Should Prisons Be Privatized

I am not a believer that prisons should be privatized. I believe that prisons should be governed and ran by the government. Since the government is the only entity that can legally take away someone's constitutional rights, then these should be the only entity that houses these individuals. The government has to look out for the common welfare of the offender through the due process system. This system ensures that the offender is not violated of any of their rights before, during, or after their arrest. As such, this is the duty of the government to ensure proper care for the convicted.

The private sector has one common goal and that goal is to make a profit. With this being stated the whole goal with the private sector running a prison would be to turn a profit. They are not in the business of helping or caring for people, since the fact that they are not a charity. I believe the rehabilitation process for inmates would suffer as a result of privatized prisons. When costs have to be cut in order to turn a profit, one can be assured that the executives will not be cutting their salaries, but instead will be cutting rehab programs and other programs designed to help inmates become better citizens.

The whole point of taking away someone's rights is because they have deprived someone else of their rights. Prison inmates are paying back their debt back to society. As such, society owes them the chance to engage in programs to turn their lives around, which will result in them being good citizens once released from prison. It simply would be a wasted process to have an inmate stay incarcerated for a period of time and not have the proper rehabilitation needed to reform their life. I believe this is why it is important for the government to have control of prisons to ensure proper care and rehabilitation. Otherwise the recidivism rate would be astronomical and our prisons would continue to become overcrowded.