Pro Argument

Hook: Judge put these 2 thoughts into head for consideration

1. Bankrolling small towns
2. Find loophole to avoid Texas
A private prison, jail, or detention center is a place in which individuals
are physically confined or interned by a third party that is contracted
by a local, state or federal government agency. Private prison
companies typically enter into contractual agreements with local,
state, or federal governments that commit prisoners and then pay a
per diem or monthly rate for each prisoner confined in the facility. Nine
states completely eliminated their reliance on prison privatization.
They were: Arkansas, Kansas, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada,
North Dakota, Utah, and Washington.

Contention 1, Tax money is being misused

Private prisons cause a bigger debt for the state. For example, Montgomery
County decided to construct the Joe Corley Detention Facility, operated by
The Geo Group. The private prison took $45 million dollars in bond to
construct. It has left the county with a large financial burden also. Even
though the facility opened in August 2008 there are no inmates in the prison.
Unfortunately for the county, according to County Judge Alan B. Sadler, "did
not anticipate" the potential loss of its tax-exempt status. According to
Sadler, if the country loses its tax-exempt status "the tax implications would
be huge."
Instead of the United States money going to education and to make the
society better it goes to Private Prisons. For example, The special education
system in the United States is one of the most heavily-regulated and underfunded of all federal education mandates. And there is not nearly enough
funding for these children that need it the most. In order to have good
teachers who care about their students there needs to be more funding put
into special needs of education, but instead the money is being used for
funding Private Prisons.
Contention 2: Contention 1: conceited for profit

The privatization of prisons is yet another instance of how small-government advocates

are driving more and more of our lives into the hands of companies whose only objective is to
turn a profit without concern for larger social consequences.
When public services like incarceration are handled as cheaply as
possible, terrifying outcomes can result, including, in this case,
unnecessary harm to minor offenders, the hardening of minor
offenders into serious criminals, and calls for still more draconian law
enforcement and punishment protocols, whose main justification is to
keep those for-profit prisons filled.
Some claim that private prisons really don't save money, but like any
for-profit business, attempt to maximize their own profit. This results in
a reduction of essential services within the prison -- from medical care,
food and clothing to staff costs and security -- at the endangerment of
the public, the inmates and the staff.
Private prison administrator in Virginia, says the secret to low
operating costs is having a minimal number of guards for the
maximum number of prisoners. The CCA has an ultra-modern prison
in Lawrenceville, Virginia, where five guards on dayshift and two at
night watch over 750 prisoners. In these prisons, inmates may get their
sentences reduced for good behavior, but for any infraction, they get
30 days added which means more profits for CCA.
Contention 3: disregard high quality services
http://sentencingproject.org/doc/publications/inc_Too_Good_to_be_True.pdf
Prison privatization provides neither a clear advantage nor disadvantage compared to
publicly managed prison. On average, private prison employees also receive 58 hours less
training than their publicly employed counterparts. Consequently, there are higher employee
turnover rates in private prisons than in publicly operated facilities.
Studies have found that assaults in private prisons can occur at double
the rate found in public facilities. Researchers also find that public
facilities tend to be safer than their private counterparts and that
privately operated prisons appear to have systemic problems in
maintaining secure facilities.

Extra facts:
Today there are around 2.4 million people locked up in the United States.
More than half are housed in private prisons. The prisons population is 6 times
more than it was in the 1980s. According to washingtonpost.com, more than 1 in
100 adults in the United States are behind bars. Trail cost about $3 million a day,
adding up to $1 billion and 95 million a year. Generally, Private Prisons cost $3.5
Million more per year than state-run prisons. The total price to taxpayers was $39
billion. The prisons have a contract with the state, and in the contract all of the
prisons need to have at least 90% of their beds filled in order for the contract to be
valid according to Now on PBS. The annual average taxpayer cost is $31,286 per
inmate (www.nytimes.com ). Thats about $85.71 a day. 2010 a report by Arizonas
Office of the Auditor General found that privately-operated prisons housing
minimum-security state prisoners actually cost $0.33 more per day than state
prisons. Thats $120 more year. That might not sound like a big difference, but
youll be surprise by how much a dollar can do.
There has been charges that employees got too friendly with inmates
by kissing and inappropriately touching them.
Turn your attention to the state of Ohio, where 1,000 inmates at the
Ohio Reformatory for Women discovered grotesque insects crawling on
and around their plates. For the second time this year.
So many turned to private investment, to venture capital, both to fund
new prison projects and to run the prisons themselves for costs around
$30 to $60 per bed, per day. This began what we know today as the
for-profit, PRIVATE PRISON INDUSTRY.
Tax payers pay for empty cells
Wells Fargo is profiting from private prisons
Private prisons deliberately exclude people with high medical care
costs from their contracts.

Conclusion:
Private prison companies are making a killing off today's broken and
discriminatory criminal justice system. Industry giants like CCA and
GEO Group rake in billions in profit each year from locking
disproportionately Black and brown people in some of the country's
most dangerous prisons. The prison-industrial complex is so out of
control that private prisons have the sheer audacity to order states to
keep beds full or face their wrath with stiff financial penalties,
according to reports. Private prisons in some states have language in
their contracts that state if they fall below a certain percentage of
capacity that the states must pay the private prisons millions of
dollars, lest they face a lawsuit for millions more. Successfully lobbied
for years to expand failed criminal justice policies responsible for
today's mass incarceration crisis.