaforprofit-prison/?breakingnews>.
The American Civil Liberties Union has started a statewide campaign against the largest private prison
company in the nation, but county officials say there's no plan to end a 30-year-old local contract with
Corrections Corporation of America.
Nashville-based CCA is a private company that contracts with governments throughout the country to
operate prisons and correctional facilities. It is the largest private prison system nationwide, and the fifth
largest prison system in the country -- behind only the federal government and three states.
Securities and Exchange Commission reports show the company had net income of $157 million in 2010, with
$1.6 billion in revenue. The company detains 70,000 inmates in more than 60 facilities and can
accommodate up to 80,000, according to the company. It runs six prisons in Tennessee, and has operated
Hamilton County's Silverdale facility -- now at 1,062 beds -- since 1984.
ACLU of Tennessee says CCA has broken its pledge to run jails better, and cheaper, than government. It also
criticizes the company for trying to direct politics through lobbying, litigation and campaign contributions.
"Government has an interest, for a number of reasons, for reducing recidivism, but CCA has interests in
ensuring their facilities are full," said Hedy Weinberg, ACLU of Tennessee's executive director.
Weinberg said for-profit corporations shouldn't be in the business of limiting people's freedoms, because
the business model inherently runs counter to the public's interest.
"Risk factors for their business include reductions in crime rates, lower minimum sentences for nonviolent drug
charges and cost-saving measures like greater use of probation and electronic monitoring," Weinberg said.
All of those measures would reduce the number of people locked up, and save tax dollars, she said.
In its Form 10-K annual report filed in 2012 with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, CCA stated it
does not engage in "lobbying or advocacy efforts that would influence enforcement efforts, parole standards,
criminal laws, and sentencing policies."
But Carl Takei, a staff attorney for the ACLU National Prison Project, wrote recently that, "The company
spends heavily on both campaign contributions and lobbying."
In 2011, Takei wrote, CCA gave $710,300 in political contributions to candidates for federal or state office,
political parties, and 527 groups (political action campaigns and super-political action campaigns). That same
year, CCA spent $1.07 million lobbying federal officials and an undisclosed amount lobbying state
officials.
Page 53 of 159
December 2014
Prison Industry and Big Businesses or New Form of Slavery. PSM

Pelaez, Vicky. "The Prison Industry in the United States: Big Business or a New Form of
Slavery?." . Center for Research on Globalization, 31 Mar 2014. Web. 2 Nov 2014.
<The Prison Industry in the United States: Big Business or a New Form of
Slavery?>.
Human rights organizations, as well as political and social ones, are condemning what they are calling a new
form of inhumane exploitation in the United States, where they say a prison population of up to 2 million
mostly Black and Hispanic are working for various industries for a pittance. For the tycoons who have
invested in the prison industry, it has been like finding a pot of gold. They dont have to worry about
strikes or paying unemployment insurance, vacations or comp time. All of their workers are full-time, and
never arrive late or are absent because of family problems; moreover, if they dont like the pay of 25 cents an
hour and refuse to work, they are locked up in isolation cells.
There are approximately 2 million inmates in state, federal and private prisons throughout the country.
According to California Prison Focus, no other society in human history has imprisoned so many of its own
citizens. The figures show that the United States has locked up more people than any other country: a half
million more than China, which has a population five times greater than the U.S. Statistics reveal that the
United States holds 25% of the worlds prison population, but only 5% of the worlds people. From less than
300,000 inmates in 1972, the jail population grew to 2 million by the year 2000. In 1990 it was one million.
Ten years ago there were only five private prisons in the country, with a population of 2,000 inmates;
now, there are 100, with 62,000 inmates. It is expected that by the coming decade, the number will hit
360,000, according to reports.
What has happened over the last 10 years? Why are there so many prisoners?
The private contracting of prisoners for work fosters incentives to lock people up. Prisons depend on this
income. Corporate stockholders who make money off prisoners work lobby for longer sentences, in order to
expand their workforce. The system feeds itself, says a study by the Progressive Labor Party, which accuses
the prison industry of being an imitation of Nazi Germany with respect to forced slave labor and concentration
camps.
The prison industry complex is one of the fastest-growing industries in the United States and its investors are on
Wall Street. This multimillion-dollar industry has its own trade exhibitions, conventions, websites, and
mail-order/Internet catalogs. It also has direct advertising campaigns, architecture companies, construction
companies, investment houses on Wall Street, plumbing supply companies, food supply companies, armed
security, and padded cells in a large variety of colors.
According to the Left Business Observer, the federal prison industry produces 100% of all military helmets,
ammunition belts, bullet-proof vests, ID tags, shirts, pants, tents, bags, and canteens. Along with war supplies,
Page 54 of 159
December 2014
prison workers supply 98% of the entire market for equipment assembly services; 93% of paints and
paintbrushes; 92% of stove assembly; 46% of body armor; 36% of home appliances; 30% of
headphones/microphones/speakers; and 21% of office furniture. Airplane parts, medical supplies, and
much more: prisoners are even raising seeing-eye dogs for blind people.
CRIME GOES DOWN, JAIL POPULATION GOES UP
According to reports by human rights organizations, these are the factors that increase the profit potential for
those who invest in the prison industry complex:
Jailing persons convicted of non-violent crimes, and long prison sentences for possession of microscopic
quantities of illegal drugs. Federal law stipulates five years imprisonment without possibility of parole for
possession of 5 grams of crack or 3.5 ounces of heroin, and 10 years for possession of less than 2 ounces of
rock-cocaine or crack. A sentence of 5 years for cocaine powder requires possession of 500 grams 100
times more than the quantity of rock cocaine for the same sentence. Most of those who use cocaine powder are
white, middle-class or rich people, while mostly Blacks and Latinos use rock cocaine. In Texas, a person may
be sentenced for up to two years imprisonment for possessing 4 ounces of marijuana. Here in New York, the
1973 Nelson Rockefeller anti-drug law provides for a mandatory prison sentence of 15 years to life for
possession of 4 ounces of any illegal drug.
Page 55 of 159
December 2014
Profitability of Halfway Houses and Prisons. PSM

Dolnick, Sam. "As Escapees Stream Out, a Penal Business Thrives." . New York Times,
12 Jun 2012. Web. 2 Nov 2014. <http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/17/nyregion/innew-jersey-halfway-houses-escapees-stream-out-as-a-penal-businessthrives.html?_r=2>.
After decades of tough criminal justice policies, states have been grappling with crowded prisons that are
straining budgets. In response to those pressures, New Jersey has become a leader in a national movement
to save money by diverting inmates to a new kind of privately run halfway house.
At the heart of the system is a company with deep connections to politicians of both parties, most notably
Gov. Chris Christie.
Many of these halfway houses are as big as prisons, with several hundred beds, and bear little resemblance to
the neighborhood halfway houses of the past, where small groups of low-level offenders were sent to straighten
up.
New Jersey officials have called these large facilities an innovative example of privatization and have
promoted the approach all the way to the Obama White House.
Yet with little oversight, the states halfway houses have mutated into a shadow corrections network,
where drugs, gang activity and violence, including sexual assaults, often go unchecked, according to a 10month investigation by The New York Times.
Perhaps the most unsettling sign of the chaos within is inmates ease in getting out.
Since 2005, roughly 5,100 inmates have escaped from the states privately run halfway houses, including
at least 1,300 in the 29 months since Governor Christie took office, according to an analysis by The
Times.
Some inmates left through the back, side or emergency doors of halfway houses, or through smoking areas,
state records show. Others placed dummies in their beds as decoys, or fled while being returned to prison for
violating halfway houses rules. Many had permission to go on work-release programs but then did not return.
While these halfway houses often resemble traditional correctional institutions, they have much less
security. There are no correction officers, and workers are not allowed to restrain inmates who try to
leave or to locate those who do not come back from work release, the most common form of escape. The
halfway houses only recourse is to alert the authorities.
And so the inmates flee in a steady stream: 46 last September, 39 in October, 40 in November, 38 in December,
state records show.
The system is a mess, said Thaddeus B. Caldwell, who spent four years tracking down halfway house
escapees in New Jersey as a senior corrections investigator. No matter how many escaped, no matter how
many were caught, no matter how many committed heinous acts while they were on the run, they still kept
releasing more guys into the halfway houses, and it kept happening over and over again.
Page 56 of 159
December 2014
Larger Inmate Prison is Boon to Private Prisons. PSM

Chen, Stephanie. "Larger Inmate Population Is Boon to Private Prisons." . The Wall
Street Journal, 19 Nov. 2008. Web. 2 Nov 2014.
<http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB122705334657739263?mg=reno64wsj&url=http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122705334657739263.html>.
Prison companies are preparing for a wave of new business as the economic downturn makes it increasingly
difficult for federal and state government officials to build and operate their own jails.
The Federal Bureau of Prisons and several state governments have sent thousands of inmates in recent
months to prisons and detention centers run by Corrections Corp. of America, Geo Group Inc. and other
private operators, as a crackdown on illegal immigration, a lengthening of mandatory sentences for certain
crimes and other factors have overcrowded many government facilities.
Prison-policy experts expect inmate populations in 10 states to have increased by 25% or more between
2006 and 2011, according to a report by the nonprofit Pew Charitable Trusts.
Some groups accuse the private prisons of neglecting inmates or of putting them in bad conditions. "Profit is
still a motive and it's structured into the way these prisons are operated," says Judy Greene, a justicepolicy analyst for Justice Strategies, a nonprofit studying prison-sentencing issues and problems. "Just
because the system has expanded doesn't mean there is evidence that conditions have improved."
The American Civil Liberties Union has filed lawsuits involving several prison companies over the past
decade alleging poor treatment of inmates. Last year, the organization and other parties filed a lawsuit
against Corrections Corp. and the Department of Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement
arm in federal court in San Diego, alleging that the company was operating an overcrowded, unsafe immigrantdetention center in that city. Detainees were routinely assigned in groups of three to sleep in two-room cells -meaning one had to sleep on the floor near the toilet -- or to temporary beds in recreation rooms and other
common spaces, according to the complaint. The suit also alleged that detainees had little access to mentalhealth care.
"We have serious concerns about for-profit prison companies because they are notorious for cutting
essential costs that need to be provided to maintain a safe and constitutional environment for prisoners,"
says Jody Kent, a public-policy coordinator for the ACLU's National Prison Project.
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December 2014
Jailing Americans for Profit. PSM

Whitehead, John. "Jailing Americans for Profit: The Rise of the Prison Industrial
Complex." . The Huffington Post, 06 Oct 2012. Web. 2 Nov 2014.
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-w-whitehead/prisonprivatization_b_1414467.html>.
Consider this: despite the fact that violent crime in America has been on the decline, the
nation's incarceration rate has tripled since 1980. Approximately 13 million people are introduced
to American jails in any given year. Incredibly, more than six million people are under "correctional
supervision" in America, meaning that one in fifty Americans are working their way through the prison
system, either as inmates, or while on parole or probation. According to the Federal Bureau of Prisons, the
majority of those being held in federal prisons are convicted of drug offenses -- namely, marijuana.
Presently, one out of every 100 Americans is serving time behind bars.
Little wonder, then, that public prisons are overcrowded. Yet while providing security,
housing, food, medical care, etc., for six million Americans is a hardship for cash-strapped
states, to profit-hungry corporations such as Corrections Corp of America (CCA) and GEO
Group, the leaders in the partnership corrections industry, it's a $70 billion gold mine. Thus, with an
eye toward increasing its bottom line, CCA has floated a proposal to prison officials in 48 states offering to
buy and manage public prisons at a substantial cost savings to the states. In exchange, and here's the
kicker, the prisons would have to contain at least 1,000 beds and states would have agree to
maintain a 90 percent occupancy rate in the privately run prisons for at least 20 years.
The problem with this scenario, as Roger Werholtz, former Kansas secretary of corrections, recognizes is
that while states may be tempted by the quick infusion of cash, they "would be obligated to maintain
these (occupancy) rates and subtle pressure would be applied to make sentencing laws
more severe with a clear intent to drive up the population." Unfortunately, that's exactly what
has happened. Among the laws aimed at increasing the prison population and growing the profit margins
of special interest corporations like CCA are three-strike laws (mandating sentences of 25 years to life for
multiple felony convictions) and "truth-in-sentencing" legislation(mandating that those sentenced to
prison serve most or all of their time).
And yes, in case you were wondering, part of the investment pitch for CCA and its cohort GEO Group
include the profits to be made in building "kindler, gentler" minimum-security facilities
designed for detaining illegal immigrants, especially low-risk detainees like women and children.
With immigration a persistent problem in the southwestern states, especially, and more than 250 such
detention centers going up across the country, there is indeed money to be made. For example, GEO's new
facility in Karnes County, Texas, boasts a "608-bed facility still smelling of fresh paint and new
carpet stretch[ing] across a 29-acre swath of farmland in rural South Texas. Rather than
prison cells, jumpsuits, and barbed wire fencing, detainees here will sleep in eight-bed
Page 58 of 159
December 2014
dormitory-style quarters, wearing more cozy attire like jeans and T-shirts. The facility's
high walls enclose lush green courtyards with volleyball courts, an AstroTurfed soccer
field, and basketball hoops, where detainees are free to roam throughout the day." All of
this, of course, comes at taxpayer expense.
"And this is where it gets creepy," observes reporter Joe Weisenthal for Business Insider, "because as an
investor you're pulling for scenarios where more people are put in jail." In making its pitch to potential
investors, CCA points out that private prisons comprise a unique, recession-resistant investment
opportunity, with more than 90 percent of the market up for grabs, little competition, high
recidivism among prisoners, and the potential for "accelerated growth in inmate
populations following the recession." In other words, caging humans for profit is a sure bet, because
the U.S. population is growing dramatically and the prison population will grow proportionally as well,
and more prisoners equal more profits.
No matter what the politicians or corporate heads might say, prison privatization is neither
fiscally responsible nor in keeping with principles of justice. It simply encourages
incarceration for the sake of profits, while causing millions of Americans, most of them
minor, nonviolent criminals, to be handed over to corporations for lengthy prison
sentences which do nothing to protect society or prevent recidivism. This perverse notion of
how prisons should be run, that they should be full at all times, and full of minor criminals, is evil.
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December 2014
Prisons are the Problem Not the Solution and Criticisms by ACLU. PSM
Winter, Margaret. "Private Prisons Are the Problem, Not the Solution." . American Civil
Liberties Union, 30 Apr 2012. Web. 3 Nov 2014.
<https://www.aclu.org/blog/prisoners-rights-criminal-law-reform/private-prisonsare-problem-not-solution>.
There's no question that GEO has been a bad actor in Mississippi, and richly deserves to be ousted: only last
month, a federal judge found that GEO's operation of the Walnut Grove Youth Correctional Facility,
which incarcerates teenagers as young as 13, has created "a picture of such horror as should be
unrealized anywhere in the civilized world," including a pattern of sexual abuse and severe beatings. The
judge also excoriated the Mississippi Department of Corrections for failing to monitor and halt GEO's abuses.
And teenagers aren't the only incarcerated population facing abuse in GEO's Mississippi facilities. At East
Mississippi Correctional Facility, the state's only prison for those who need treatment for mental illness, the
ACLU and SPLC have collected massive evidence that GEO has been starving the mentally ill prisoners,
denying them basic mental health care, punishing them with solitary confinement, and exposing them to
such systemic abuse and neglect that suicides and suicide attempts are rampant.
But there is no reason whatsoever to believe that the situation will be improved by replacing GEO with a
different prison profiteer. In fact, two other big private prison contractors Corrections Corporation of
America and Wexford are already operating the medical and mental health systems in some
Mississippi prisons, and the Department of Corrections is well aware that those private contractors are
providing abysmal care to prisoners with serious medical and mental health needs. The ACLU has painstakingly
documented Wexford and CCA's gross lack of regard for prisoner health; MDOC has long been on notice of
these deficiencies, some of which have resulted in deaths.
The root of the problem: all for-profit prison corporations are in the very business of generating the greatest
possible profits, by any means necessary. Providing safe and humane conditions of confinement to the human
beings in their custody is at best a distant secondary goal. The private prison industry has been a key
player over the past two decades in driving the explosion of mass incarceration in the U.S. Families,
communities and state and local government have suffered terribly from the mass incarceration binge; the only
clear winner is the private prison industry and its stockholders, making billions in revenues.
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December 2014
Wrongful Imprisonment in California AMS

Knafo, Saki and Kirkham, Chris. For-Profit Prisons Are Big Winners of California's
Overcrowding Problem. The Huffington Post. October 25, 2013.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/25/california-privateprison_n_4157641.html The Huffington Post is a popular site with news spanning a
broad spectrum of relevant political issues. The Huffington Post is currently ranked
number 1 among the U.S.s political sites
Advocates for prisoners' rights and their allies in the state legislature say that Brown's investments in the
private prison system could hamper efforts to change California's tough sentencing laws so that fewer
people go to prison in the first place.
"We keep sending more people to prison than the prisons can handle," said Donald Specter, who heads the
Prison Law Office, a Berkeley-based public interest firm.
The United States prison system needs real reform, not more expensive prisons.
Private Prison Industry Opposes Taxpayer Interests AMS

The interests of the private prison industry are diametrically opposed to those of taxpayers, corrections
professionals, and prisoners. Private prisons are a business; they exist to make money. If prisoners do not
reoffend, they no longer add to the companys profits.
The CCAs 2010 Annual Report acknowledges this, stating that, any changes with respect to drugs and
controlled substances or illegal immigration could affect the number of persons arrested, convicted, and
sentenced, thereby potentially reducing demand for correctional facilities to house them.
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December 2014
Economic Strain of CCA AMS

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/25/california-private-prison_n_4157641.html The Huffington
Post is a popular site with news spanning a broad spectrum of relevant political
issues. The Huffington Post is currently ranked number 1 among the U.S.s political
sites.
CCA alone holds more than 8,000 California inmates at facilities in Arizona, Mississippi and Oklahoma.
The company's new deal with California expands the state's prison capacity by an additional 2,300
prisoners, and California's contracts with the GEO Group add another 1,400. Along with an existing
private prison contract in the state, the new contracts bring California's total number of private-prison inmates to
about 12,300.
California is now CCA's second-biggest customer, providing $214 million to the company last year,
according to HuffPost's analysis of the company's finances. The state is surpassed only by the federal
government, which paid CCA $752 million last year, a figure that accounts for contracts with three agencies -the U.S. Marshals Service, the Federal Bureau of Prisons, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The state
of Georgia, the company's third-largest client, paid $99 million last year.
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December 2014
Pro: Growth despite critics
Growth of Private Prisons Despite Critics

Growth of Private Prisons Despite Criticisms. PSM
Cohn, Scott. "Private Prison Inudstry Grows Despite Critics." . NBC News, 18 10 2011.
Web. 1 Nov 2014. <http://www.nbcnews.com/id/44936562/ns/businesscnbc_tv/t/private-prison-industry-grows-despite-critics/
The Idaho Correctional Centerthe ICC was so violent that employees and inmates had a name for the
place: Gladiator School. That was because of the assaults, said Todd Goertzen, a former corrections counselor
at the prison. That's why they called it Gladiator School, because of that reason. If you're going to ICC, it's
going to be fight or die, basically.
This is the story of a dangerous business: the billions of dollars that flow into the American prison
industry and the companies that profit from it.
But a problem for some is an opportunity for others. Private prison companies are picking up the slack.
The more inmates or detainees they house, the more money they make. Private companies hold about
130,000 people, or 8 percent of American inmates. Thats nearly double the number from 10 years ago. Private
prisons are the future of the American penal system, according to Richard Harbison, an executive vice president
at LCS Corrections.
Private operators can design, build and operate a prison cheaper than the government, be it state or the
federal government, he said. They operate more efficiently. Lack of bureaucracy, if you will. Harbison
said the growth of privately managed prisons comes down to a matter of dollars and cents. If the public can get
the same services for less money, those are less taxes that you and I pay, he said. So yeah, they should be
concerned that they're getting what they're paying for. Keeping an inmate secure, keeping the public secure.
Like much about this industry, the numbers are fraught with controversy, and estimates as to how much money
privatization saves if any vary widely.
Other prisons are owned and operated by huge corporations. Unlike their public counterparts, theyre
accountable not just to the taxpayers but to shareholders, investors and hedge funds.
The two biggest prison companies, the GEO Group and the Corrections Corporation of America, bring
in more than $3 billion a year between them.
But private prisons have attracted legions of critics some from organized labor, since most private
prisons, unlike their public counterparts, are non-union. Others oppose the very idea of private prisons, perhaps
no one more vocally than Alex Friedmann, a writer and an editor of Prison Legal News, which has been
covering corrections for more than 20 years. Literally, you can put a dollar figure on each inmate that is
held at a private prison, he said. They are treated as commodities. And that's very dangerous and
troubling when a company sees the people it incarcerates as nothing more than a money stream.
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December 2014
Pro: Underperform
Private Prisons Underperform Against Public Prisons

Statistical Data on Performance of Private Prisons in Britain. PSM
VERKAIK, ROBERT . "Private prisons 'performing worse than state-run jails'." . The
Independent, 29 Jun 2009. Web. 2 Nov 2014.
<http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/private-prisons-performingworse-than-staterun-jails-1722936.html>.
Britain's private prisons are performing worse than those run by the state, according to data obtained under the
Freedom of Information Act.
The findings, based on the overall performances of 132 prisons in England and Wales, appear to undermine
claims by ministers that the greater use of private jails is raising standards for the accommodation of more than
83,000 prisoners held across both sectors.
Separate figures, also released under the right-to-know law, show that nearly twice as many prisoner complaints
are upheld in private prisons as they are in state-run institutions.
The Government is committed to building five more private prisons to accommodate the growing prison
population, which is predicted to rise to 96,000 by 2014. But the poor performance ratings among 40 per cent of
private prisons in England and Wales throw into question the cost savings and other benefits of using outside
businesses to tackle the prison crisis.
The data obtained by More4 News shows that four of the 10 private prisons scored the second lowest rating
of 2, "requiring development", and only one above an assessment of "serious concern."
The Ministry of Justice introduced the Prison Performance Assessment Tool (PPAT) last year, providing the
first direct comparison between public and private prisons.
It ranks the prisons out of four gradings using a wide range of measurements, including escapes, assaults
and rehabilitation. In the second quarter of last year, the average overall score for prisons in the private
sector was 2.7. For the 123 public sector prisons the average was 2.83.
In the following quarter this gap had widened to 2.6 and 2.85. This is a difference of almost 10 per cent. No
private prison attained the top mark of 4, defined as "exceptional performance."
There were also disparities in the number of complaints upheld in private and state-run prisons. Rye Hill Prison,
a private prison run by G4S, which has been a focus of particular criticism since it opened in 2001, saw a total
of 22 complaints, well above the average in both the public and private sectors.
Page 64 of 159
December 2014
Pro: Underperform
Exploring the Purported Cost Efficiency of Private Prisons. PSM

Smith, Adrian. "Private vs. Public Facilities, Is it cost effective and safe?." . Corrections,
06 Nov 2012. Web. 3 Nov 2014. <http://www.corrections.com/news/article/30903private-vs-public-facilities-is-it-cost-effective-and-safe->.
Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) has a capacity of more than 80,000 beds in 65 correctional
facilities. The GEO Group operates 61 facilities with a capacity of 49,000 offender beds.
Most privately run facilities are located in the southern and western portions of the United States and include
both state and federal offenders. Proponents of privately run prisons contend that cost-savings and
efficiency of operation place private prisons at an advantage over public prisons and support the
argument for privatization, but some research casts doubt on the validity of these arguments, as evidence
has shown that private prisons are neither demonstrably more cost-effective, nor more efficient than
public prisons. An evaluation of 24 different studies on cost-effectiveness revealed that, at best, results of the
question are inconclusive and, at worst, there is no difference in cost-effectiveness.
A study by the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics found that the cost-savings promised by private prisons have
simply not materialized. Some research has concluded that for-profit prisons cost more than public prisons.
Furthermore, cost estimates from privatization advocates may be misleading, because private facilities often
refuse to accept inmates that cost the most to house. A 2001 study concluded that a pattern of sending less
expensive inmates to privately-run facilities artificially inflated cost savings. A 2005 study found that
Arizonas public facilities were seven times more likely to house violent offenders and three times more
likely to house those convicted of more serious offenses.
Evidence suggests that lower staff levels and training at private facilities may lead to increases in incidences of
violence and escapes. A nationwide study found that assaults on guards by inmates were 49 percent more
frequent in private prisons than in government-run prisons. The same study revealed that assaults on
fellow inmates were 65 percent more frequent in private prison (Austin, Conventry, 2001).
After an complete analysis on private vs. public run correctional facilities, one may come to the conclusion that
private run facilities are no more cost saving effective or safer than a state run facility. We must ask
ourselves, is any monetary amount worth the lives of one of our own? The statistics are there, this profession
is tough enough, we should take pride of it and not risk the lives of our bravest officers just to attempt to
save the state a couple of dollars.
Page 65 of 159
December 2014
Pro: Failed instances
Failed Instances of Private Prisons

Failing Private Prisons in England. PSM
"Failing private prisons to be renationalised, says Labour." . The Guardian, 01 Jan 2014.
Web. 2 Nov 2014. <http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/jan/02/failing-privateprisons-to-be-renationalised-labour>.
Labour would take control of privately run prisons if their managers failed to meet a six-month "buck
up" deadline, the shadow justice secretary, Sadiq Khan, has said in the wake of a damning report on a flagship
jail run by G4S.
Tougher contracts would be negotiated, including stiffer financial penalties, after the chief inspector of
prisons reported that inmates find it easier at HMP Oakwood to get hold of illicit drugs than soap, Khan
said.
He accused Chris Grayling, the justice secretary, of a "catastrophic misjudgment" after he praised the
"supersized" 1,605-place Oakwood in Staffordshire as his favourite prison.
Nick Hardwick, the chief inspector of prisons, said in October that the first official inspection report into
Oakwood had shown that a retrieval plan for the prison was urgently needed. Hardwick said prison staff were
inexperienced and were so unwilling to challenge inmates that they came close to colluding.
In an unannounced two-week visit to the prison in June inspectors reported that "on more than one occasion we
were told by prisoners that you can get drugs here but not soap".
Khan said: "It's clearly not working at Oakwood. I can't remember a week going by without a disturbance, or a
damning inspection. I've actually been and seen at first hand the problems in the prison and I came away
really worried about conditions for prisoners and staff. As things stand, it's not delivering what the public
should expect of the millions being paid to G4S to run it."
The shadow justice secretary described Grayling as a "repeat offender" after he responded to the report by
describing Oakwood as a first-class facility. Graylingtold the Express & Star during a visit to Wolverhampton
in November: "It's a newly opened prison. Every new prison has teething problems, whether public or private. I
am very optimistic for Oakwood. It is a first-class facility. It is the most impressive set of facilities I have seen
on a prison estate. Clearly the management of the prison need to address the problems but it's a prison that will
be very good."
Khan said: "I'd have done things very differently than Chris Grayling. I'd have summoned in the
management of G4S and told them they've got six months to buck up their ideas or they're out. Simple as
that. If there's no improvement in six months, then I'd be prepared to take control of Oakwood prison
away from G4S back into the hands of the public sector.
Page 66 of 159
December 2014
"I'd do just the same for a failing public prison give them six months to sort themselves out, and if they
fail, impose new management that will sort it out. I see no difference whether the underperformance is in the
public, private or voluntary sector I'd apply the same laser zero tolerance. We shouldn't tolerate mediocrity in
the running of our prisons."
Construction started on the 180m Category C prison in 2009. The contract to run it was awarded to G4S by the
then justice secretary, Ken Clarke, in March 2011.
Khan said: "We can't go on with scandal after scandal, where the public's money is being squandered and
the quality of what's delivered isn't up to scratch. The government is too reliant on a cosy group of big
companies. The public are rightly getting fed up to the back teeth of big companies making huge profits out of
the taxpayer, which smacks to them of rewards for failure.
No More Privatization of Ohio Prisons. PSM

Lopez, German. "ODRC: No More Privatizing Ohio Prisons." . City Beat, 27 09 2012.
Web. 2 Nov 2014. <http://citybeat.com/cincinnati/blog-3981odrc_no_more_privatizing_ohio_prisons.html>.
The Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections (ODRC) on Tuesday said it will not seek further
privatization of state prisons. The announcement was made less than a week after CityBeat published an indepth story detailing the various problems posed by privatizing prisons (Liberty for Sale, issue of Sept. 19).
Gary Mohr, director of ODRC, made the announcement while talking to legislative reporting service Gongwer
in Columbus Tuesday.
We're going to stay the course on those (sentencing reforms) and I think privatizing additional prisons
would take away from that reform effort that we have, so I'm not anticipating privatizing any more
prisons in the short term here, he told Gongwer.
Ohio became the first state to sell one of its own prisons to a private prison company in 2011. The ACLU
criticized the move for its potential conflict of interest. The organization argued that the profit goal of private
prison companies, which make money by holding as many prisoners as possible, fundamentally contradicts the
public policy goal of keeping inmate reentry into prisons and prison populations as low as possible.
In his comments to Gongwer, Mohr said the state will now focus on lowering recidivism, not increasing
privatization: I don't think you can go through upheaval of a system and continue to put prioritization
on reform at the same time.
Page 67 of 159
December 2014
CCA Profits from California Taxpayers, Hurts California AMS

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/25/california-private-prison_n_4157641.html
The Huffington Post is a popular site with news spanning a broad spectrum of relevant
political issues. The Huffington Post is currently ranked number 1 among the U.S.s
political sites
Last week, Gov. Jerry Brown (D) signed a three-year deal to lease the CCA prison at $28.5 million per year.
The prison is currently occupied by federal inmates and operates at well under full capacity, according to recent
reports.
Along with two other private-prison deals inked by Brown in September with a different company, the GEO
Group, the move punctuates a period of extraordinary growth for the private prison industry in California.
Between 2008 and 2012, CCA's revenues in the state more than doubled, even as the company's growth
began to slow in other states throughout the country, according to a HuffPost analysis of the company's
annual financial documents.
California is a classic example of the problems with private prison systems. The state pumps millions into
the CCA prison system as more and more citizens are imprisoned each year. CCA occupancy
requirements encourage the California government to send more people to jailrather than fixing the
underlying problems with the United States prison system.
Page 68 of 159
December 2014
Youth Service's International Fails AMS

Krikham, Chris. Prisoners of Profit. The Huffington Post. October 22, 2013.
http://projects.huffingtonpost.com/prisoners-of-profit The Huffington Post is a
popular site with news spanning a broad spectrum of relevant political issues. The
Huffington Post is currently ranked number 1 among the U.S.s political sites.
Those held at YSI facilities across the country have frequently faced beatings, neglect, sexual abuse and
unsanitary food over the past two decades, according to a HuffPost investigation that included interviews with
14 former employees and a review of thousands of pages of state audits, lawsuits, local police reports and
probes by state and federal agencies. Out of more than 300 institutions surveyed, a YSI detention center in
Georgia had the highest rate of youth alleging sexual assaults in the country, according to a recent report by the
Bureau of Justice Statistics.
In Florida, where private contractors have in recent years taken control of all of the states 3,300 youth prison
beds, YSI now manages more than $100 million in contracts, about 10 percent of the system. Its facilities have
generated conspicuously large numbers of claims that guards have assaulted youth, according to a HuffPost
compilation of state reports. A YSI facility in Palm Beach County had the highest rate of reported sexual
assaults out of 36 facilities reviewed in Florida, the Bureau of Justice Statistics report found.
The states sweeping privatization of its juvenile incarceration system has produced some of the worst reoffending rates in the nation. More than 40 percent of youth offenders sent to one of Floridas juvenile
prisons wind up arrested and convicted of another crime within a year of their release, according to state
data. In New York state, where historically no youth offenders have been held in private institutions, 25
percent are convicted again within that timeframe.
Slattery and other Youth Services International executives declined interview requests over several months. In
an emailed response to written questions, a senior vice president, Jesse Williams, asserted that the company
carefully looks after its charges and delivers value to taxpayers.
Page 69 of 159
December 2014
Prisons Strive to Cut Costs at Inmates' Expense AMS

Experts say the continued growth of for-profit prison operators like Youth Services International amounts to a
cautionary tale about the perils of privatization: In a drive to cut costs, Florida has effectively abdicated its
responsibility for some of its most troubled children, leaving them in the hands of companies focused solely on
the bottom line.
One of the problems with private corrections is that you are trying to squeeze profit margins out of an
economic picture that doesnt allow for very much, said Bart Lubow, a leading juvenile justice expert
who heads the Annie E. Casey Foundations Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative. So you either
hire people for minimum wage who are afraid of the environment in which they work, or you dont feed
people properly. There are not a lot of margins.
Florida's Private Prisons Scandal AMS

Florida logs reports of serious incidents that occur inside its juvenile prisons, but the state does not maintain a
database that allows for the analysis of trends across the system. HuffPost obtained the documents through
Floridas public records law and compiled incident reports logged between 2008 and 2012. According to the
data, YSIs facilities generated a disproportionate share of reports of prison staff allegedly injuring youth
offenders by using excessive force.
Although YSI oversaw only about 9 percent of the states juvenile jail beds during the past five years, the
company was responsible for nearly 15 percent of all reported cases of excessive force and injured
youths.
In 2012, 23 incidents of excessive force were reported at YSI facilities. By comparison, G4S Youth Services
the states largest private provider of youth prison beds generated 21 such reports, despite overseeing nearly
three times as many beds.
Page 70 of 159
December 2014
Pro: Lobbying
Money Spent on Lobbying for Private Prisons

Prison Economics and Immigration Laws. PSM
Sullivan, Laura. "Prison Economics Help Drive Ariz. Immigration Law." . NPR, 28 Oct
2010. Web. 3 Nov 2014. <Prison Economics Help Drive Ariz. Immigration Law>.
The law could send hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants to prison in a way never done before. And it
could mean hundreds of millions of dollars in profits to private prison companies responsible for housing
them.
Arizona state Sen. Russell Pearce says the bill was his idea. He says it's not about prisons. It's about what's best
for the country.
"Enough is enough," Pearce said in his office, sitting under a banner reading "Let Freedom Reign." "People
need to focus on the cost of not enforcing our laws and securing our border. It is the Trojan horse
destroying our country and a republic cannot survive as a lawless nation."
But instead of taking his idea to the Arizona statehouse floor, Pearce first took it to a hotel conference room.
It was last December at the Grand Hyatt in Washington, D.C. Inside, there was a meeting of a secretive group
called the American Legislative Exchange Council. Insiders call it ALEC.
It's a membership organization of state legislators and powerful corporations and associations, such as the
tobacco company Reynolds American Inc., ExxonMobil and the National Rifle Association. Another member
is the billion-dollar Corrections Corporation of America the largest private prison company in the
country.
And this bill was an important one for the company. According to Corrections Corporation of America
reports reviewed by NPR, executives believe immigrant detention is their next big market. Last year, they wrote
that they expect to bring in "a significant portion of our revenues" from Immigration and Customs
Enforcement, the agency that detains illegal immigrants.
Page 71 of 159
December 2014
Pro: Lobbying
Private Prison Spend Millions on Lobbying to Increase Prison Population. PSM

Sanchez, Andrea. "Private Prisons Spend Millions On Lobbying To Put More People In
Jail." . Think Progress, 23 Jun 2011. Web. 3 Nov 2014.
<http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2011/06/23/251363/cca-geogroup-prisonindustry/>.
Yesterday, the Justice Policy Institute (JPI) released a report chronicling the political strategies of private
prison companies working to make money through harsh policies and longer sentences. The reports authors
note that while the total number of people in prison increased less than 16 percent, the number of people held in
private federal and state facilities increased by 120 and 33 percent, correspondingly. Government spending on
corrections has soared since 1997 by 72 percent, up to $74 billion in 2007. And the private prison industry
has raked in tremendous profits. Last year the two largest private prison companies Corrections
Corporation of America (CCA) and GEO Group made over $2.9 billion in revenue.
JPI claims the private industry hasnt merely responded to the nations incarceration woes, it has actively sought
to create the market conditions (ie. more prisoners) necessary to expand its business.
According to JPI, the private prison industry uses three strategies to influence public policy: lobbying, direct
campaign contributions, and networking. The three main companies have contributed $835,514 to federal
candidates and over $6 million to state politicians. They have also spent hundreds of thousands of dollars
on direct lobbying efforts. CCA has spent over $900,000 on federal lobbying and GEO spent anywhere
from $120,000 to $199,992 in Florida alone during a short three-month span this year. Meanwhile, the
relationship between government officials and private prison companies has been part of the fabric of the
industry from the start, notes the report. The cofounder of CCA himself used to be the chairman of the
Tennessee Republican Party.
The impact that the private prison industry has had is hard to deny. In Arizona, 30 of the 36 legislators who cosponsored the states controversial immigration law that would undoubtedly put more immigrants
behind bars received campaign contributions from private prison lobbyists or companies. Private prison
businesses been involved in lobbying efforts related to a bill in Florida that would require privatizing all of the
prisons in South Florida and have been heavily involved in appropriations bills on the federal level.
Tracy Velzquez, executive director of JPI recommends that we take a hard look at what the cost of this
influence is, both to taxpayers and to the community as a whole, in terms of the policies being lobbied for and
the outcomes for people put in private prisons.
Page 72 of 159
December 2014
Pro: Lobbying
Private Prisons Lobby for Harsher Sentences. PSM

Jacobsen, John. "Private Prisons Lobby for Harsher Sentences." . The Seattle Free Press,
16 May 2012. Web. 3 Nov 2014. <http://seattlefreepress.org/2012/05/16/privateprisons-lobby-for-harsher-sentences/>.
Over the past 15 years, the number of people held in all prisons in the United States has increased by 49.6
percent, while private prison populations have increased by 353.7 percent, according to recent federal statistics.
Meanwhile, in 2010 alone, the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) and the GEO Group, the two largest
private prison companies, had combined revenues of $2.9 billion. According to a report released today by the
Justice Policy Institute (JPI), not only have private prison companies benefitted from this increased
incarceration, but they have helped fuel it. Gaming the System: How the Political Strategies of Private Prison
Companies Promote Ineffective Incarceration Policies, examines how private prison companies are able to
wield influence over legislators and criminal justice policy, ultimately resulting in harsher criminal justice
policies and the incarceration of more people. The report notes a triangle of influence built on campaign
contributions, lobbying and relationships with current and former elected and appointed officials.
Through this strategy, private prison companies have gained access to local, state, and federal policymakers and
have back-channel influence to pass legislation that puts more people behind bars, adds to private prison
populations and generates tremendous profits at U.S. taxpayers expense.
For-profit companies exercise their political influence to protect their market share, which in the case of
corporations like GEO Group and CCA primarily means the number of people locked up behind bars, said
Tracy Velzquez, executive director of JPI. We need to take a hard look at what the cost of this influence
is, both to taxpayers and to the community as a whole, in terms of the policies being lobbied for and the
outcomes for people put in private prisons. That their lobbying and political contributions is funded by
taxpayers, through their profits on government contracts, makes it all the more important that people understand
the role of private prisons in our political system.
Page 73 of 159
December 2014
Pro: Lobbying
Prison for Profit May Indicate More Time Behind Bars. PSM
Small-Jordan, Dianne. "Its a Cell Block Life: Prison for Profit May Mean More Time
Behind Bars." . Decoded Science, 06 Apr 2014. Web. 3 Nov 2014.
<http://www.decodedscience.com/cell-block-life-prison-profit-may-mean-timebehind-bars/44271>.
This group has lobbyists as well as investors on Wall Street. According to Global Research, It is a
multimillion industry with its own trade exhibitions, conventions, websites and mail-order internet
catalogs. It also has direct advertising campaigns, architecture companies, construction companies,
investment houses on Wall Street, plumbing supply companies, food supply companies, armed security, and
padded cells in a large variety of colors.
Global Research also pointed out that one reason that there were so many prisoners in the system was the
private contracting of prisoners for work. Low-cost labor, with financial incentives for filled beds, gives
prisons an incentive to keep people locked up.
Private prisons receive a guaranteed amount of money for each prisoner, independent of what it costs to
maintain each individual. The two largest prison corporations are the Correctional Corporation of America
(CCA) and the GEO Group, Inc. who make billions of dollars in profit annually.
According to CNBC, there are more than 2.3 million people locked up. One out of 100 American is behind
bars and the private companies make a reported 74$billion dollars a year.
Contracts between the state and private prisons guarantee 80-100% occupancy. According to Julie Bowling
of the Brennan Center for justice, if the state is unable to supply enough prisoners to keep 80 to 100% of the
private prison beds filled for this bed guarantee then the state has to pay a fine for the empty bed.
In an annual report filed by the Securities and Exchange Commission, the second largest private prison
company, The GEO Group, Inc., stated The demand for our facilities and services could be adversely
affected by the relaxation of criminal enforcement efforts, leniency in conviction and sentencing practices, or
through the decriminalization of certain activities that are currently proscribed by criminal laws. For instance,
any changes with respect to the decriminalization of drugs and controlled substances or a loosening of
immigration laws could affect the number of persons arrested, convicted, sentenced and incarcerated, thereby
potentially reducing demand for correctional facilities to house them.
Florida State University (FSU) and the Florida Department of Corrections (FDOC) conducted a study, building
on various previous studies, based on four recidivism measures: subsequent arrest, felony convictions,
imprisonment for new offense and technical violation.
When FSU completed the study, based on the studies done at the Florida institutions, they concluded that there
was some relationship between private prisons and lower recidivism rates when the inmates were enrolled in
academic vocational and substance abuse programming which could affect the outcome of the studies. There
has been no empirical data to date that private prisons reduce recidivism.
Page 74 of 159
December 2014
Pro: Lobbying
Corruption in Private Prisons AMS

Even as reports of negligence and poor treatment of inmates have piled up, his companies have kept their
records clean by habitually pulling out of contracts before the government takes official action, HuffPost found.
In Florida, his companies have exploited lax state oversight while leaning on powerful allies inside the
government to keep the contracts flowing. Slattery, his wife, Diane, and other executives have been prodigious
political rainmakers in Florida, donating more than $400,000 to state candidates and committees over the last 15
years, according to HuffPosts review. The recipient of the largest share of those dollars was the Florida
Republican Party, which took in more than $276,000 in that time. Former Florida Senate President Mike
Haridopolos, an avid supporter of prison privatization, received more than $15,000 from company
executives during state and federal races.
Private Prisons Sway Lobbyists AMS

Page 75 of 159
December 2014
Pro: Lobbying
Private prison companies use economic leverage in smaller elections. DAT

Gaming the System: How the Political Strategies of Private Prison Companies Promote
Ineffective Incarceration Policies. justicepolicy.org. Justice Policy Institute. June
2011. Accessed 11/10/2014. Web.
http://www.justicepolicy.org/uploads/justicepolicy/documents/gaming_the_system.p
df
The Justice Policy Center is an independent research institute based in Montreal.
Private prison companies, through their Political Action Committees (PACs) and contributions by their
employees, give millions of dollars to politicians at both the state and federal level.58 Since 2000, the three
largest private prison companiesCCA, GEO and Cornell Companiesihave contributed $835,514 to federal
candidates, including senators and members of the House of Representatives.59 Giving to statelevel politicians
during the last five election cycles was much higher: $6,092,331.60 This likely reflects two factors: that
states collectively continue to be their largest client, and that at the federal level, elected officials may be
less involved in the decisions to award private prison contracts than non-elected bureaucrats.
Contributions to state politicians have been increasing over the past five major election cycles. For instance,
2010 marked the highest recorded year of state political giving by these private prison companies since 2000.
The issue is twofold: prison corporations are big spenders, and the spending goes to generally less-funded
state elections. As such, companies like CCA are able to leverage their government-funded profits to help
elect favorable officials.
Page 76 of 159
December 2014
Pro: Non-citizens
Private Prisons Hurt Non-Citizens

Prisons designed to hold non-citizens (CARs) are sub-par. ASF
Flatow, Nicole. Deputy Editor of ThinkProgress Justice."How These Prisons For NonCitizens Compound All The Problems With American Incarceration".
ThinkProgress. June 11, 2014.
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2014/06/11/3447208/how-these-prisons-fornoncitizens-compound-all-the-problems-with-us-incarceration/
At the intersection of concerns over U.S. overcriminalization, private prisons, and immigration policy are
U.S. prisons made for non-citizens, where inmates bear the brunt of all three. In so-called Criminal Alien
Requirement prisons, some 25,000 non-citizens are held in federal custody under conditions that are
subject to even less oversight than those in other federal prisons, oftentimes for nothing other than
immigration offenses, and with the draw of profit incentivizing the private firms that house them to pack
in more individuals with less care and investment.
Like inmates in many U.S. facilities facing prison overcrowding, these inmates face medical neglect, abuse,
and frequent placement in solitary confinement simply because there is nowhere else to put them. Among
the findings of an American Civil Liberties Union report out this week, inmates were left to die without medical
care, crammed into sleeping quarters in hallways, and put into solitary confinement for complaining about these
conditions or failing to speak English in America. In fact, the Bureau of Prisons contract with Corrections
Corporation of America mandates that ten percent of CCAs contract beds be used for isolation,
creating one of several perverse incentives on confinement. Another is the profit motive of private corporations,
who have seen their bottom line skyrocket through investment in immigration detention.
There exist private prisons specifically designed for illegal immigrants. These facilities are underlined
with racist behavior and policies that can be considered cruel and unusual. The private contracts even
mandate that 10% of the beds be used for isolation treatments, further burdening the over-crowded
system and hurting the mental condition of the isolated prisoners.
Page 77 of 159
December 2014
Pro: Non-citizens
Public prisons have stricter regulation, leading to worse conditions in CARs. ASF
Set against the incentives of these private firms is lax BOP oversight and requirements as compared to
that imposed on public, non-immigration facilities. Because individuals in CAR prisons are not
expected to return to U.S. communities, the facilities are not required to provide vocational treatment,
drug treatment, or other fundamental programs that are associated with better outcomes when
individuals are released. Many who could be eligible for earlier release were they able to participate in a
drug treatment program are instead left to languish behind bars, at the cost of the taxpayer. Others describe
the hopelessness that accompanies total lack of rehabilitation. I had the idea: I have three years. I will do
something so I have something to make of myself. . . . But theres nothing to do here, one inmate said.
Two important notes come from this piece of evidence. First is that the regulations for immigration
facilities are poorer than that of public non-immigration facilities, leading to worse conditions in the
private prison. Second, the immigrants in the private system at CARs are not given an equal opportunity
at freedom and justice as are their counterparts in the public system, as they have no options to access
parole or early release, such as drug rehabilitation programs.
Page 78 of 159
December 2014
Pro: Non-citizens
The BOP renews sup-par contracts. ASF

These facilities are also not subject to the requirement at other prisons that they place inmates close to
their families, even though many have families in the United States. With many of these facilities clustered in
Texas, regular visitation by those with families is out of the question, even though such visits are another
factor associated with positive post- prison outcomes, and even though kids are often deprived of access to a
parent.
Even the Bureau of Prisons, which oversees the facilities, acknowledged in a contract with GEO Group,
Contractor is unable to successfully achieve their own plans of action to correct deficient areas and
Lack of healthcare has greatly impacted inmate health and wellbeing. BOP nonetheless renewed its
contracts with these firms, concluding that maintaining the contracts would require less work and
disruption, and maintain the agencys credibility as a solid customer with the private prison agency.
Here we see the BOP valuing corporate rights over human rights. They explicitly state their reputation as
a customer and their level of efficiency outweighs the basic living conditions of noncitizens being detained
in CARs.
Page 79 of 159
December 2014
Pro: Non-citizens
Undertrained personnel are a liability in private detention centers. DAT

Adler School Institute on Public Safety and Social Justice; Illinois Coalition for
Immigrant and Refugee Rights. (2011). White Paper on Broken Logic: The OverReliance on Incarceration in the United States, Chicago, IL: Author.
http://www.adler.edu/resources/content/4/1/documents/Adler_WhitePaper_IPSSJ_ICIRR_Economics-of-Private-Detention_FINAL.pdf
The Adler School of Professional Psychology is a post-baccalaureate, non-profit institution
of higher education and independent graduate school of psychology.
Private prisons generally try to increase profits by controlling costs--in particular labor costs, which generally
make up two-thirds of operational expenses. Private operators hold down salaries, benefits, and training. The
average private prison employee receives 58 fewer hours of training than the average public prison
worker. This scanting on personnel costs leads to higher turnover and lower levels of experience among
staff, leading to many documented instances of brutality against detainees, drug smuggling by guards,
sexual assault and coercion, and other abuse. In one extreme instance, a Corrections Corporation of America
(CCA) facility in Idaho is accused of running a gladiator school among its inmates. CCA has faced multiple
lawsuits over mistreatment of detainees at several immigration facilities in Texas.
Private facilities also have a horrible track record regarding medical care. Private operators skimp on medical
treatment, often failing to respond to conditions including cancer and heart problems that prove fatal
when not addressed. Immigration facilities run by CCA in Arizona, New Jersey, and Colorado have all
seen detainees die as a result of inadequate medical care.
The profit-motivated actions of corporations are allowed to run amok due to the legal murkiness of
dealing with detainees, along with the increased emphasis on cost savings for the treatment of noncitizens.
Page 80 of 159
December 2014
Pro: Block reform
Private Prisons Block Need for Systematic Reform

Private Prisons Block Need for Systematic Change AMS
sites.
Specter, the Prison Law Office director, argues that private prison deals exacerbate the problem.
"Instead of facing the sort of politically tougher questions of how to revise the sentencing structure, the
state uses the private prisons as the release valve," he said.
In recent years, states around the country have dramatically lowered the size of their prison populations, in part
by reforming their sentencing laws. In Texas and other states, entire prisons have closed in the wake of these
changes.
The United States prison system needs reform. Pro teams do not argue that the prison system is perfect.
However, private prisons are not the solutionthese prisons only exacerbate overcrowding and push the
real issues under the table.
Page 81 of 159
December 2014
Pro: Block reform
The financial costs of continued mass incarceration. DAT

2011. Accessed 11/10/2014. Web.
df
Policies that promote incarceration over more effective public safety strategies cost more in both the short and
long term. The average cost to incarcerate one person for one day in the U.S. is $78.88.119 Thus, policies that
increase the length of time that someone is incarcerated can have a significant fiscal impact. For example, one
study found that 10 years after California enacted its Three Strikes law, the people added to the prison
system under the law between March 1994 and September 2003 would cost taxpayers an additional $10.5
billion in prison and jail expenditures, including $6.2 billion in added costs attributed to longer prison
terms for nonviolent offenses.120
Most people agree that they would pay anything to be safe, but incarceration does not satisfy this requirement.
Some of the most prominent criminologists in the country have found that incarceration has minimal, if any
impact on public safety.121 And serving time in prison has been shown to increase the risk of future offending,
not decrease it.122 Additionally, the trend of increasing prison sentences does not improve public safety. Data
from the Department of Justice shows little difference in recidivism rates for people who spend short
sentences in prison compared to those who are in prison longer.123
Research shows that investing in services and programs that keep people out of the justice system is more
effective at improving public safety and promoting community well-being than investing in law
enforcement.124 Despite evidence that investing in education and other positive social institutions can improve
public safety and save states money, policymakers continue to invest in incarceration.125 Over the past 38 years
corrections spending has increased to three times that of state spending on education.126 This misallocation of
funding has the potential for a significant negative impact on the future of our youth and communities.
The idea that private prisons reduce the financial costs of incarceration is self-defeating. This implies that
the goal is maximum incarceration at minimum cost.
Page 82 of 159
December 2014
Pro: Block reform
The opportunity cost of investing in private prisons. DAT

2011. Accessed 11/10/2014. Web.
df
States and the federal government should look for real solutions to the problem of growing jail and prison
populations. A number of states are already utilizing innovative strategies for reducing the number of people
behind bars in their state. Reducing the number of people entering the justice system, and the amount of
time that they spend there, can lower prison populations, making private, for-profit prisons unnecessary,
and improving public safety and the lives of individuals.
Invest in front-end treatment and services in the community, whether private or public. Research shows
that education, employment, drug treatment, health care, and the availability of affordable housing
coincide with better outcomes for all people, whether involved in the criminal justice system or not.
Jurisdictions that spend more money on these services are likely to experience lower crime rates and lower
incarceration rates.167 An increase in spending on education, employment and other services not only would
improve public safety, but also would enhance and enrich communities and individual life outcomes.
Page 83 of 159
December 2014
Pro: Block reform
Private prison quotas run counter to federal incarceration-easing initiatives. DAT

Mock, Brentin. Private Prisons Lock in Profits with Lockup Quotas.
southernstudies.org. Institute for Southern Studies. 20 September 2013. Accessed
11/10/2014. Web. http://www.southernstudies.org/2013/09/private-prisons-lock-inprofits-with-lockup-quotas.html
The Institute for Southern Studies is a public interest media, research, and education
center.
The use of prison bed occupancy guarantee clauses comes as incarceration rates are falling in state prisons
nationwide. The Pew Charitable Trusts research center reported last month that the nation's prison
population has declined for three consecutive years, with both the imprisonment rate and the number of
inmates dropping over 2 percent for state facilities.
Meanwhile, at the federal level, the Obama administration has been looking for ways to reduce incarceration, in
part because of its devastating effects on black and Latino communities. Attorney General Eric Holder has
dialed back federal mandatory sentencing minimums for nonviolent drug offenders in recent months and
has been encouraging state officials to do the same.
Companies like CCA will typically lobby for contractual prisoner population obligations as a method of
securing return on investmenta sensible move from a private profit standpoint. This, however, creates
a gulf between the supply of beds and the demand for them (e.g. the number of people being
incarcerated). This leaves governments with the conundrum of either breaking contracts or artificially
increasing arrest rates, neither of which is a net beneficial outcome for the parties involved.
Page 84 of 159
December 2014
Pro: Block reform
States are already implementing cost-effective measures. DAT

Since the recession threw their budgets into turmoil, many states have decided to imprison fewer people, largely
to save money. Mississippi has reduced the proportion of their sentences that non-violent offenders are
required to serve from 85% to 25%. Texas is making greater use of non-custodial penalties. New York
has repealed most mandatory minimum terms for drug offences. In all, the number of prisoners in state
lock-ups fell by 0.3% in 2009, the first fall since 1972. But the total number of Americans behind bars still rose
slightly, because the number of federal prisoners climbed by 3.4%.
A less punitive system could work better, argues Mark Kleiman of the University of California, Los Angeles.
Swift and certain penalties deter more than harsh ones. Money spent on prisons cannot be spent on more
cost-effective methods of crime-prevention, such as better policing, drug treatment or probation. The pain
that punishment inflicts on criminals themselves, on their families and on their communities should also be
taken into account.
Just by making effective use of things we already know how to do, we could reasonably expect to have half as
much crime and half as many people behind bars ten years from now, says Mr Kleiman. There are a thousand
excuses for failing to make that effort, but not one good reason.
Because private prison contracts often work mandatory prison quotas into their text, the opportunity
cost of contracting private prisons is massive. It has deleterious consequences for legislative attempts to
curb harsh sentencing practices (because this runs counter to private prison quotas), while also diverting
money from truly helpful initiatives for the criminal justice system.
Page 85 of 159
December 2014
Pro: Block reform
Investing in more prisons is counterproductive, legally and economically. DAT

http://www.adler.edu/resources/content/4/1/documents/Adler_WhitePaper_IPSSJ_ICIRR_Prison-Communities_FINAL.pdf
Rural communities have an economic incentive to keep their prisons full, and those prisoners have to come
from somewhere. In large part, many do come from a specific place: low-income African American urban
communities. The explosion of incarceration has disproportionately affected African Americans, due mostly to
war on drugs policies that are enforced primarily in poor urban areas of color. Black people account for 39% of
the total prison population but just 14% of the U.S. population.4 A disproportionate percentage of U.S.
prisoners come from a very small number of neighborhoods in some of the countrys largest cities.5 These poor
urban areas have suffered from years of disinvestment, poverty, failing schools, and a general lack of resources.
Yet, ironically, there are large investments being made to incarcerate people from these neighborhoods.
Scholars have noted the existence of million dollar blocks in places like New York City and New
Orleans, where large percentages of the population have been incarcerated. On some city blocks,
upwards of $1 million in tax-payer funds are being spent to imprison residents. Although this represents
quite an investment in poor urban areas, none of this money actually goes into the area; it goes to prisons in
largely rural areas.6
With all that money being spent on incarceration in urban neighborhoods, one might be tempted to think that
perhaps areas are being improved by weeding out the criminal elements. Unfortunately, evidence has shown the
opposite is true. Prisoners eventually return to their home communities, meaning that the same areas
sending the most people away are also receiving the most re-entrants. Formerly incarcerated individuals
return to places with few resources, high poverty, and high unemployment. The revolving door has been
shown to disrupt social networks and create more community disorder. Incarceration itself
independently produces many of the social ills that are precursors to crime and incarceration in the first
place. This includes family instability, stress, violence, trauma, high drop-out rates, unemployment, drug and
alcohol abuse, and so forth. Many urban black communities are stuck in a cycle of incarceration, re-entry, and
re-incarceration, where the only investments being made are for more incarceration.7 The logic seems to be:
invest money up front to lock people up and you will reap the rewards ofspending more money to lock the
same people up again later.
Pro teams must continue linking individual cards like this one back to a central premise. For instance,
the expansion and welfare of private prisons is contingent on the continued revolving door of urban
crime and poverty.
Page 86 of 159
December 2014
Pro: Horrifying conditions
Horrifying Conditions in Private Prisons

James Slattery's Corrupt Private System AMS
In 2001, an 18-year-old committed to a Texas boot camp operated by one of Slatterys previous
companies, Correctional Services Corp., came down with pneumonia and pleaded to see a doctor as he
struggled to breathe. Guards accused the teen of faking it and forced him to do pushups in his own vomit,
according to Texas law enforcement reports. After nine days of medical neglect, he died.
That same year, auditors in Maryland found that staff at one of Slatterys juvenile facilities coaxed inmates to
fight on Saturday mornings as a way to settle disputes from earlier in the week. In recent years, the company
has failed to report riots, assaults and claims of sexual abuse at its juvenile prisons in Florida, according to a
review of state records and accounts from former employees and inmates.
Despite that history, Slatterys current company, Youth Services International, has retained and even
expanded its contracts to operate juvenile prisons in several states. The company has capitalized on
budgetary strains across the country as governments embrace privatization in pursuit of cost savings. Nearly 40
percent of the nations juvenile delinquents are today committed to private facilities, according to the most
recent federal data from 2011, up from about 33 percent twelve years earlier.
Youth Services International, a private prison system for juveniles, contains horrifying examples of
prisoner maltreatment. Pro teams can use this evidence to paint a picture of the problems with private
prison systems today.
Page 87 of 159
December 2014
Private Prisons Have Worse Conditions AMS

Prisoners certainly do not benefit from incarceration in private prisons. Private prisons have been shown to
have more incidents of misconduct than public prisons. A private prison in Idaho run by CCA (which operates 3
out of 4 active private prisons in Oklahoma) established a reputation as agladiator school because prison
guards encouraged violence between inmates; one savage beating that took place while guards watched put the
victim in a coma.
One does not have to look outside our own state borders to find similar evidence of poor and negligent
management by private prison corporations. A riot at the North Fork Correctional Facilityin 2011 resulted in
forty-six injuries, while a four hour long disturbance at the Cimarron Correctional Facility this year only
ended after corrections officers used bean bag rounds and pepper balls to subdue the rioters.
Private Prisons Hurt Youth AMS

Over the past two decades, more than 40,000 boys and girls in 16 states have gone through one of Slatterys
prisons, boot camps or detention centers, according to a Huffington Post analysis of juvenile facility data.
The private prison industry has long fueled its growth on the proposition that it is a boon to taxpayers,
delivering better outcomes at lower costs than state facilities. But significant evidence undermines that
argument: the tendency of young people to return to crime once they get out, for example, and long-term
contracts that can leave states obligated to fill prison beds.
The harsh conditions confronting youth inside YSIs facilities, moreover, show the serious problems that
can arise when government hands over social services to private contractors and essentially walks away.
Page 88 of 159
December 2014
Scandals in Youth Prisons AMS

According to HuffPosts review of police reports, internal Department of Juvenile Justice investigations and
youth grievance forms obtained through public records requests, Florida facilities run by Youth Services
International continue to be plagued by violence, high turnover and unprofessional staff.
Youth counselors for YSI those who work directly with juvenile inmates earn about $10.50 an hour,
or just under $22,000 per year, according to contract proposals from 2010. Because of frequent turnover
and absences among staff, double shifts are common, adding additional stress to the job, former
employees said.
Dockery v. Epps Case Documents Poor Conditions of Private Prison AMS

Dockery vs. Epps. September 25, 2014. American Civil Liberties Union.
https://www.aclu.org/prisoners-rights/dockery-v-epps Founded in 1920, the
American Civil Liberties Union is a nonpartisan non-profit organization whose
stated mission is "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties
guaranteed to every person in this country.
The ACLU, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and the Law Offices of Elizabeth Alexander filed a petition for
class certification and expert reports for a federal lawsuit on behalf of prisoners at the East Mississippi
Correctional Facility (EMCF). The lawsuit, which was filed in May 2013, describes the for-profit prison as
hyper-violent, grotesquely filthy and dangerous. EMCF is operated "in a perpetual state of crisis" where
prisoners are at "grave risk of death and loss of limbs." The facility, located in Meridian, Mississippi, is
supposed to provide intensive treatment to the state's prisoners with serious psychiatric disabilities, many of
whom are locked down in long-term solitary confinement.
Page 89 of 159
December 2014
Pro: Human rights
Human Rights Violations

Private contractors operational paradigms push human rights under the rug. DAT
Robbins, Ira P. Privatization of Corrections: A Violation of U.S. Domestic Law,
International Human RIghts, and Good Sense. Washington College of Law.
American University. n.d. Accessed 11/10/2014. Web.
http://www.wcl.american.edu/hrbrief/13/3robbins.pdf
Ira P. Robbins is the Barnard T. Welsh Scholar and Professor of Law and Justice at the
American University Washington College of Law.
Prison privatization differs from private industries in prisons, which seek to turn prisoners into productive
members of society by having them work at a decent wage and produce products or perform services that can be
sold in the marketplace.2 Privatization is also different from the situation in which some of the services of a
facility such as medical, food, educational, or vocational services are operated by private industry.
Rather, the idea is to have the government contract with a private company to operate and sometimes
own the total institution. The practice quickly spread abroad, with countries such as Australia, New
Zealand, and the United Kingdom privatizing parts of their correctional systems.
Sir Nigel Rodley, former United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture, explains that the profit motive of
privately operated prisons has fostered a situation in which the rights and needs of prisoners and the direct
responsibility of states for the treatment of those they deprive of freedom are diminished in the name of greater
efficiency.3 Where the safe and fair treatment of prisoners is compromised by private corporate goals,
national law and international human rights instruments should protect them. In Professor Cosmo
Grahams words, there is an attendant tension between a human rights approach and an approach to
policy delivery that emphasizes the virtues of market based delivery mechanisms.4 This article argues
that the concept of privatization of corrections is bad policy, is based on a tenuous legal foundation, and has
profound moral implications.
The issue isnt necessarily of specific impacts, but of the imperative to act in a manner contradictory to
the preservation and defense of basic human rights.
Page 90 of 159
December 2014
Pro: Human rights
Private prisons skirt basic services for their inmates. DAT

A private jail in Texas was investigated for diverting $700,000 from a drug-treatment program, while inmates
with substance-abuse problems received no treatment whatsoever. In Minnesota a private facility neglected to
establish a substance abuse treatment program even though the contract required it.51 The nearby
public prison, by contrast, provided its chemically dependent inmates with full-day therapeutic sessions
five times a week.52
Where services exist, they may be of poor quality. Anne Owens, the chief inspector of prisons for England and
Wales, explained that private sector contracts have tended to focus on the quantity rather than the quality of
programs, thus work available for prisoners at a particular prison was low skilled and not accredited. 53
Briefing notes following an inspection of a prison in Australia described the rehabilitation programs as
chaotic.54
Job training programs are singled out in the Basic Principles and the Standard Minimum Rules, which
require, respectively, that [c]onditions shall be created enabling prisoners to undertake meaningful
remunerated employment which will facilitate their reintegration into the countrys labour market and
permit them to contribute to their own financial support and to that of their families, and that
[v]ocational training in useful trades shall be provided for prisoners able to profit thereby and especially
for young prisoners.55 Where job training programs exist, however, they often do not do much to prepare
inmates for the labor market. In a youth facility in Louisiana, for instance, a job training class consisted entirely
of showing tool handling safety videos. When the participants finished watching the videos, they simply
watched them again.56
Private prisons, moreso than public ones, wind up crossing the line between not providing ancillary
services and basic essential ones. This is a distinction that should be made apparent in round.
Page 91 of 159
December 2014
Pro: Human rights
Private prison operations are contingent on limiting freedom. DAT

Gopnik, Adam. The Caging of America. The New Yorker. 30 January 2012. Accessed
10/11/2014. Web. http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/01/30/the-caging-ofamerica?currentPage=all
Northern impersonality and Southern revenge converge on a common American theme: a growing number of
American prisons are now contracted out as for-profit businesses to for-profit companies. The companies are
paid by the state, and their profit depends on spending as little as possible on the prisoners and the prisons. Its
hard to imagine any greater disconnect between public good and private profit: the interest of private
prisons lies not in the obvious social good of having the minimum necessary number of inmates but in
having as many as possible, housed as cheaply as possible. No more chilling document exists in recent
American life than the 2005 annual report of the biggest of these firms, the Corrections Corporation of
America. Here the company (which spends millions lobbying legislators) is obliged to caution its investors
about the risk that somehow, somewhere, someone might turn off the spigot of convicted men:
Our growth is generally dependent upon our ability to obtain new contracts to develop and manage new
correctional and detention facilities. . . . The demand for our facilities and services could be adversely
affected by the relaxation of enforcement efforts, leniency in conviction and sentencing practices or
through the decriminalization of certain activities that are currently proscribed by our criminal laws. For
instance, any changes with respect to drugs and controlled substances or illegal immigration could affect
the number of persons arrested, convicted, and sentenced, thereby potentially reducing demand for
correctional facilities to house them.
Brecht could hardly have imagined such a document: a capitalist enterprise that feeds on the misery of
man trying as hard as it can to be sure that nothing is done to decrease that misery.
Page 92 of 159
December 2014
Pro: Human rights
Basic medical care in private prisons isnt legally guaranteed. DAT

Or consider the Eighth Amendment standard for prisoners alleging inadequate medical care. In Estelle v.
Gamble,170 the Supreme Court held that for medical neglect of prisoners to rise to the level of an Eighth
Amendment violation, prison officials must be shown to have acted with deliberate indifference to serious
medical needs.171 To satisfy this standard, prisoners must show that prison officials actually knew of the
health risk and failed to take reasonable steps to address the problem.172 It is not enough for the inmate to have
told an official of pain or other physical distress; he or she must also show that the official actually dr[e]w the
inference from these facts of an excessive risk to inmate health or safety.173 Even under ordinary
circumstances, it can be difficult for prisoners to make this showing. Add the profit motive to the picture,
and the possibility of making out a claim of Eighth Amendment medical neglect becomes even more
difficult. Prison operators wishing to save money on medical care might, for example, create a
deliberately unwieldy process for prisoners wishing medical attention, as has apparently been the
strategy of Correctional Medical Services (CMS), a for-profit prison medical services company operating
in prisons and jails in twentyseven states.174 They might also hire medical staff of questionable competence,
increasing the likelihood that conditions will go undiagnosed.175 Or they might institute treatment protocols of
questionable efficacy that cost less than medically indicated methods. This last approach in particular might
allow a defense that reasonable steps were taken even if they were ultimately ineffective.
Theres a gulf between the legal standard for medical care and a basic human standard. Private
prisoners with medical needs can live in this gulf, creating excess misery.
Page 93 of 159
Con Evidence
Page 94 of 159
December 2014
Con: Not worse services
Private Prisons Dont Provide Worse Services

Recidivism data has yet to link private management with increased relapses. DAT
Volokh, Alexander. Prison Accountability and Performance Measures. Social Sciences
Research Network. Emory Law Journal, Vol. 63. 339-416. 4 October 2013. Accessed
4 November 2014. Web.
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2336155
Alexander Volokh is Associate Professor at Emory Law School.
A more recent study, by Andrew Spivak and Susan Sharp, reported that private prisons were (statistically)
significantly worse in six out of eight models tested.115 But the authors noted that some skepticism was in
order before concluding that public prisons necessarily did better on recidivism.116 Populations arent
randomly assigned to public and private prisons: that private prisons engage in cream-skimming is a
persistent complaint.117 Recall the case in Arizona, where the Department of Corrections made an
effort to refrain from assigning prisoners to [the private Marana Community Correctional Facility] if
they [had] serious or chronic medical problems, serious psychiatric problems, or [were] deemed to be
unlikely to benefit from the substance abuse program that [was] provided at the facility.118
But the phenomenon can also run the other way. One of the authors of the recidivism study, Andrew
Spivak, writes that while he was a case manager at a medium security public prison in Oklahoma in
1998, he noted an inclination for case management staff (himself included) to use transfer requests to
private prisons as a method for removing more troublesome inmates from case loads.119 Moreover,
recidivism data is itself often flawed.120 Recidivism has to be not only proved (which requires good databases)
but also defined.121 Recidivism isnt self-definingit could include arrest; reconviction; incarceration; or
parole violation, suspension, or revocation; and it could give different weights to different offenses depending
on their seriousness.122 Which definition one uses makes a difference in ones conclusions about
correctional effectiveness,123 as well as affecting the scope of innovation.124 The choice of how long to
monitor obviously matters as well: [m]ost severe offences occur in the second and third year after
release.125 Recidivism measures might also vary because of variations in, say, enforcement of parole
conditions, independent of the true recidivism of the underlying population.126
Previous to this section, the article brought up several other high-profile recidivism studies from previous
years. The conclusion across the board is the same: the data and methodologies used havent been
consistent enough to warrant a final conclusion either way. The Spivak study is one Con debaters should
be familiar with, as it is likely to be a popular card with Pro teams.
Page 95 of 159
December 2014
Research is unlikely to prove private prisons empirically worse. DAT

November 2014. Web.
Despite this call for innovation and a search for alternatives to existing policy, much of the published research is
instead concerned with the cost and quality of private prisons. Put differently, the existing research on private
prisons evaluates whether they can be successful as replacements for similar styles of public prisons. A number
of methodological concerns have limited the ability of cost and=or quality research to provide meaningful
conclusions on the contributions of private prisons. First, studies comparing private and public prisons often
use a case study method that limits the generalizability of findings and the ability to make assertions
about statistically significant differences across prisons (Perrone & Pratt, 2003). Second, studies often use
different indicators of the dependent variables. Several different methods of measuring quality of
confinement are available (Armstrong & MacKenzie, 2003; DiIulio, 1987; Logan, 1992), and cost assessments
frequently leave out important institutional characteristics that could be expected to affect monetary numbers
(Pratt & Maahs, 1999; also see the discussion by Geis, Mobley, & Shichor, 1999). Finally, existing studies often
fail to control for relevant variables such as security level of prison and age of the facility (Perrone & Pratt,
2003).
Given the above methodological hazards, it is not surprising to see few definitive conclusions reached about the
performance of private prisonsespecially in comparison to that of public prisons. It is unlikely, however,
that any research would produce meaningful results even if these deficiencies were accounted for. The
simple fact is that prisons, both private and public, vary enormously when it comes to performance and
quality (Bottomley & James, 1997; Camp, Gaes, & Saylor, 2002; Logan, 1990; Lukemeyer & McCorkle,
2006). As a way of moving beyond the quarrels over the merits of private prison performance, it is necessary
for academics and practitioners to take the next step and decide how the correctional system can benefit from
the existence of private prisons.
Essentially, any research purporting to make direct comparisons will either have errors or alternate
methodologies challenging it. This prevents both teams from lining up empirical factors side by side for
comparison purposes. More importantly for Con teams, this challenges a seeming preponderance of
evidence for Pro teams indicating that private prisons are generally less effective at providing services,
training staff, discouraging recidivism, etc.
Page 96 of 159
December 2014
The Case for Private Prisons by CCA Employee. PSM

Owen, Steve. "The Case For Private Prisons." . Politico Magazine , 28 Feb 2014. Web. 2
Nov 2014. <http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/02/the-real-story-aboutprivate-prisons-104098.html
Recent opinion piece in POLITICO MAGAZINE about private prisons and our company, Corrections
Corporation of America (CCA), was a rehash of stale arguments that failed to provide a balanced look at the
important role we play in addressing the many corrections challenges our nation faces.
In reality, our company is helping federal, state and local governments find solutions to overcrowded
facilities, skyrocketing taxpayer costs and inmates struggling to break the cycle of crime. Our company
believes we have an opportunity and a responsibility to help inmates develop the skills and values they need to
be successful when they are released from prison. We are a team of 16,000 correctional officers, chaplains,
teachers, nurses and counselors providing high-quality corrections services at a cost savings for
taxpayers.
The opinion writer opens his piece with ill-informed commentary about CCAs relationship with
California. In fact, there is perhaps no better example of the important role we can play in addressing
corrections challenges. The difficulties the state has faced with overcrowded facilities are well documented, and
for more than seven years, CCA has provided an important relief valve to help them manage their inmate
population. Our facilities and professional staff have alleviated unsafe conditions and created
opportunities for offenders to access a wide range of programs that prepare them to re-enter their
communities once their time is served. The most recent iteration of our partnership is an innovative agreement
that allows California to lease needed space from our company and staff the facility with public employees.
Additionally, the tools we are providing to help manage this difficult situation are being delivered at a
significant cost savings. Overall, economists from Temple University, in an independent study receiving a
partial grant from our industry, analyzed state government data and found companies like ours save 12
percent to 58 percent in long-term taxpayer costs.
Page 97 of 159
December 2014
Private Prisons are Cost Effective. PSM

Tabarrok , Alexander. "Private Prisons Have Public Benefits ." . The Independent
institute, 24 Oct. 2004. Web. 3 Nov 2014.
<http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=1411>.
If California prisons were unusually effective, the high cost might be acceptable. But with 300,000 prisoners
packed into a system designed for only 170,000, its a challenge simply to warehouse the prisoners, let alone
provide effective programs for rehabilitation. Schwarzenegger has said that prison reform is a priority. If so, he
ought to privatize prisons both to lower costs and to improve efforts at rehabilitation.
More than two decades of experience with private prisons in the United States, Great Britain, Australia and
elsewhere attest to the fact that private prisons can be built and operated at lower cost than public prisons.
Cost savings of 15 to 25 percent on construction and 10 to 15 percent on management are common. These are
modest but significant cost savings in a $5.7 billion state system that continues to grow more expensive
every year.
Private prisons not only have lower costs than public prisons: by introducing competition they encourage
public prisons to also innovate and lower costs.
States with a greater share of prisoners in private prisons have lower costs of housing public prisoners. Perhaps
more tellingly, from 1999 through 2001, states without any private prisons saw per-prisoner costs increase by
18.9 percent, but in states where the public prisons competed with private prisons, cost increases were much
lower, only 8.1 percent.
The bad rap on private prisons has always been that cost-savings would come at the expense of quality. In
California today this hardly passes the laugh test as federal Judge Thelton Henderson considers placing
Californias system in receivership because of numerous problems, including the protection of corrupt prison
officers and the lack of proper investigation of prisoner abuse.
Careful studies by the U.S. Department of Justices National Institute of Justice and others indicate that
if anything, private prisons are of higher quality than public prisons.
In fact, although prison privatization in the United States has been driven by cost savings, in Britain the driving
motivation was higher quality, more humane prisons.
After studying the issue, the director general of Her Majestys Prison Services concluded that the private
prisons are the most progressive in the country at controlling bullying, health care, and suicide
prevention.
Page 98 of 159
December 2014
Private Prisons are More Cost-Efficiently Run. PSM

Elgot, Jessica. "Private Prisons More Efficient, Stop Re-Offending Better Than PublicRun Jails, Reform Report Claims." . Huffington Post, 21 Feb 2013. Web. 3 Nov
2014. <http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/02/20/private-prisons-jails-publicreform_n_2725164.html>.
Private prisons are more efficient and better at managing re-offending than public prisons, and jails should be
put on the open market by the government, a radical new report has suggested.
Right-wing think tank Reform called for the Government to abolish limitations on private companies, but
the Labour party and trade unions dismissed the report, with one union saying an entirely privatised system
would cause "utter chaos."
Private companies had been able to manage entire prisons since 1992 but policy changed at the end of 2012,
and from now the role of private companies will be limited to relatively small contracts including for
rehabilitation services and facilities management.
Shadow Justice Minister Jenny Chapman told HuffPost UK: "While helpful in drawing some of the evidence
together, the report's conclusion glosses over the fact that private sector prisons are less crowded, generally
purpose built and aren't responsible for the highest risk offenders.
"They do some good work, but that's no more than we should expect."
The reported rated private prisons using official Ministry of justice figures.
10 out of 12 privately managed prisons have lower re-offending rates among offenders serving 12 months
or more than comparable public sector prisons. 7 out of 10 privately managed prisons have lower reoffending rates among offenders serving fewer than 12 months, compared to comparable public sector
prisons. All 12 private prisons are more cost-effective. But only 5 out of 12 prisons were better at
providing public protection than public sector prisons.
Page 99 of 159
December 2014
Private Prisons are Cheaper for Taxpayers. PSM

Kavanagh, John. "Private prisons really are cheaper for taxpayers." . Arizona Central, 10
Jan 2014. Web. 3 Nov 2014.
<http://www.azcentral.com/opinions/articles/20140111private-prisons-keep-moneytaxpayers-pockets.html>.
The suggestion that private prisons cost taxpayers more money to operate than state-run prisons is
wrong. A recent Republic news article disclosed that the non-adjusted cost of housing a mediumsecurity prisoner was $64.52 in a state-run facility and only $58.82 in a private prison.
When you further adjust these figures, as the nonpartisan Joint Legislative Budget Committee did, by adding in
the high expenses of constructing the prisons and paying for the costly and grossly underfunded public pensions
of state corrections employees, the private prisons become an even better deal for Arizona taxpayers.
The allegation that the Legislature and governor ended cost-comparison studies because they found private
prisons more expensive is not true. The studies were stopped because they were misleading. For three
years, the Arizona Department of Corrections repeatedly refused to include in their public-prison formula the
construction cost and pension-liability factors mentioned above.
Because no study is better than a flawed and misleading one, we stopped the charade. In addition, prison
costs are not volatile, so we still felt comfortable using the more complete and accurate 2010 JLBC
adjusted figures on the DOC that demonstrate private prisons are less expensive.
The criticism of the guaranteed occupancy rate of 90 percent that the state includes in private-prison contracts is
also unjustified. Montini inexplicably calls this communism. However, under communism, the state seizes
control of private businesses and makes them government operations.
In this case, the guarantee enables a government operation to be privatized. Thats the opposite of communism.
Besides, what rational business would spend $50 million building a private prison for the state to house
its prisoners without a guarantee from the state that it would use the prison? The contracts also call for the
private-prison company to deed the prison over to the state after 20 years. The state then saves even more
money because it then charges the private operator rent.
The charge that private prisons lack transparency is also bogus. All state contracts with private prisons require
on-site state inspectors to have full access at all times, and we station three state inspectors at every private
prison to ensure that the terms of the contract are fulfilled.
Can it get any more transparent than that? Maybe Montini would like to go undercover as a prisoner? I would
love to arrange that!
Regarding the tragic and avoidable escape from the private prison in Kingman, if one tragic incident
provides a rationale for revamping an entire prison system, then we should have totally privatized Arizonas
prisons in 2004 after the state-run Arizona State Prison Complex-Lewis was the site of the longest hostage
standoff between inmates and law-enforcement officers in U.S. history.
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But wisely, we do not make major policy decisions based upon isolated incidents. The Kingman escape was
just as much a black mark against the state Corrections Department because three state inspectors were
stationed on-site and the facility was run by many retired DOC wardens and deputy wardens.
Finally, the baseless and illogical allegation that the governor and Legislature are creating a profit motive to
lock people up in private prisons is offensive. Making such an unfounded and uncivil accusation is also
hypocritical, coming from a newspaper that repeatedly editorially bemoans the lack of civility in public
discourse.
Additionally, the private-prison beds currently under construction will relieve existing overcrowding. No
new inmates are being locked up as a result.
The editorials claim that guaranteeing occupancy to private operators creates a profit motive for locking
people up is bizarre, at best. Who does that motivate? I doubt it motivates cops to arrest more people or judges
to send more people to prison for longer terms. Why would they do that?
The Legislature certainly has no motivation to send more people to prison at a time when our state
budget is in dire economic shape. Nor has the Legislature engaged in sweeping penalty upgrades.
Incidentally, the Legislature is not focused on filling prison beds, as the editorial implied. One legislator
considered early release for some prisoners several years ago, but we rejected that after our state prosecutors
revealed that Arizona prisons are not overpopulated with non-violent drug offenders. A state law already diverts
them into outside treatment in lieu of incarceration. Consequently, Arizonas prison incarceration rate is
only 75 percent of the national average based upon 2010 data.
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Experts from Temple University say Prison Privatization Provide Real Benefits. PSM
Blackstone, Erwin, and Simon Hakim. "Prison privatization can provide real benefits." .
Sun Sentinel, 07 May 2013. Web. 3 Nov 2014. <http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/201305-07/news/fl-shcol-prisons-oped0507-20130507_1_private-prisons-public-prisonsflorida-chamber>.
The use of contractor-operated prisons has been the source of considerable debate in Florida and around the
country. The conversation has centered on whether they provide sufficient savings and perform adequately in
other dimensions to justify their use. It's a discussion that reveals deep ideological divisions about the role of
privatization, but it should, above all, be a debate rooted in data and facts.
To that end, we recently examined government corrections data across 10 states, including Florida.
Although these public-private partnerships have been in existence for over 30 years and currently make up only
7 percent of the corrections market, we found that they generate 12.46 to 58.37 percent in long run savings
without sacrificing the quality of services.
In addition to the savings generated by the private contractors themselves, we also found that competition yields
better performance for both private and public facilities. In a study prepared for the Florida Department of
Management Services, MGT of America found that the three states with the lowest per diem inmate costs
included Texas, Georgia and Florida all states with competing private prisons. The authors suggested that
the use of contract prisons lowered costs of state-operated prisons, as well.
What's more, we believe the adoption of "managed competition" could foster even greater efficiency in
managing existing state prisons. In this model, public workers and private contractors engage in a
competitive process to provide public services. By doing so, both groups have an incentive to search for
innovations and offer competitive pricing.
For the corrections sector, this practice could be particularly interesting. Several states we researched have
seemingly arbitrarily established savings requirements of 5 to 10 percent for contractor-operated prisons.
Florida is one of those states with mandated savings of 7 percent.
Critics of contractor-operated prisons argue they generate savings at the expense of quality. Our research,
however, found no evidence of this. The private facilities generally met industry standards established by the
independent American Correctional Association.
For example, the Florida Chamber of Commerce reported in 2012 that the number of inmates per staff to
provide rehabilitation services was 1 per 38 in private prisons and 1 per 272 in public prisons in one
region. In fact, 79.3 percent of inmates in the private correctional facilities in that region participated in
such educational, vocational, and life skills training, compared to 21.3 percent in public facilities. In an
assessment of costs by Florida's Office of Program Policy Analysis and Government Accountability, contractor-
Page 102 of 159
December 2014
operated prisons provided so many more substance abuse and education programs to the comparable public
prisons that costs had to be added to the public prisons for appropriate comparison.
In the end, there are many reasons for the savings generated by contractor-operated prisons. OPPAGA noted a
major reason for the cost advantage of private prisons is the higher retirement expenses for public prison
employees. Public correctional officers have an amount equal to about 21 percent of their salaries contributed to
a retirement fund, whereas private correctional officers receive matching contributions to their 401k funds of up
to 5 percent of their salaries.
Another driver of savings is the leverage and flexibility in purchasing that private companies bring to
their operations. We also found that contractors benefit from flexibility in their hiring.
With many difficult decisions still on the horizon for state leaders in Florida and across the country, it is
important to consider all the opportunities for more efficient delivery of high-quality public services.
Contractor-operated prisons and the introduction of the managed competition model for corrections are a
proven solution that deserves a second look.
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Con: Competitive neutrality
All Prisons Should Have Competitive Neutrality

In this section, we present an advocacy for a public option of sorts for the management of prisons.
Under such a scenario, individual facilities could flip-flop between public and private control, depending
on which is more efficient at the time. This approach allows Con teams to advocate private prisons
without simultaneously backing their current flawed implementation.
Adding public management to private competitions improves quality. DAT

How much of the system, then, should we privatize? The standard way to proceed is to choose particular prisons
to privatize and put them up to bid to private firms, or to contract with private firms to use their own prisons. A
more beneficial approach, though, would be to have a regime of competitive neutrality, where the public and
private sector compete on the same projects.183 The best system may be one of mixed public and private
management, where private programs complement existing public programs rather than replace
them.184 (Health care reformers advocacy of the public option in health insurance was premised on
a similar idea: that public participation can make competition more fair by disciplining private providers
more than they would discipline each other.)185
For instance, Gary Mohr, director of the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction, has talked about
creating a culture of competition in corrections.186 Ohio has pursued a combination of outsourcing and
insourcing: some public prisons have been sold or their management has been contracted out to the
private sector, while one private prison has been taken in-house.187 The result, according to Mohr, is
that one can ratchet[] up the best practices that can be created from both the public sector and multiple
private vendors.188
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With competitive neutrality, there is effectively no public-private divide. DAT

In particular, recall the problems involved in figuring out the public sectors true costs191: the same problems
can make for unfair competitions if public providers bids dont include the costs they bear that are paid for by
other departments, their different tax treatment, and the like.192 So its not surprising that such a regime is rare
in the United States.193
One of the advantages of competitive neutrality is thatas in Ohio prisons can be both outsourced and
insourced at different times, depending on who wins the contract, so particular prisons can churn
between the public and private sectors. The result, according to Richard Harding, would be a process of
positive cross-fertilization,194 where best practices migrate from one sector to another.195 [T]he opening up
of the private sector, Harding writes, may heighten awareness of how sloppy public accountability has often
been in the past, leading to the creation of innovative mechanisms applicable to both the private and the public
sectors.196 In fact, Harding argues, systemic improvement has been one of the best consequences of
privatization,197 so narrowly focusing on which sector is better in a static sense is almost beside the
point.198
Under such a system, public entities are treated essentially as bidders for contracts. The combination,
then is of private efficiency and public standards.
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Private prisons are not definitively more or less cost-effective. DAT

Gaes, Gerry. Cost, Performance Studies Look at Prison Privatization. ncjrs.gov.
National Criminal Justice Reference Service. National Institute of Justice No. 259.
n.d. Accessed 11/10/2014. Web. https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/221507.pdf
Gerry Gaes is former director of research at the Bureau of Prisons. The article compares
two simultaneous studies of the same 4 prisons.
Although every jurisdiction has its own economic and managerial idiosyncrasies, lessons learned from the Taft
studies and the NIJ meeting may help administrators and public policy analysts avoid mistakes that could lead
to higher taxpayer costs and possible dire consequences of poor performance. These lessons include:
Cost comparisons are deceivingly complex, and great care should be taken when comparing the costs of
privately and publicly operated prisons.
Special care should be given to an analysis of overhead costs.
A uniform method of comparing publicly and privately operated prisons on the basis of audits should be
developed.
Quantitative measures of prison performance, such as serious misconduct and drug use, should be
incorporated in any analysis.
Future analytical methods could allow simultaneous cost and quality comparisons. Someone not familiar with
the literature on prison privatization might assume that cost comparisons are accomplished without controversy
or ambiguity.
One key lesson learned from the Taft privatization studies is that comparisons are not as simple as might be
presumed.
Consider, for example, per diem (or daily) costs. The chart below lists the per diem costs, in dollars, as analyzed
by the Abt and BOP researchers for the three publicly operated prisons and Taft, the privately operated facility,
for fiscal years 19992002.
According to the Abt analysis, the Taft facility was cheaper to run, every year, than the three publicly
operated facilities. In 2002, for example, Abt reports that the average cost of the three public facilities
was 14.8 percent higher than Taft.
The BOP analysis, however, presented a much different picture. According to the BOP researchers, the
average cost of the public facilities in 2002 was only 2.2 percent higher than Taft.
Without a full rundown of methodologies, conclusive arguments cannot be drawn from study results
across all private prisons vs. public prisons. As such, the logical advocacy is a case-by-case decision
structure, which neither precludes no institutionalizes the implementation of private prisons.
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Overhead operating costs need to be determined on a case-by-case basis. DAT

Gaes, Gerry. Cost, Performance Studies Look at Prison Privatization. ncjrs.gov.
National Criminal Justice Reference Service. National Institute of Justice No. 259.
n.d. Accessed 11/10/2014. Web. https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/221507.pdf
Gerry Gaes is former director of research at the Bureau of Prisons. The article compares
two simultaneous studies of the same 4 prisons.
With respect to overhead costs, different approaches by the two research groups led to different findings. Basing
its analysis on the extent to which the government actually provided resources to support the Taft operation, Abt
concluded that only a bare minimum of support was provided. Therefore, the Abt analysis reported a 100percent savings of indirect, overhead costs for Taft during the time period in the study. BOP, on the other hand,
assumed that most overhead costs (planning, auditing, and other central and regional operations) could continue
to be incurred by the government, even if a private company was operating the prison. Therefore, the BOP
researchers applied a 1012 percent overhead rate (the average for BOP prisons during the 19982002 Taft
study period), calculating privatization savings of 35 percent of overhead for that 5-year period. Here again,
BOP estimated the costs that the government would have incurred by central administration, and Abt
presented only what was reported.
One can anticipate that underlying assumptions regarding overhead costs will have significant implications for
bottom-line estimations of costs and savings. As previously discussed, the assumptions made by Abt led to a
finding of much less overhead for the Taft private provider, suggesting that the government could save a great
deal of money by privatizing prisons. The assumptions underlying the BOP analysis were different,
however, and led to a less sanguine conclusion. Unless policymakers are mindful of these subtleties in
basic assumptions, they are not likely to delve so deeplyor even be presented with this level of detail
when considering taxpayer benefits of prison privatization.
At the March 2007 NIJ meeting, Mark Cohen, Ph.D., an economist at Vanderbilt University, presented data
showing that privately operated (and sometimes privately financed) prison systems have lower costs over time
than publicly operated prison systems. Although this may be true as an overall average, it is not necessarily
true for a particular jurisdiction. Any prison administrator or other policymaker considering
privatization would be well advised to consider the specific analytic assumptions underlying the studies.
Again, with the disparities between case studies, the conclusion remains the same: private prisos are
always a viable and potentially extremely cost-effective option.
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The best solution is Success-Oriented Funding. DAT

Bowling, Julia. Are Private Prisons Good Investments for States? Brennan Center for
Justice. New York University School of Law. 15 April 2014. Web.
http://www.brennancenter.org/blog/are-private-prisons-good-investments-states
The Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law is a nonpartisan law and policy
institute.
If private prison companies are not saving taxpayers money, why do states continue to send funding where it
doesnt work? Unfortunately, states cannot afford their corrections systems and are scrambling to find any
solutions to mitigate the increasing costs, without the time or wherewithal to evaluate the best options.
Instead, states should allocate funding according to a "Success-Oriented Funding" (SOF) model. This
simple, effective approach ties funding directly to achievement of clear goals to ensure taxpayers dollars
are not wasted. Several states have embraced this simple concept: fund what works to better the criminal
justice system, using public dollars to incentivize policies that produce results like reducing mass
incarceration while reducing crime.
The data will show what works, and what doesnt. With SOF, states are informed consumers, and can allocate
funds according to what works. SOF can be implemented into private or public funding streams- whether
federal, state or local or whether grants, budgets, contracts or other awards. Dollars should be tightly tied to
clear, measurable metrics that drive toward the twin goals of reducing crime and reducing mass incarceration.
Implementing SOF into private prison contracts would entail conditioning contracts on whether private prisons
met clear goals to improve outcomes for inmates and states. For example, one effective metric should be
reducing the recidivism rate of private companies' prisoners upon release. This would help shift private
prisons' incentives away from staying in business for themselves towards reducing mass incarceration
and saving taxpayer dollars. To truly deal with expanding corrections costs, states must stop digging deeper
into taxpayers pockets to fund initiatives that dont produce results.
Through a combination of mass contract restructuring and SOF, private prisons could become the ideal
solutions on a case-by-case basis. This fits into a broader imperative Con teams should be asking
themselves both on examination of Pro cases and in the formation of their own cases: is this funding what
works? Banning private prisons doesnt seem to fully fir this imperative.
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Con: Innovation potential
Private Prisons Have Untapped Innovation Potential

Private prison contracts can be used to efficiently reform the American prison system. DAT
November 2014. Web.
The use of contracting in the operation of private prisons creates the potential for several advantages over the
existing public prison model. Contracts can provide an increased flexibility toward the management of the
prison and allow for administrators to respond more quickly to short-term trends and predictions
(Logan, 1990; Logan & Rausch, 1985; cf., Shichor, 1999). The contracts can also have maximum
occupancy caps written into them to avoid the potential of overcrowding and resource strain (Keating,
1990). Perhaps most importantly, the use of contracts forces to be visible what otherwise may have been
ignored (Logan, 1987), and, as such, contracts can specifically delineate the intended processes and outcomes
that guide correctional policy. Private prisons therefore present the unique opportunity for innovation in
corrections through the use of contracts that emphasize principles of effective intervention and programs that
work.
Existing private prison contracts, however, have little to no performance indicators reflective of rehabilitation
built in. Instead, current contracts reward number of person days of confinement supplied (Bayer &
Pozen, 2005; Lukemeyer & McCorkle, 2006), a reduction in operating costs as compared to public
prisons (Brister, 1996), or, at minimum, performance that is equal to that of public prisons (McDonald,
Fournier, Russell-Einhorn, & Crawford, 1998). In short, the promise of innovation is stifled and private
prisons instead often resemble their public prison counterparts (Thomas, 2005). Without contract
stipulations related to therapeutic programming and other rehabilitation efforts there is limited reason for the
private sector to focus on such issues (Armstrong & MacKenzie, 2003). Private prisons are more likely to
maintain the status quo of the confinement model in an endless pursuit of profit. It is this very pursuit of profit,
however, that can be used to encourage private prisons to reaffirm rehabilitation.
Private prisons, by nature, are only as effective as the requirements of their contracts. Rather than ban
them, then, the logical alternative is to take advantage of private prisons operational efficiencies and
contractually encode requirements for space (occupancy limits) and rehabilitation-minded programming.
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December 2014
Private prisons are a superior setting for rehabilitation. DAT

November 2014. Web.
First, the privatization of prisons can serve as the vehicle that the rehabilitation effort has searched for in its
revivification. The importance of knowing what now works, as compared to what does not in terms of
treatment, has the potential to produce results favorable to rehabilitation that would be in direct contrast to the
muddled outcomes of the 1970s. At the same time, the prison still stands as the major symbol of the
punitive movement. Thus, reaffirming rehabilitation within prison walls is not asking get-tough pundits
to concede that prisons should be torn down and replaced with rehabilitation and treatment centers.
Rehabilitation in addition to incarceration seemingly provides an option that the general public calls for
in debates on how to deal with offenders. Offenders who are imprisoned may finally have the opportunity to
produce meaningful change that occurs away from the pressures of society (Lipton, 1996; MacKenzie, 2000). In
essence, it appears that private prisons and the rehabilitative ideal would be the perfect marriage for corrections.
Private prisons provide a slightly superior option in that they provide a layer (albeit, a nominal one)
between themselvesa corporationand the institution which does the incarcerationthe state.
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Private Prisons Succeed in Private Operations. PSM

LaFaive, Michael. "Private Prisons Succeed." . Mackinac Center for Public Policy, 1 Sept
1996. Web. 3 Nov 2014. <http://www.mackinac.org/546>.
The Benefits of Private Operation. When the modern correctional privatization movement started, it was
widely believed that any private role would be limited to small facilities housing low-security prisoners. Today
however, it is common to see contract awards for facilities with rated capacities of between 1,000 and 2,000
prisoners and for prisoners requiring medium or high security.
A growing body of research finds that contracting our corrections reduces costs, improves service quality, and
yields other benefits as well. Critics who initially argued that contracting with private companies could not
save money have been proved wrong. First, the fact that contracts exist implies that the contracting agencies
are confident that cost savings are being realized. Many statutes even require tangible evidence of savings
before contracts can be awarded. Second, private sector fringe benefits, especially retirement contributions, are
less generous for private employees than for government employees. Third, the private sector does not have
the costly bureaucratic requirements that government imposes on itself in employee hiring, firing,
promotion and procurement of goods and services. Fourth, private prisons are designed to operate efficiently
with fewer personnel in a way public prisons are not.
The precise magnitude of cost savings is difficult to determine because governmental accounting systems
generally do not show the total cost of public operations. Government agencies depend in varying degree on
services provided by other government agencies (accounting, data processing, legal, etc.) free of charge. Forprofit firms must account for all of these costs.
Nevertheless, a good deal of evidence on efficiency improvements has been accumulated. For example:
* A 1989 study by Charles H. Logan and Bill W. McGriff found that annual operating costs of a Hamilton
County (Chattanooga), Tennessee, penal farm were reduced by 5.4 percent under a CCA contract.
* A 1991 study by the Texas Sunset Advisory Commission found an estimated cost reduction of 14.4 percent
for four prisons operated by CCA and Wackenhut.
* In a 1994 study, Australian economist Allan Brown found that a privately operated prison in Queensland
saved 20 percent compared to a similar facility operated by government.
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Private Prisons Implement Beneficial Changes AMS

Wright, K. A. (2010). Strange bedfellows? Reaffirming rehabilitation and prison
privatization. Journal of Offender Rehabilitation, 49, 74-90. Web.
https://sites.google.com/site/privateprisons2/pros This report contains
breakthroughs on new research showing the benefits of private prisons.
Private prisons allow for the opportunity of what works in corrections to be implemented into the
performance evaluations (Wright, 2010).
Private prisons give the ability to test new incarceration philosophies and programs without lengthy approval
procedures (Antonuccio, 2008). Then, the focus of interest is treatment instead of control. If private prisons
failed to provide treatment, they are held accountable for the failed programs. Treatment and rehabilitation
mindset in private prisons allows the capitalistic thinking and interests to be reformed. A rehabilitation mindset
to private prisons creates a sense of legitimacy because it creates a measurable benefit (Wright, 2010).
Better Service of Private Prisons AMS

Blakely, C., & Bumphus, V. (2004). Private and public sector prisons: A comparison of
select characteristics.Federal Probation, 68 (1), 27-32. Web.
https://sites.google.com/site/privateprisons2/pros The Blakely/Bumphus report on
private prisons compared public prisons against private prisons in 2004. The results
were published in Federal Probation, an excellent source for expertise on the
criminal justice system.
Private prisons rated better in providing an environment where inmates felt safe and secure from being
assaulted.
Private prisons operate at an average capacity of 82% compared to public prisons that operate at an average of
113% capacity (Blakely & Bumphus, 2004).
()
28% of private prison inmates on average participated in drug treatment programs while only 14% of public
prison inmates participated (Blakely & Bumphus, 2004). Private prisons have a greater enrollment and
completion in academic, vocational, and substance abuse programs.
()
Inmates in private prisons are paid an average of ten cents more per day than inmates in public prisons (Blakely
& Bumphus, 2004).
()
Private prisons house a greater percentage of females, which tend to be more expensive and problematic, than
public prisons. As a result, the operational costs for the government are reduced by housing these females in
private prisons (Blakely & Bumphus, 2004).
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Private Prisons Outscore Public AMS

Logan, C. H. (1996). Public vs. private prison management: A case comparison. Criminal
Justice Review, 21(1), 62-85. Web. https://sites.google.com/site/privateprisons2/pros
The Criminal Justice Review provides the nations most relevant research on issues
relating to United States prison systems.
In a 1992 study, private prisons outscored state and federal prisons in the dimensions of conditions, security,
management, order, and safety (Logan, 1992).
()
A well designed facility, greater operational and administrative flexibility, decentralized authority, higher
morale, enthusiasm, and sense of ownership among line staff, greater experience and leadership among top
administrators, and stricter by the book governance of inmates were factors that predicted a high performance
of private prisons (Logan, 1992)
()
Private prison employees had a higher moral and greater job satisfaction than public prisons (Logan, 1996).
()
Management reported more flexibility in hiring, firing, evaluating, assigning, and resigning personnel (Logan,
1996).
Communication and positive relationships among all levels of staff and management are important to
effectively and efficiently run a prison. Staff at private prisons complained less and praised their management
more compared to a public prison (Logan, 1996).
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Private prisons can still enhance savings by penetrating union-dominated markets. DAT
Camp, Scott D., and Dawn M. Daggett. Quality of Operations at Private and Public
Prisons: Using Trends in Inmate Misconduct to Compare Prisons. bop.gov.
Federal Bureau of Prisons. 27 June 2005. Accessed 11/10/2014. Web.
http://www.bop.gov/resources/research_projects/published_reports/pub_vs_priv/ca
mp_daggett.pdf
Scott D. Camp is a Senior Social Science Research Analyst with the Office of Research at
the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
Studies comparing the costs of public and private prisons have generated controversy. Proponents of prison
privatization promise cost savings of 5 to 15 percent, and some research has found that these savings have been
achieved (Segal and Moore 2002). Likewise, a study financed by the Association for Private Correctional
and Treatment Organizations that was not covered in the Segal and Moore (2002) review found that
states with private prisons spent almost 9 percent less on corrections than states without private prisons
(Blumstein and Cohen 2003). Pratt and Maahs (1999) did a meta-analysis of 33 different cost evaluations and
found that private prisons were no more cost-effective than public prisons. Instead, they found other factors to
be more predictive of costs, factors such as the age of the facility, the economy of scale realized, and security
level.
Some researchers claim that the private sector has largely missed the opportunity to realize significant
cost savings in the United States because of their inability to penetrate the markets in the Midwest and
Northeast where labor costs and the presence of unions are highest (Austin and Coventry 2003). More to
the point, researchers who examined the existing cost studies noted that the results of cost comparisons
were specific to the prisons examined and did not generalize to prison privatization in general (General
Accounting Office 1996; McDonald, Fournier, Russell-Einhorn, and Crawford 1998; Perrone and Pratt
2003). In addition, there is controversy over the methods used in the studies (Perrone and Pratt 2003; Thomas,
Gookin, Keating, Whitener, Williams, Crane, and Broom 1996), especially the handling of certain costs in the
comparisons, most particularly overhead costs (Nelson 1998). The most general problem is that overhead costs
of the contracting agencies are not typically separated into those costs that are avoided by contracting with the
private sector and those overhead costs that were incurred (unavoidable costs) regardless of whether the private
sector operated the prison or not.
Past performance does not dictate future results holds particularly true. The more private prisons
expand into union strongholds, the more labor savings are achieved. Given that a majority of prison costs
are labor-related, this is an impactful economic distinction.
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Con: Cut costs
Private Prisons Cut Costs

Why Private Prisons Cost Less AMS
Asia Pacific Economics Blog. Private Prisons. April 16, 2014 http://apecsec.org/privateprisons-pros-and-cons/ Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) is a forum for 21
Pacific Rim member economies that seeks to promote free trade
and economic cooperation. The source provides new information on critical United
States policy issues.
The crucial amount an administration disburses to an exclusive company to manage and operate a prison could
be less than when the administration were to manage the jail itself. Factors like lower costs of labor affect that
greatly. Public service workers normally make more in general wages, income moreover of benefits those
exclusive employees do. The salaries add up to half the expense of running a prison. Private companies still pay
the same wages as administrations do, on the other hand fees for overtime, workers and healthcare recompense
claims are normally lower.
Private Prison Benefits from Lower Costs and Higher Efficiency AMS
Antonuccio, R. C. (2008). Prisons for profit: Do the social and political problems have a
legal solution?. Journal of Corporation Law, 33 (2), 577-593. The Journal of
Corporation Law The Journal of Corporation Law (J. Corp. L. or JCL), at the
University of Iowa College of Law, is the nation's oldest student-published
periodical specializing in corporate law research.
Private corporations are able to build prisons in locations that provide economic benefits to the community
(Antonuccio, 2008). The benefits to the community include jobs, increase spending in the community, stable
employment, and a general economy for the community.
()
It takes the government over two years to build a prison compared to a private prison corporation that can build
a prison in 18 months (Antonuccio, 2008).
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Con: Cut costs
Private Prisons Reduce Operational Costs AMS

Bales, W.D. Recidivism of Public and Private State Prison Inmates in Florida.
Criminology and Public Policy. 2005.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1745-9133.2005.00006.x/abstract The
Web. https://sites.google.com/site/privateprisons2/pros Bales report on private
prisons is one of the most respected research pieces on the subject. These excerpts
draw on the research of other critical reports on private prisons.
Private prisons are able to reducing red tape costs to complete simple tasks such as hiring and firing staff
and purchasing equipment (Perrone & Pratt, 2003).
()
The per diem is cheaper by $3.40 for private privates (Perrone & Pratt, 2003).
()
Private prisons house a greater percentage of females, which tend to be more expensive and problematic,
than public prisons. As a result, the operational costs for the government are reduced by housing these
females in private prisons (Blakely & Bumphus, 2004).
()
The free market and increase of market competition help lower the prison cost whileincreasing the quality of
services and facilities (Perrone & Pratt, 2003).
()
Even though private prisons have lower salaries, private prisons can hire more staff to reduce over-time costs
(Perrone & Pratt, 2003).
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Con: Efficient
Private Prisons are More Efficient

Private Prison Benefits from Lower Costs and Higher Efficiency AMS
Bales, W.D. Recidivism of Public and Private State Prison Inmates in Florida.
Criminology and Public Policy. 2005.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1745-9133.2005.00006.x/abstract The
Web. https://sites.google.com/site/privateprisons2/pros Bales report on private
prisons is one of the most respected research pieces on the subject. These excerpts
draw on the research of other critical reports on private prisons.
Private prisons are seen as a necessary supplement to public ones in the crisis of prison overcrowding.
Private prisons allow the government to speed up the process of building a prison because the legislators
do not have to authorize bonds (Camp & Gaes, 2002).
()
It takes the government over two years to build a prison compared to a private prison corporation that
can build a prison in 18 months (Antonuccio, 2008).
()
Private prisons are seen as a necessary supplement to public ones in the crisis of prison overcrowding.
Private prisons allow the government to speed up the process of building a prison because the legislators
do not have to authorize bonds (Camp & Gaes, 2002).
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Con: Efficient
Case study: Texas prison savings contracts. DAT

Glans, Matthew. Research & Commentary: Contracting Out Prison Services.
heartland.org. The Heartland Institute. 6 June 2011. Accessed 11/10/2014. Web.
http://heartland.org/policy-documents/research-commentary-contracting-outprison-services
The Heartland Institute is a national nonprofit research organization.
The cost of incarceration, rehabilitation, and security in state, local, and federal prisons has become a serious
budget problem. Correctional facilities cannot fully be privatized because the courts, police, and others who put
people there are inherently governmental, but the services can be contracted out. Today, private companies in
the United States operate 264 correctional facilities, with a prisoner population of approximately 99,000
adult offenders.
The main benefits of prison privatization, according to its supporters, are reduced costs for taxpayers and
improved results through increased efficiency and reductions in prison overcrowding. Contractors are capable
of running prisons less expensively than the government can, without reducing the quality of service.
Critics of privatization argue the efficiency gains are minimal and the studies used by proponents as evidence
overlook hidden costs and are not spread over multiple facilities and multiple years. They cite a 1996 U.S.
Government Accountability Office report that found no evidence conclusively demonstrating efficiency gains
from privatization.
According to a Texas Sunset Review Commission Agency Performance Review, private prisons in Texas
achieved a contractually guaranteed 10 percent savings over the cost of a state-run facility, and when the
additional tax revenue generated by the private prison was taken into account, the total savings rose to 14
percent. A similar report in Louisiana found private prisons have an 11 to 13 percent lower operating
cost, fewer critical incidents with the prisoner population, and better overall discipline.
The data on how private prisons shift costs is much less empirical and open to argument compared to the
hard numbers of prison efficiency seen here. While financial data such as this should always be on hand,
Con teams should proceed to shift their research to ensure they are ready to discuss the methodology of
prison cost savings.
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Con: Efficient
An economic projection of cost savings. DAT

pdf
Estimated total savings are quite staggering. A 45 percent privatized state spends about $10,000 less annually
per-prisoner than a state with no privatization. In other words, an unprivatized state that chooses to privately
house 45 percent of its prisoners can cut its perprisoner budget by a third!
The other explanatory variables have no less of an interesting effect on cost. For example, when all other factors
are held constant, every extra dollar earned by an entry-level state police officer (as an indicator of the market
wage for prison guards) leads to an increase in 92 cents in a states annual per-prisoner cost. The magnitude of
right to work legislation was particularly interesting. All else being equal, the presence within a state of a right
to work law reduces annual per-prisoner cost by over $9,000. This is strong evidence of the costly nature of
union power.
This card is heavily applicable for teams running affirmative Con cases advocating the wider-spread
adoption of private prisons.
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Con: Efficient
Private prisons often provide superior services at lower prices. DAT

Segal, Geoffrey F. and Adrian T. Moore. Weighing the Watchmen: Evaluating the Costs
and Benefits of Outsourcing Correctional Services. heartland.org. Reason Public
Policy Institute. January 2002. Accessed 11/10/2014. Web.
pdf
Adrian Moore, Ph.D., is vice president of policy at Reason Foundation
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Con: Efficient
On balance, private prisons in this metastudy were found to have superior programming. Keep in mind
that this is a supplement to essential evidence on the significant cost savings and efficiency gains of
private prisons.
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Con: Safer
Private Incarceration is Safer

Private prisons have a higher rate of accreditation. DAT
pdf
Capacity management and speed of delivery continue to drive privatization. According to one survey, 21
percent of state agencies who privatized say they turned to private firms because of their reputation for speedy
delivery.11 This is because private firms can construct jails and prisons in about half the time it takes
government to do so.12 But in addition to capacity management and speed of delivery, states also turn to private
firms in order to improve quality and lower cost.
There are a number of reasons to believe that private prisons offer a better, safer product. One is accreditation.
The American Correctional Association is an independent, non-profit professional corrections
organization. They accredit public and private prisons. Forty-four percent of all private prisons are
currently accredited. Just ten percent of public prisons are accredited.13 Court orders offer another
perspective on quality. In 2001, of the 50 state correctional departments, 13 entire departments were
under a court order to relieve unsatisfactory conditions.14 Not a single private prison has ever been
placed under a court order for unsatisfactory conditions.15 Finally, there is evidence from a number of
independent studies. Sixteen of eighteen studies surveyed by the Reason Public Policy Institute found private
prisons to perform as well or better than public prisons.16
There are gruesome contemporaneous instances of conduct breaches at private prisons. That said,
however, private prisons need to be examined comparatively against their public counterparts, otherwise
safety data is meaningless toward the resolution.
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Con: All prisons have problems
Public and Private Prisons Have Identical Deficiencies

The implicit case for banning private prisons lies in their failures compared to the standard for
institutions: public prisons. By showing that public prisons also fail to reach ideals, Con teams can blur
the distinction between public and private prisons, thus eliminating the imperative to single one out as
needing to be banned without calling into question the entire criminal justice system and its need for
reform, a debate which falls to the Cons favor. If an alternative solution (private prisons) has the same
negative impacts as the status quo (public prisons) in addition to more positive ancillary qualities (the
economic and social benefits shown in other sections), theres no reason to ban it. Even without the
positive factors, just putting public and private harms on equal grounds precludes banning one or the
other.
Neither public nor private prisons meet democratic standards. DAT

To judge private prisons from the perspective of the humanity principle, it is not enough to consider merely the
idea of private prisons. Instead, it is necessary to examine prison contracting as a practice, within the regulatory
context in which private prisons actually operate. Conducting this contextual analysis has made plain that, at
least as currently structured, private prisons pose an appreciable danger to the possibility of legitimate
punishment.
Yet public prisons, too, will invariably fall short when measured against the ideal the humanity principle
represents.279 Given conditions in publicly run prisons and jails, it would be absurd to suggest
otherwise. The question then becomes, of what relevance is the sorry state of many public prisons to the
present discussion?
Were comparative efficiency the operative framework here, drawing attention to existing conditions in public
prisons would serve as a rejoinder: yes, conditions in private prisons are at odds with the demands of the
humanity principle, but so are conditions in public prisonsthe implication being that, given the shortcomings
of public rejects the either/or approach of comparative efficiency. It aims not to champion the least bad
alternative, but instead to understand how and why existing prisons and jails, public and private, fall so far short
of the ideal. For liberal legitimacy, therefore, the current state of public prisons represents not a rejoinder
to the foregoing critique of private prisons, but rather an occasion for asking whether the insights
gleaned from that critique help also to explain failings in the public system.
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Con: All prisons have problems
The systemic problems of public and private prisons are identical. DAT
That there is much to learn about public prisons from a study of private prisons only makes sense. Although the
privatization of corrections is generally treated in the private prisons literature as a radical departure from
prevailing penal practices, prison privatization represents neither an isolated nor an aberrant approach to
punishment. It is instead the logical extension of practices that are standard fare in the prison system as a
whole. Of these practices, two in particular bear emphasizing: (1) the widespread use of private
contractors to provide key prison services at a cheaper cost than the state would otherwise pay, and (2)
the delegation to correctional officers of considerable discretionand thus, considerable power over
vulnerable and dependent prisoners absent mechanisms adequate to check possible abuses.
The foregoing discussion suggests that the risk that private prisons will be unsafe and inhumane stems directly
from these two practices. Yet both of these practices are also standard components of state-run prisons across
the country. As to the first, virtually every corrections facility in the country contracts out to for-profit
providers for at least some necessary services, including everything from food services to medical, dental,
and psychiatric treatment to rehabilitative and educational programming, garbage collection, and even
inmate classification.280 The states primary motivation for such contracting is its potential to cut the cost of
corrections to the state; for the majority of contractors, as in the case of private prison providers, the aim is to
make as large a profit as possible.281 And although perhaps some servicessay, garbage collectioncan be
carried out without having an impact on prison conditions, most others directly affect the wellbeing of
prisoners.282
And as to the second, in terms of correctional officers discretion in dealing with prisoners, there is little if
anything to distinguish public from private. Prison officials in public and private prisons alike have direct
control over all aspects of prisoners day-to-day lives,283 the circumstances of which are well hidden
from public view. Furthermore, the mechanisms in place to check potential abuse in the public prisons are
either identical to those that apply in the private context, or else, despite differences, are just as likely to be
inadequate.
The middle paragraph holds a particularly valuable insight for Con teams: Theres really no such thing
as a fully public prison. Given that public prisons contract essential services, Pro teams cannot point to
superior statistics backing public jails as evidence of the private industrys failures.
Page 124 of 159
Pro Counters
Page 125 of 159
December 2014
Pro Counters: More costly
Private Prisons Are More Costly

Private prisons rely on the same funding mechanisms and encourage further spending. DAT
Benson, Bruce L. :Privatization vs. Contracting Out. cato-unbound.org. Cato Institute.
19 August 2007. Accessed 3 November 2011. Web. http://www.catounbound.org/2007/08/19/bruce-l-benson/privatization-versus-contracting-out
Bruce L. Penson is Florida State Universitys Economics Department chair.
Now consider so called contracting-out. The contracting out for prison services (unfortunately called
privatization by most policy makers and many academics) actually refers to a particular type of contract in
which some part of the bureaucratic decision-making hierarchy is replaced by a decision-making hierarchy that
operates under a different set of incentives than those faced within the bureaucracy. Profit maximizing firms
under contract may produce the service at lower cost but that may not be efficient in an allocative
efficient sense (that is why I put quote marks around efficient in my previous remark I probably
should have used something like cost-effective). Other differences in incentives also may arise (e.g., abuses
of power may be less likely if the private firm can be sued and the bureau cannot).[2] Importantly, however, the
service is still purchased (financed) by a government organization dominated by individuals with their own
objectives (a dictator, elected representatives, or bureaucrats with discretionary power, all of whom are subject
to political pressures from powerful special interests). That is, the service is still paid for by coercively collected
taxes, after all, and allocated to uses determined through political processes with all of their public choice
problems. Indeed, one of those public choice problems is that contacting firms become lobbyists who have
incentives to demand more spending on prisons and perhaps more criminalization, as I have noted
elsewhere. Of course, corrections unions have similar incentives, but as Randy said in conversation, forprofit firms may be more efficient at lobbying too.
The point is that production of prison services by for-profit firms providing those services to the state is not
what I mean by privatization. Indeed, in the context of our interchange, Randys statement that purely private
prisons in the current state-run legal system would still end up increasing incarceration rates does not make
sense. These firms are not purely private when they operate in our current, state-run legal system.
They still provide services to the state and are financed through taxes, because, under the incentives that
currently exist (e.g., the focus on punishment rather than restitution) there is very little private demands
for such services.
The arguments above, simplified: there is little separating the funding of public and private prisons.
Private prisons are potentially more effective at lobbying. While they are economically efficient, the fact
that imprisoning people is the least efficient way for society to treat individuals means that operating
efficiency for prisons is actually a net harm, as it encourages further imprisonment.
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Private Prisons Dispute Criticisms on Efficiency. PSM

Tait, Maggie. "Private prison companies dispute criticisms." . Stuff, 01 Jul 2009. Web. 2
Nov 2014. <http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/2556713/Private-prisoncompanies-dispute-criticisms>.
The State should be responsible for prisoners not private companies, the Human Rights Commission said today.
Chief Human Rights Commissioner Rosslyn Noonan appeared before Parliament's law and order select
committee which is considering the Corrections (Contract Management of Prisons Amendment) Bill. Senior
managers from private prison company GEO Group were present and heard groups condemn their business. The
firm ran Auckland Central Remand Prison (ACRP) for five years until Labour won the 1999 election and
refused to renew its contract. Ms Noonan said protecting the rights of detainees was a key function of
government and should not be contracted out.
"The management of prisons involves the exercise of some of the state's most coercive powers against
individuals," the commission's submission said.
"There should be direct accountability for the exercise of such powers. A government department
directly accountable to a minister provides the clearest accountability."
If the bill was to go ahead the commission wanted its monitoring measures beefed up. Recommendations
included protecting staff from being sacked if they gave information to monitors and permitting prisoners to
complain directly to monitors. Also prisons should be required to comply with international conventions around
torture. Ms Noonan said early intervention would make the biggest difference. She called for willingness across
parties not to make political capital out of the issue. Catholic organisation Caritas was concerned problems in
the United States' private prisons such as beatings, rapes, suicides and other deaths in custody would be
repeated here. It noted that in the US the same people running private prisons were also involved in lobbying
government for longer sentences. GEO Group Australia managing director Pieter Bezuidenhout said his
company had managed prisons in Australia for 17 years, operating in Queensland, Victoria and New South
Wales. He said he had listened to criticisms and said his company could only do what governments told it
to.
"We've got no say in terms of the length of sentence. We've got no interest in the length of the sentence,"
he said.
"We are paid on a bed capacity. . . It's up to the state or government to fill those beds. There's no interest
for me to have longer sentences or lesser sentences because I am getting paid for 500 beds." While
National MPs had emphasised cost savings, that should not be the only driver, Mr Bezuidenhout said.
"Privatisation is not about cost savings. If that's all you want to achieve I am saying that you are knocking at the
wrong door. "Privatisation will bring an enhanced public service because you've got a mixed economy, and in a
mixed economy both the private operator and the public service will improve and enhance service." He said in
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December 2014
NSW prisoners spent 30 per cent more time out of their cells than those in public prisons. GEO was aware
of problems in the US but said there was high awareness about issues in Australasia and the company had to
protect its reputation so would not cut corners. Dom Karauria, a former general manager for ACRP and now
executive general manager for the firm's operations in Australia, said politicians had the power to ensure safety.
Private corporations face costly lawsuits which suck taxpayer money. DAT
2011. Accessed 11/10/2014. Web.
df
Issues related to a lack of available medical care, safety incidents in prisons, and poorly trained staff also result
in lawsuits. The state or jurisdiction could be named in the suit in addition to the private prison company,
but in some cases the state sues the private prison company directly. Either way, taxpayers shoulder the
burden of the cost of damages and legal fees, either directly or through increased costs for future prison
contracts. Examples include:
In November 2008, the State of Texas indicted The Geo Group in the death of Gregorio de la Rosa, Jr.138 One
of the outcomes of the case was a $42.4 million dollar civil suit settlement out of court.139
In 2010, the Southern Poverty Law Center and the ACLU National Prison Project filed a law suit against The
GEO Group, the prison administration, and state officials for abuse, violence, sexual contact with staff, and
other conditions at the Walnut Grove Youth Correctional Facility in Mississippi.140
On March 11, 2011, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a class action lawsuit regarding the violent
conditions inside the Idaho Corrections Center, which became known as Gladiator School. The state
corrections agency was originally implicated in the lawsuit as well as CCA and facility staff. However, the
ACLU dropped the IDOC from the lawsuit to save the state taxpayers money.141
The hidden costs of private prisons, including those from civil suits due to dicey humanitarian situations
in them, winds up begging the question of whether there is such a thing as to run a prison costeffectively.
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Private prison contracts can financially wreck rural communities. DAT

2011. Accessed 11/10/2014. Web.
df
The community can also be hurt if they decide to pay for the construction of a private prison, in anticipation of
future ongoing contract revenues. There is no guarantee that once a private prison facility is built that it
will be filled and stay filled.
In 2000, the town of Littlefield, Texas borrowed $10 million to build a prison that would be operated by
The GEO Group and filled with contract beds from Idaho and Wyoming. But, given ongoing state budget
crisis, Idaho removed all out of state prison contracts and the prison is now empty. GEO abandoned the
prison too, which is now for sale or contract. As of early 2011, Littlefield was paying $65,000 per month
against the original loan for construction.142
In Hardin, Montana the city entered into a deal with a group of private investors to finance the construction of a
private prison in 2006.143 The idea behind footing the bill for the prison was that opening such a facility would
bring jobs and revenue to the small town of 3,600 people. However, since construction was completed in
2007 the facility has remained vacant, leading to a technical default on $27.4 million in revenue bonds,
further devastating the towns economic development prospects.144
Because private prison corporations promise guaranteed revenue for towns in the form of secured
government contracts and jobs for locals, rural towns often pitch for the construction of prisons as a
convenient method to kickstart the local economy. This leads to overreliance on individual companies
and contracts to pull through. If they dont, towns and communities are still left with the burden of their
initial investment without any of the future revenue to offset it.
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Prison development fails to boost local economies. DAT

http://www.adler.edu/resources/content/4/1/documents/Adler_WhitePaper_IPSSJ_ICIRR_Economics-of-Private-Detention_FINAL.pdf
Private prison operators sell their facilities to communities with promises of increased economic development
and new jobs. Further scrutiny has disproven these claims. One 2010 review of the impact of prisons on local
communities from 1976 to 2004 asserts that prisons have not and are not likely to make a positive
contribution to local employment growth. Another 2010 report reviewing all prisons built in the US since
1960 questioned the benefits of prison construction in rural communities. Yet another study of prison
development in upstate New York showed that while new prisons created those jobs, few local residents
qualified for those jobs.
Local communities that rely on the promise of prison development often end up worse off. Most dramatically,
Littlefield, Texas, was forced to raise taxes and slash services to make up a $9 million budget hole left
when the GEO Group, another private corrections company, closed its prison there. Communities often
offer incentives such as property tax exemptions, subsidies, and municipal services such as water and road
maintenance that burden local taxpayers.
Rural communities often conflate the construction of a prison with the filling of that prison with local
jobs. Contracting the prison out isnt guaranteed, and neither is the source of the employment.
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The promised savings from private prisons are empty. DAT

Bowling, Julia. Are Private Prisons Good Investments for States? Brennan Center for
Justice. New York University School of Law. 15 April 2014. Web.
http://www.brennancenter.org/blog/are-private-prisons-good-investments-states
The Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law is a nonpartisan law and policy
institute.
The wave of criticism against private prison companies has grown amidst revelations of poor security, lack of
oversight, and perverse financial incentives to lock up more people. Now, a new report from In the Public
Interest confirms that private prisons not only rely on faulty math to get states to agree to binding contracts, but
also fail to save states money even when their contract legally requires it.
The report examined over 40 studies of private prisons and outcomes in five individual states, and found added
costs with private companies when compared to state run facilities. It concluded that companies use
questionable methodology in calculating the costs of public and private prisons, inflating public prison
costs to make private prisons seem more affordable. These companies can cherry-pick the least expensive
prisoners available (often choosing not to house elderly, sickly, or higher-security prisoners), while filling
their contracts with expensive terms, occupancy minimums, and automatic increases that create added
hidden costs to the state. The study found that Ohio, New Mexico, Florida, Georgia, and Arizona all failed to
see savings that were promised or even legally required in the cases of Ohio (5 percent savings) and Florida (7
percent) with private prisons.
Even conventional economic theorythat the private sector is more capable of quickly implementing
cost-cutting measuresdoesnt necessarily apply to this debate. Pro teams should challenge this premise.
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Market competition doesnt make private prisons more efficient. DAT

A market failure, as I use the term here, occurs when the ordinary operation of market mechanisms cannot be
counted on to yield optimal outcomes. Thus, for example, if a government contracts with a private firm for the
provision of an essential service that requires significant initial capital expenditures and expertise, the
government is in a poor position to negotiateor denycontract extensions if it has become dependent on the
private providers service. In a variety of contexts, including prison construction and management, the
firm may be able to raise rates dramatically over the initial contract bid because the government cannot
forgo the servicesay, housing dangerous criminalsand lacks readily available alternatives.
Additionally, private firms face the risk of business failure. A corporation may mismanage its operation to the
point of bankruptcy, leaving the government either to bail out the operation financially or scramble to identify
alternative service providers, which may themselves extract a premium based on the governments desperation
for immediate supply. Other sources of market failure include the use of campaign contributions to influence
the public officials who award government contracts36 and the inherent challenges of drafting suitable contracts
that specify with adequate precision the terms and expectations of performance. In the absence of solid and
measurable performance standards, it will be difficult to determine whether government is getting the
full measure of services it expects at the promised lower cost.3
This card contextualizes and provides the why for private prisons failing to save costs.
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Pro Counters: Worsen system
Private Prisons Make Prison System Worse

California's Private Prisons AMS
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/25/california-privateprison_n_4157641.html
The Huffington Post is a popular site with news spanning a broad spectrum of
relevant political issues. The Huffington Post is currently ranked number 1 among
the U.S.s political sites.
California's exceptionally powerful prison guard union was waging a fierce campaign against private prison
companies, telling voters that the facilities were poorly run and that the industry would take away union jobs.
"Public safety should not be for profit," Don Novey, president of the prison guard union, told the San Francisco
Chronicle at the time.
Still, David Myers, the president of Corrections Corporation of America, a Nashville-based giant of the
for-profit prison industry, believed his company's decision to build a prison in that remote corner of the
state would eventually pay off.
"If we build it, they will come," he predicted.
Sixteen years later, as California struggles to relieve overcrowding in one of the nation's largest prison systems,
the inmates are coming by the thousands.
The private prison system is a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy. After building large expensive prisons and
instating shocking occupancy requirements, prisoners streamed in to these prisons in abundance. The
occupancy requirements on private prisons put state governments under pressure to imprison more
peoplethereby exacerbating the problems with the nations prison system.
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System Needs Reform AMS

sites.
Not so long ago, Brown himself was an outspoken champion of sentencing reform. As mayor of Oakland in
2003, he called the state's sentencing system an "abysmal failure" and said he regretted his role in establishing it
during his first stint as governor in the late 1970s. By locking people up for fixed terms, he said in 2003, the
state was denying prisoners any real incentive to acquire the life skills needed outside of the prison
system, creating what he referred to as "postgraduate schools of crime."
Needless Prisoners AMS

number 1 among the U.S.s political sites.
But critics say the state incarcerates many prisoners who pose no real danger to the public, including elderly
inmates and the terminally ill. And they argue that the governor could safely decrease the prison population by
allowing more inmates to earn reduced sentences for good behavior.
James Austin, president of the the JFA Institute, a national criminal justice research group, testified in the state's
overcrowding case that California could safely release 22,758 prisoners. Using a computer program
developed by the state, he determined that 40 percent of all California prisoners were unlikely to return
to prison within three years of their release. Letting them out early would constitute a "safe and
effective" way to meet the population target, he remarked in his testimony.
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Working in private prisons is demoralizing for prison staff. DAT

Obviously, security officers and prison personnel in private prisons are not civil service employees. Without
the stability and protection of civil service, the turnover rate for security staff in private prisons in the
U.S. is over 50 percent, compared to just 16 percent for public facilities.16 In the United Kingdom, staff
turnover at private prisons is 35 percent, while it is only five percent in the public sector.17 Turnover rates
at individual prisons can be much worse than these averages: one private facility in Florida reported an annual
staff turnover rate of 200 percent.18
Salaries for guards at private facilities also lag behind those of public employees, as one of the principal costcutting areas in private prisons is in labor costs. Private prison companies generally pay employees less than
public institutions in both direct salary and fringe benefits.19 For instance, the starting salary for guards at a
private prison in Alabama is $7 per hour, compared with $11 per hour for public guards. In the U.K. the average
pay for private prison officers is more than 50 percent less than it is for public prison officers.20 This is hardly
the type of incentive needed by prisons to recruit suitable security guards.
Moreover, the conditions of employment at private prisons tend not to contribute to the recruitment or
retention of suitable personnel. The staff-to-inmate ratios are 15 percent lower at private prisons than
public ones, which increases the workload for private guards.21 Employees in one private British
detention center had to work 12-hour shifts with no lunch breaks for 7-day stretches. 22 A guard at a
private facility in Tennessee found the conditions so demoralizing that he returned to his previous job at
a fast food restaurant, where he felt his work would be better respected.23
Private facilities in Australia have experienced a number of security staff walkouts because of poor working
conditions. At Port Hedland, for instance, guards walked off the job as a result of fear that detainees were
stockpiling homemade weapons a charge the chief executive officer of the detention center denied even
when presented with evidence. As the local union leader explained, the private prison cant ensure the guards
safety and for budget constraints they dont want to.24 At a Canadian prison, guards had to organize their
own campaign to get vaccinations for Hepatitis B despite obvious risks at the facility. A local health
professional reported that [p]ublic-run institutions vaccinate each of their staff [b]ut in a private-run
enterprise, profit comes at the expense of the workers.25
The net harms extend to everyone in the prisonboth prisoners and staff. This is an underrated
consideration for Pro teams.
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The turnover rate at private prisons is too high to maintain security in the system. DAT
The private sector required correctional officers to undergo an average 174 hours of pre-service training and 42
hours of annual in-service training. In comparison, the public sector required correctional officers to undergo an
average 232 hours of annual pre-service training and 42 hours of in-service training. This suggests that the
public sector required 58 additional hours of pre-service training above that provided by the private
sector. This finding supports its related hypothesis and suggests that the private sector is nearer the less
eligibility end of the ideological continuum than is the public sector.
The private sector also reported an average correctional officer turnover rate of 43%. Turnover refers to the total
number of officers leaving a particular prison during a specific year. Similar information was also available
regarding total staff turnover rates and their causes. Figures indicate that 71% of those individuals leaving
private prisons resigned their position, while 0.6% retired, 21% were terminated/dismissed, and 7%
transferred to another facility. In comparison, the public sector reported an average correctional officer
turnover rate of 15%. This suggests that the private sector experienced officer turnover rates approaching
three times that of the public sector. Total staff turnover rates were also available for the public sector,
indicating that 63% resigned their position, 15% retired, and 22% left for unknown reasons. Thus, the private
sector had approximately 9% more of their staff resign and 15% fewer of their staff retire. This finding
supports its related hypothesis and suggests that the private sector is nearer the less eligibility end of the
ideological continuum.
When considering staff to inmate ratios, the private sector reports an average 6.7 inmates per correctional
officer and 3.7 inmates per staff member. The public sector, in comparison, reported an average 5.6 inmates per
correctional officer and 3.1 inmates per staff member. This finding suggests that the private sector had
higher inmate to officer and staff ratios than did the public sector. This finding is not surprising
considering private prisons are newer (Pratt & Maahs, 1999), may employ advanced security measures,
and incarcerate a less serious inmate population. Because the differences between the sectors did not exceed
25%, this particular finding will not be used to place either sector upon the ideological continuum.
A prisons ability to maintain order is a function of its staffs experience. With high turnover and little
training, private prison staff find it more difficult to maintain order than their counterparts in public
prisons. Considering the maintenance of order is a core function of a prison, this is an impactful finding.
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Prison contracts incentivize recidivism and mass incarceration. DAT

Mock, Brentin. Private Prisons Lock in Profits with Lockup Quotas.
southernstudies.org. Institute for Southern Studies. 20 September 2013. Accessed
11/10/2014. Web. http://www.southernstudies.org/2013/09/private-prisons-lock-inprofits-with-lockup-quotas.html
The Institute for Southern Studies is a public interest media, research, and education
center.
According to a new report from In the Public Interest, a nonprofit resource center that studies the privatizing of
public functions, prison companies are increasingly striking deals with states that have occupancy guarantee
clauses.
Some of these inmate lockup quotas are as high as 90 percent, and a few even require 100 percent
occupancy. Under these agreements, states that fail to meet capacity mandates must pay the difference -meaning they must use taxpayer money to pay for empty beds. The report calls these payments "lowcrime taxes."
Louisiana and Virginia are among the four states locked into contracts with the highest occupancy guarantee
requirements, with all quotas requiring at least 95 percent occupancy. The other two states are Arizona and
Oklahoma. Among the companies involved in such contracts are Tennessee-based Corrections Corporation of
America, the largest for-profit private prison company in the United States, and GEO Group of Florida.
"Establishing quotas for prison beds creates a perverse incentive to make criminal justice policy based on
principles of economics instead of public safety," said Dana Kaplan, executive director of the Juvenile
Justice Project of Louisiana. "This is to the detriment of the people of our state, particularly those
families and individuals most impacted by our high incarceration rate, and the taxpayers footing the
bill."
Page 137 of 159
December 2014
Pro Counters: Corrupt collaboration
Corrupt Collaboration
CCA Prisons Maintain Relevance through Congressional Influence AMS
As CCA's presence in California has grown, the company has significantly boosted its spending on
political campaigns and lobbying in the state, a HuffPost analysis of campaign finance data found. It
spent nearly $290,000 on California campaigns during the 2011-12 election cycle, up more than eightfold
from the 2005-06 cycle.
Since running for governor in 2010, Brown has taken in $15,000 from CCA, which also spent $50,000 in
support of his initiative to raise taxes. And he received $25,900 from the GEO Group. (Hedging its bets, the
GEO Group also contributed $25,900 to his 2010 Republican opponent, Meg Whitman.)
Page 138 of 159
December 2014
Union and Private Prisons Alliance AMS

For years, California's prison guard union, the California Correctional Peace Officers Association, served as a
powerful check on the growth of the private prison industry. The union spent millions to support the campaigns
of political allies, and launched media attacks that were widely seen as lethal to the political aspirations of
opponents.
Now the union and the private companies are partners. Brown's deal with CCA stipulates that the state will staff
the private facility with union guards, effectively creating a detente between the former foes. When Brown first
announced the deal in August, the union's leader, Mike Jimenez, joined him on stage in a show of solidarity.
Advocates for prisoners' rights and criminal justice reform worry that this alliance could prove
particularly damaging to sentencing reform efforts, expanding the prison system for years to come.
In addition to the corrupt deals made with congress-people, private prisons are now closely aligned with
Californias union system. These alliances make it difficult to objectively evaluate the private prison
system and still more difficult to deliver the much needed reforms Californias prison system requires.
Page 139 of 159
December 2014
Private prisons undermine the democratic principles of the criminal justice system. DAT
Skeptics of the social meaning argument against prison privatization observe that the cultural context that
confers meaning is by no means fixed. Indeed, perhaps there are already some legislators, judges,
administrators, and entrepreneurswe might add citizens and criminal offenderswho actually and honestly
do not believe that private imprisonment is significantly different from public imprisonment in cultural
terms.148 To the extent that this is the case, it suggests how far we have strayed from the normative path of
liberaldemocratic meaning. In fact, we can recall or envision changes in meaning regarding a number of
culturally significant phenomena, such as marriage, parenthood, and rape. But presumably it is not a matter
of indifference to us what course these changes take whether rape is or is not regarded as a serious
violation of the self, whether marriage and family are limited to heterosexual couples or extended to
homosexuals, polygamists, or other nontraditional arrangements. In each instance, the challenge is to
make a case for meaning in terms of our liberal-democratic values and to promote or resist cultural
change on that basis.
In the case of criminal punishment, the contemporary focus on incapacitation, combined with an us versus
them mentality toward criminal offenders, represents an impoverished conception of the liberal- democratic
community and charts a course in the wrong direction. It fails to take seriously both the capacity of persons to
make and remake themselves and the number and variety of obstacles, affecting some more than others, in the
way of making socially responsible choices. By contrast, the communicative conception of punishment is
predicated on precisely those features of the human condition on our potential and our limitationsthat
ground our liberal-democratic commitments. There is thus nothing mysterious about the idea that it
matters who inflicts punishment.149 For punishment engages fellow citizens in one of the most serious
and definitive enterprises of a liberal-democratic communityholding ourselves and one another
responsible for our actionsand the voice of the community is clearest when it speaks for itself.
Boiling down the arguments of this card: For justice to serve its purpose, it needs to be administered as a
function of the people, not by a private entity
Page 140 of 159
December 2014
Pro Counters: Faulty reporting
Faulty Reporting on Private Prison System

Reality of Private Prisons Exposed AMS
The Florida Department of Juvenile Justice looks at past performance when choosing contractors, but evaluators
rely on companies to self-report their contracting history. In some of the most egregious instances of negligence
and failure to report serious incidents, however, Slatterys companies pulled out of their contracts early, rather
than wait for the government to take action. In other cases, the contracts end date worked in the companys
favor. Executives could then technically say they had never had a contract canceled.
Moreover, state officials dont examine a potential contractors record in other states if the company
already has contracts in Florida.
Page 141 of 159
December 2014
Pro Counters: Not paid large salaries
Public Prisons Staff are not Paid Large Salaries

Costs in Prison System not a Result of Prison Staffing Salaries AMS
Much of the presumed cost savings of private prisons are achieved through lower staffing costs: private prisons
pay their employees less than public prisons. But Oklahoma is not exactly paying exorbitant salaries.
The starting salary for a public corrections officer in Oklahoma is $11.93 an hour, or $22,700 a year. Almost 30
percent of Department of Corrections staff members are eligible for food stamps, while 85 percent qualify for
reduced cost lunches for their children.
Page 142 of 159
December 2014
Pro Counters: Not paid large salaries
Private prison staff are relatively underpaid and inexperienced, with disastrous results. DAT
Nor have predicted innovations in prison management through privatization come to pass.252 Instead, the
private prisons of today function very much like public prisons, only with a cheaper labor force.253
Private prisons thus generally exhibit all the particularized characteristics that make public prisons
dangerous places: the considerable discretion and power conferred on guards;254 the fear on all sides;
the simultaneous monotony and high pressure of the prison environment;255 inmates possible proclivity
to violence; and the relative social and economic disempowerment of prison guards, who do a difficult job
in a tense and dangerous environment and for whom power over prisoners constitutes both a rare
perquisite and an outlet for frustration.256 But in addition, private prison employees are likely to be less
qualified (because less well remunerated) and less well trained than their public-sector counterparts.257
Given this situation, it seems likely that private prisons as currently constituted would turn out to be more
violent places than their state-run counterparts. And in fact, although much of the available data is inconclusive
regarding the overall quality of conditions in private prisons as compared with public facilities,258 meaningful
data do exist showing elevated levels of physical violence in private prisons.259
For example, in 1997, researchers at the U.S. Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA)
surveyed private prison operators and received responses pertaining to sixty-five of the eighty private
correctional facilities then in operation in the country.260 They then compared this information to
comprehensive data on public prisons nationwide. Comparing the number of major incidents,
including assaults, riots, fires and other disturbances in the public prisons over twelve months with
those occurring in private facilities over the same period,261 the survey found a greater number of such
incidents per one thousand inmates in the private prisons: 45.3 per 1,000 inmates in public prisons, as
compared with 50.5 in private facilities.262 When inmate assaults were taken alone, the disparity was even
more marked: 25.4 per 1,000 inmates in publicly run facilities, as compared with 35.1 in private prisons.263
Any increased for labor in public prisons can thus be looked at as the economic cost of preventing violenc
in the prisons. Given that this is a worthwhile investment, the increased cost of public prison labor
shouldnt be looked at as an absolute negative impact.
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December 2014
Pro Counters: Accreditation meaningless
Private Prison Accreditation Is Meaningless

Even if a prison is accredited, it doesnt necessarily follow procedures. DAT
It is a standard requirement of state enabling statutes that private prison operators achieve and maintain official
accreditation from the American Correctional Association (ACA),190 an independent organization of
correctional professionals dating to 1870.191 The ACA sets standards governing every aspect of penal life192
and, on request, certifies the facilities that meet these standards to a satisfactory degree.193 The requirement
that private prisons receive ACA accreditation is certainly desirable; indeed, in this regard, the private
sector, having been forced to satisfy ACA standards, is ahead of many public-sector facilities, 20 percent
of which did not have such accreditation in 2001.194
Still, it would overestimate the effect of ACA accreditation to assume that this requirement sufficiently checks
private-sector abuses. For one thing, ACA visits are highly structured, so that certification [indicates]
compliance with standards for only a brief period.195 Moreover, the standards are largely procedural
in character, generally satisfied by a showing as to what the written procedures of the institution lay
down as operational processes, rather than observing whether those processes in fact are followed.196
Arguably, these problems could be resolved by an overhaul in the accreditation process, and such an
overhaul would certainly be welcome. In its current form, however, the ACA is unlikely to undertake
sufficient reform to ensure adequate protection against inmate abuses. For one thing, ACA officials are
generally chosen from the ranks of experienced corrections officials.197 As a result, personal and professional
relationships between ACA overseers and prison management are not uncommon, creating a common sympathy
and sense of purpose that tells against both more meaningful standards and more rigorous enforcement.198
Moreover, the institutions being inspected ha[ve] to pay for the whole procedure, providing income on which
the ACA is dependent for its survival.199 For this reason, a degree of capture is likely.200
It is well documented that private prisons achieve a much higher rate of accreditation than their public
counterparts. This cannot be conflated by Con teams with real measurements of quality.
Page 144 of 159
Con Counters
Page 145 of 159
December 2014
Con Counters: No overcrowding
Private Prisons Do Not Promote Overcrowding

Private Prisons Do Not Cause Incarceration AMS
Evan Westrup, a spokesman for Brown's administration, said that the contributions played no role in Brown's
decision to sign the new contracts. Steve Owen, a CCA spokesman, said that lobbying allows the company to
"educate" government about "the types of solutions we provide and to stay current on issues that affect our
ability to best serve our partners."
"Under longstanding policy, CCA does not take a position on or in any way promote policies that
determine the basis or duration of an individual's incarceration," he added.
Overall, California houses about 119,000 prisoners within its borders and thousands more in CCA prisons in
other states, and it has one of the most crowded prison systems in the country. In 2009, a panel of federal
judges concluded that the in-state prisons were so densely packed that prisoners were dying as a result.
The judges ordered the state to reduce overcrowding.
The private prison system was introduced to help alleviate overcrowding issues. Private prisons provide a
solution to Californias overcrowding deaths.
2011 Case Declares Need for Private Prisons AMS

In 2011, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the ruling, with Justice Anthony Kennedydeclaring in the
majority opinion that the lack of adequate space in California's prisons was causing at least one inmate to
"needlessly die" every six or seven days.
Page 146 of 159
December 2014
Con Counters: Economic savings
The Economic Savings Are Indisputable

A decades worth of studies have a unanimous conclusion. DAT
Segal, Geoffrey F. and Adrian T. Moore. Weighing the Watchmen: Evaluating the Costs
and Benefits of Outsourcing Correctional Services. heartland.org. Reason Public
Policy Institute. January 2002. Accessed 11/10/2014. Web.
pdf
Adrian Moore, Ph.D., is vice president of policy at Reason Foundation
Page 147 of 159
December 2014
Con Counters: Economic savings
Case study: Rural economic benefits from private prisons. DAT

Kirchhoff, Suzanne M. Economic Impacts of Prison Growth. Federation of American
Scientists. Congressional Research Service. 13 April 2010. Accessed 11/11/2014.
Web. http://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R41177.pdf
The Congressional Research Service (CRS) works exclusively for the United States
Congress, providing policy and legal analysis
Shelby, located in Toole County (population 3,541), Montana, in the northern part of the state, is host to a 660bed maximum security prison, the Crossroads Correctional Center, which was financed, built, and operated by
CCA.
Every five years, Shelby city officials publish a review of the economic impacts of the institution.163
According to the most recent review, covering a period through 2008, the prison employs 181 people from
Shelby and the surrounding area. It generates $100,000 to $150,000 in annual billings for the local
medical center, which serves the prison population and people who moved to the area to work at the
prison. The prison buys only 5% of its supplies from local Toole County, though it contracts for another 75%
from Montana-based businesses. Property values in the county have increased, in contrast to other rural
Montana communities which have shown significant declines. It is not possible to say whether the improvement
is due to the prison or other factors, such as energy-related development in the area.
The prison has created some strains, including an increase in the number of cases heard at the courthouse. The
local police force has had to devote about 1,320 hours from 2005 through 2008 on prison-related work, such as
investigating in-prison assaults and serving warrants or civil court summons. There have been fights and gang
activity at the prison and, in 2008, CCA had a national security company bring employees in from out of state to
fill jobs at the prison.164 But officials say the costs are more than balanced by the nearly $500,000 in
annual property taxes paid by the prison, and Shelby Mayor Larry Bonderud said the town continues to
attract business and has experienced no stigma from the maximum-security facility. Mayor Bonderud said
he preferred the higher security institution, in part because it requires higher staffing levels and therefore more
local jobs.165
While broad, empirical data is fundamentally what proves the resolution, specific case studies can be
equally impactful with judges as a supplement.
Page 148 of 159
December 2014
Con Counters: Conditions not worse
Private Prison Conditions Arent Worse

Overcrowding isnt an issue. DAT
The private sector is also much less crowded than previous speculation has suggested. The belief that the private
sector operates at or above capacity to maximize profit has not been substantiated by this study. In fact, the
private sector operated, on average, 24% below that of the public sector. Again, this may be due more to
the nature of the private sector as an "overflow mechanism" for the public sector than to any specific
ideology or operating objective that it may ascribe to. Finally, since the private sector operates below
capacity and houses less serious offenders it should, by all conventional thinking, also be a safer place to be
incarcerated. However, findings suggest otherwise. Precisely why the private sector is a more dangerous place
to be incarcerated remains unexplained. Further research would be useful to support or discredit observations
similar to those made in Kesler et al. v. Brazoria County (1998) where the court suggested that private sector
violence may be associated with staffing practices.
Page 149 of 159
December 2014
Con Counters: Conditions not worse
The state ties the hands of private contractor. DAT

Certainly, nothing in the foregoing discussion goes to show that the states use of private prisons could never
satisfy the humanity principle. What it does show is that, when the state looks to privatization to save money on
the cost of corrections, there is reason to expect conditions of confinement to fall below even that level of
quality and safety that can be reasonably expected of those charged with the difficult task of running the
prisons. When the states aim is saving money, it will be unwilling to undertake measures that will
substantially raise the cost of privatization, even when doing so could arguably ensure more meaningful
protections for vulnerable inmates. So the state will invest minimally in monitoring contractual
compliance, placing perhaps one full-time monitor at each site, despite the arguable need for a full-time
team of monitors if the effort is to be at all effective. When money is the states primary concern, it will
hesitate to rescind contracts even when evidence of abuse is considerable, fearing the costs such a move would
entail. It will also forbear from specifying contractual terms requiring private contractors to provide minimum
levels of staffing and training for private prison guards and stipulating the salaries and benefits to be paid to
them. Doing so would only increase the cost of contracting to the state and would, moreover, greatly tie
the hands of contractors, for whom cutting labor costs is the central available means to keep expenses
down.
While the state is on the hook failing to provide the minimum funding for adequate inmate services, it is
the private contractors which are held accountable for this failure, despite simply directing funding to the
most pressing areas of need. Without adequate (state-provided) resources, there is no way for any prison,
regardless of whether it is public or private, to succeed.
Page 150 of 159
December 2014
Con Counters: Justice system root
Prisons Problems Trace Back to the Justice System

American incarceration rates are too high for prisons to keep up. DAT
There are over 4,000 federal crimes, and many times that number of regulations that carry criminal penalties.
When analysts at the Congressional Research Service tried to count the number of separate offences on
the books, they were forced to give up, exhausted. Rules concerning corporate governance or the
environment are often impossible to understand, yet breaking them can land you in prison. In many
criminal cases, the common-law requirement that a defendant must have a mens rea (ie, he must or should know
that he is doing wrong) has been weakened or erased.
The founders viewed the criminal sanction as a last resort, reserved for serious offences, clearly defined, so
ordinary citizens would know whether they were violating the law. Yet over the last 40 years, an unholy
alliance of big-business-hating liberals and tough-on-crime conservatives has made criminalisation the
first line of attacka way to demonstrate seriousness about the social problem of the month, whether it's
corporate scandals or e-mail spam, writes Gene Healy, a libertarian scholar. You can serve federal time
for interstate transport of water hyacinths, trafficking in unlicensed dentures, or misappropriating the likeness of
Woodsy Owl.
Private prisons are a solution to a problem created by the United States criminal justice system: nearly
everything is criminalized in some way, shape, or form. Given the already-present overcrowding of
public prisons, no positive outcome is achieved through the banning of private prisons given the
continuing zealousness for locking people up.
Page 151 of 159
December 2014
Con Counters: Justice system root
The state fails to set minimum standards for private prisons. DAT
Headley, Andrea, and Jean-Claude Garcia-Zamor. The Privatization of Prisons and its
Impact on Transparency and Accountability in Relation to Maladministration.
International Journal of Humanities, Social Sciences and Education, Vol.1 No. 8.
August 2014. 11/11/2014. Web. http://www.arcjournals.org/pdfs/ijhsse/v1-i8/4.pdf
Jean-Claude Garcia-Zamor is a Professor in FIUs Department of Public Administration.
Take for example, the Florida Department of Management Services, in which the contracts are so vague that
they do not specify any standards of performance in relation to private prisons inmate education, vocation,
and treatment programs nor does they outline any specified policy for inmate visitation and telephone costs
that are comparable to those provided by the state s public prisons (Treadwell, 2012, p. 144). This one
example portrays the vagueness of contracts, which can lead to maladministration in that one of the goals
of incarceration is rehabilitation. This goal can be forfeited if the performance measures and standards
are not detailed enough to match the quality of services within the public prison environment. The
sensitive nature of prison entails that scrutiny be given to any and all minute factors in that they can hinder or
facilitate rehabilitative aims and thus affect recidivism.
As mentioned above, due to the vagueness of contracts there is a lack of defining various daily activities, thus
private actors are ultimately responsible for daily management decisions (Mrth, 2007) in regards to the
provision of public goods and services, which poses management problems in itself (see Pozen, 2003).Further,
these private actors are neither required to disclose their actions and decisions nor the reasons for acting in such
a way. While the government is accountable to the extent in which it ensures that prison services are
being provided, the daily operational procedures are forfeited. Therefore, there is a level of
accountability that is diminished, because of the lack of control that government officials and the public
have over controlling the daily activities that are not defined within the contract (Mulgan, 1997).
Additionally, without the mere knowledge of what is going on within the private agencies, accountability is
further weakened due tothe lack of transparency. Moreover, studies have shown that the incomplete nature of
contracts gives way to sacrificing the quality of private prison operations, especially as it relates to prison
violence and the quality of personnel (Hart, Shleifer, &Vishny, 1997).
Con teams should become adept at differentiating between the inherent problems of private prisons, and
the problems of poor oversight/contracting. Only one (the former) should be a reason to ban private
prisons.
Page 152 of 159
December 2014
Con Counters: Legal constraints
Private Prisons and Legal Constraints

Public and private prisoners alike have identical legal protections. DAT
With respect to the courts, aside from the narrow Richardson exception,284 the legal standards previously
canvassed, both substantive and procedural,285 apply equally to public and private prisons.286 The same holds
for the certification standards of the ACA, which does not distinguish between public and private prisons when
assessing facilities for accreditation purposes, and thus judges each on the same basis. As for the threat of
service-provider replacement in cases of poor performance and ongoing monitoring of internal prison affairs,
although the structuring regimes differ in each case, these mechanisms appear no more effective at constraining
abuses in the public sphere than in the private.
Page 153 of 159
December 2014
Con Counters: Legal constraints
Private prisons lobbies do not dictate prison legislation. DAT

And were private prison providers to seek to wield such influence themselves, they would enter a politicized
arena in which several other interest groups already work to shape criminal justice policies in ways consistent
with the financial interests of their members.365
Perhaps the most notable example in this regard is the California Correctional and Peace Officers
Association (CCPOA). This organization, one of the most powerful lobby groups in California,366
represents all of Californias correctional officers and consistently supports state legislation providing for
enhanced sentencing, seemingly regardless of the legitimacy of the punishments thereby imposed.367 The
existence of CCPOA and other criminal-justice interest groups, however, does not vindicate the states use of
private prisons, as some commentators appear to believe.368 Any time criminal justice policy is influenced by
parties hoping to further their financial interests through increased incarceration regardless of the demands of
legitimate punishment, it is cause for concern. The fact that the private prison industry is not the only group
motivated in this direction suggests not that there is no problem with private prisons,but that the problem is
more widespread than previously recognized.369
As private prison advocate Charles Logan sees it, introducing the private prisons industry into the
political mix better serves the public interest by forcing competing interest groupscorrectional
officers unions, state agencies, etc.to press their claims in the most vociferous way possible. This
process, Logan claims, allows policymakers and citizens to sort[] out the [public interest] from among
competing definitions and claims.370
This card in no way vindicates the use of lobbying by private prison contractors. However, it does
mitigate the impact of the Pro's lobbying point. The most powerful lobby for harsher sentencing is, after
all, majority composed of public prison employees. Private prison lobbying cannot thus be shown to
conclusively be creating additional harm.
Page 154 of 159
Contentions
Page 155 of 159
December 2014
Pro Contentions
Pro Case
Introduction:
As a nation based upon innovation, the United States has struggled for decades on issues of private enterprise.
Critics of the U.S. prison system praised private prisons because of the potential for reform. What was once a
promising solution to the scores of problems with United States prisons has shown itself to be altogether wrong
for the principles of United States criminal justice. The United States criminal justice system emphasizes
equality for all men before the law and the necessity of rehabilitationof giving prisoners a chance to reform
their lives and contribute to society in a positive way. Private prisons take the emphasis off of rehabilitation and
use extraordinary lockup quotas to focus on keeping prisons as full as possible. Because these prisons fail to
achieve their purpose and cost United States taxpayers, we affirm the resolution that Resolved: For Profit
Prisons in the United States should be banned.
Contention One: Private Prisons Encourage Recidivism

The state of California is a textbook example of the many issues with for-profit prisons. According to Salon
Magazine, which has been nominated for the National Magazine Award for its expert research, Three privately
run prisons in Arizona have contracts that require 100 percent inmate occupancy, so the state is obligated to
keep its prisons filled to capacity. Otherwise it has to pay the private company for any unused beds. Salon
Magazine reports that [These contracts run] counter to many states public policy goals of reducing the
prison population and increasing efforts for inmate rehabilitation. Occupancy requirements like the quotas
established in California encourage officials to seek the harshest possible sentences just to maintain the
ludicrously high occupancy requirements. These quotas focus on ensuring prison profitswhich is the heart of
the issue with for-profit prisons. For-profit prisons are actively interested in incarcerating as many people as
possible. This goal is immediately counter to United States pillars of rehabilitation. In addition to the occupancy
quotas established by many private prisons, Assistant Professor in the School of Criminology and Criminal
Justice at Arizona State Kevin Wright reports: An emerging body of research on what works provides the
impetus needed for a change in correctional philosophy. Programs and policies that emphasize rehabilitation
and treatment are likely to be successful in reducing offender recidivism. Equally important is knowing what is
likely to be ineffective in reducing recidivism. Programs that rely almost exclusively on coercion and
punishment (without a treatment component) are unlikely to result in positive outcomes in terms of reduced
offending. Kevin Wright goes on to report that 12.4% of private prisons were without an education program, as
compared to 0% of federal prisons. Not only, or perhaps, because private prisons are directly incentivized to
keep prisoners inside, these prisons are much less likely to offer the resources needed to prevent recidivism.
Page 156 of 159
December 2014
Pro Contentions
Contention Two: Costs

While proponents of private prisons often call these systems more efficient and less costly, the facts show that
private prisons are hurting American taxpayers. The Justice Policy Institute, a Montreal based independent
institute of research, has found that: Policies that promote incarceration over more effective public safety
strategies cost more in both the short and long term. The average cost to incarcerate one person for one day in
the U.S. is $78.88.119 Thus, policies that increase the length of time that someone is incarcerated can have a
significant fiscal impact. For example, one study found that 10 years after California enacted its Three Strikes
law, the people added to the prison system under the law between March 1994 and September 2003 would cost
taxpayers an additional $10.5 billion in prison and jail expenditures, including $6.2 billion in added costs
attributed to longer prison terms for nonviolent offenses.
Private prisons actively promote incarceration. According to Salon Magazine, 65 percent of the private prison
contracts ITPI received and analyzed included occupancy guarantees in the form of quotas or required
payments for empty prison cells (a low-crime tax). These quotas and low-crime taxes put taxpayers on the hook
for guaranteeing profits for private prison corporations.
Contention Three: For-Profit Prisons Block Need for Reform

My partner and I fully acknowledge the flaws with United States public and federal prisons and the need for
systematic change. For-profit prisons are not the solution to this issue, these prisons prevent the deep-rooted
reform the United States criminal justice system needs. According to the Huffington Post, currently ranked
number 1 among United States political sites, Prison Law Office director Specter argues that private prison
deals exacerbate the problems with United States criminal justice. "Instead of facing the sort of
politically tougher questions of how to revise the sentencing structure, the state uses the private prisons
as the release valve," he said. In recent years, states around the country have dramatically lowered the size of
their prison populations, in part by reforming their sentencing laws. In Texas and other states, entire prisons
have closed in the wake of these changes. These states changes show that reform is very possiblebut forprofit prisons must not be a part of the picture.
Page 157 of 159
December 2014
Con Contentions
Con Case
Introduction:
The Corrections Corporation of America, or CCA, was founded in 1983. In 1997, CCA opened a facility in
Youngstown, Ohio. By md-1998, within a span of just one and a half years, the facility had seen about 45
assaults and fatal stabbings. You will likely hear Pro teams bring up this case, or something like it. The reason
we bring it up instead is to show that it is not our goal to defend all the actions of private prisons, or their
employees. And it is not my partner and Is goal to defend all the general practices of private prisons, either. In
negating the resolution Resolved: For-profit prisons in the United States should be banned, our goal is neither
to establish that for-profit, or private, prisons are superior to public ones, nor that in most cases they are the
better option. The American criminal justice system is broken and badly in need of reform. Private prisons are a
part of that system, but so too are public ones. And it is by not only meeting minimum prison standards but also
serving as a useful and beneficial component of both the modern prison system and a potential reformed one
that private prisons serve their essential purpose. It is for this reason that they cannot, and should not, be
banned.
Contention 1: Private prisons arent deficient

To ban something is to accept that it does an unacceptable net harm to society. In the American criminal justice
system, imprisonment is a requisite; prisons are a necessity. Public prisons are inherent to the system, which
means that the merits of private prisons ought to be measured relative to those of their public counterparts. So,
in comparison to public prison, my partner and I pose the simple question: have private prisons, as a collective,
done enough harm to warrant their banning? One criterion for banning private prisons is the potential harm to
prisoners: if private prisons violate human rights to an extent greatly surpassing public ones, they ought to be
banned. This simply is not the case. For instance, Curtis Blakely of Truman State University found that In fact,
the private sector operated, on average, 24% below that of the public sector. Contrast this with public prisons
in massive states like California, where crowding has reached the extent that judicial orders have forced the
state to export prisoners. There have been isolated incidents of overcrowding, unclean or unsafe conditions, etc.
in private prisons. But until these levels far surpass those of public prisons, which are considered an essential
good for the criminal justice system, there is no basis for banning public prisons. And as with the overcrowding
example, any deficiency in the private sector can be matched and exceeded by the public sector.
Page 158 of 159
December 2014
Con Contentions
Contention 2: Private prisons are an asset to the criminal justice

system
Imagine trying to fix a car with just a wrench and a couple screwdrivers. This is the equivalent of using solely
public facilities and management to handle Americas prisoners. This isnt simply matter of capacity, although
Californias crowding predicament is a terrifying example of just such a problem. Instead, this is an issue of
versatility. As noted by Alexander Volokh of Emory Law School, the best system may be one of mixed public
and private management, where private programs complement existing public programs rather than replace
them. Volokh goes on to cite the Ohio correctional system, where some public prisons have been turned over
to private management and other private prisons turned public, allowing the state to ratchet up the best possible
practices at all its facilities. By their nature, private facilities are adept at turning a profit; operational efficiency
is a goal, not a nice ancillary asset. The public sector, meanwhile, is defined by regulation and the enforcement
of standards. By thus turning over high-risk populations to the state and letting the private sector handle lowerrisk matters where operational efficiency is easier to achieve without endangering care standards, state
correctional systems can minimize costs without harming the quality of their incarceration p rograms.
Contention 3: Private prisons enable reform

The American criminal justice system is badly in need of reform. A common trope is that private corporations
are heavily invested in the status quo, thus preventing changes in a system which has one of the highest
recidivism and incarceration rates in the free world. In fact, the use of privately-contracted prisons has the
potential to be a far more effective harbinger for reform than a fully public system ever did. The reason is that
private companies are contracted to run prisons. As explained by Kevin A. Wright of Arizona State University,
contracts can provide an increased flexibility toward the management of the prison and allow for
administrators to respond more quickly to short-term trends and predictions. Essentially, by specifying
individual contracts, the state can experiment with reform-minded policies on-demand, on a per-prison basis.
Private prisons contracts are also the reason they cannot be banned: corporations cannot actually be held
accountable for the transgressions that occur in their prisons. Private contractors only duty is to fulfill the terms
of their contracts. The significance of this is articulated by Sharon Dolovich of the UCLA School of Law:
When the states aim is saving money, it will be unwilling to undertake measures that will substantially raise
the cost of privatization, even when doing so could arguably ensure more meaningful protections for vulnerable
inmates. With states across America finding themselves cash-strapped, states fail to contract high-quality
services in exchange for more money; the economics simply arent feasible. It is thus foolish to blame private
companies for the failings of the contracts under which they operate. Private prisons are tools. When paired
with progressive contracts and baseline adequate funding, they can realize their potential as a reformative
mechanism in the U.S. criminal justice system.
Page 159 of 159

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December 2014 PF Brief

Resolved: For-profit prisons in the United States

Youth Service's International Fails AMS ................................................................................................. 69!

Public and Private Prisons Have Identical Deficiencies ................................................................................. 123!

Current incarceration demographic data. DAT

Topic Analysis One

Topic Analysis Two

Private Prisons Conditions Encourage Recidivism

Strategies to prevent recidivism. DAT

Private prison are sorely lacking rehabilitation curriculum. DAT

Private Prisons and Shocking Truths on their Conditions. PSM

Gang Rules Private Prisons. PSM

The Perverse Incentives of Private Prisons and Inmate Behavior. PSM

Poor Incentives Neglect Rehabilitation, Encourage Recidivism AMS

Simmons, Matt. Punishment & Profits: A Cost-Benefit Analysis of Private Prisons.

The impacts of public prisons superior training programs. DAT

The economic impacts of discouraging recidivism. DAT

Corporations fully admit their profits depend on recidivism. DAT

Private prisons internally lengthen sentence times.

Profit-driven practices can deter inmates from getting paroled. DAT

Pro: Legally unrestrained

Private Prisons are Legally Unrestrained

Pro: Legally unrestrained

Family Blames Private Prison for Death of Inmate. PSM

Pro: Legally unrestrained

Pro: Legally unrestrained

Private prisons inmates have unacceptably narrow constitutional rights. DAT

Pro: Legally unrestrained

Case study: Eighth Amendment violations in private prisons. DAT

Pro: Legally unrestrained

Public prison officials have more legal leeway on whistleblowing. DAT

Pro: Reliance dangerous

Overreliance on Private Contractors is Dangerous

Pro: Reliance dangerous

Pro: Reliance dangerous

Gladiator School and Idaho Correctional Centers Contracts. PSM

Pro: Reliance dangerous

Prison Privatization and Criticisms of Profiteering from Asylum Reforms. PSM

Pro: Reliance dangerous

Private Prisons and Patronage by Governments. PSM

Pro: Reliance dangerous

Outsourcing of Prison Health Care to Private Companies. PSM

Pro: Quotas hurt

Quotas Hurt Inmates and Taxpayers

Pro: Quotas hurt

Occupancy Requirements Hurt Economies AMS

Salon Magazine is a respected source on current issues. The magazine strives to

Pro: Oppose public interest

Private Prisons Oppose the Public Interest

Pro: Oppose public interest

Private Prison Contracts and Mass Incarcerations. PSM

Pro: Oppose public interest

Criticism of Corrections Corporation of America. PSM

Pro: Oppose public interest

Prison Industry and Big Businesses or New Form of Slavery. PSM

Pro: Oppose public interest

Profitability of Halfway Houses and Prisons. PSM

Pro: Oppose public interest

Larger Inmate Prison is Boon to Private Prisons. PSM

Pro: Oppose public interest

Jailing Americans for Profit. PSM

Pro: Oppose public interest