Private Prisons Must be a Leading Topic in the 2020 Election.

Corporations continue to be able to profit off of incarceration.

Photo by Brett Jackson on Unsplash

We’re so used to it now, that it’s almost hard to imagine a time when there were actually no privately owned prisons existing in the United States. Today, these private prisons still continue to play a major role in criminal justice at the state, local, and federal level in the U.S., as they have for decades. As the 2020 election approaches and the need for criminal justice reform is growing more and more difficult for politicians on both sides of the isle to ignore, it’s time to thoroughly examine their history, as well as the impact private prisons have had on this conversation.

Since the 1980s, the U.S. has seen a sharp and steady increase in the number of people living behind bars. According to PrisonStudies.org, the United States imprisons a higher percentage of its population than any other country in the world. The Bureau of Justice Statistics reports that there are currently 2.2 million Americans living behind bars, and a total of over 6.6 million are under the supervision of a correctional system.