Crime

PRISONS ARE A GROWING BUSINESS

 One result of the privatization trend in prisons has been innovative facilities that use fewer employees and more technology to monitor inmates and lower overall labor costs.
  • Over the objections of labor unions and prisoner advocates, 25 states have privatized at least one prison.
  • There's still plenty of room for growth in the incarceration industry, since private prisons now house less than 3 percent of the 1.7 million U.S. prison population.
  • Analysts predict an average annual growth in private prisons of 25 percent over the next five years.
  • Abroad, however, the prison privatization pace is slow -- with only one new private prison bed being created for every 10 in the U.S.
In July 1997, Wackenhut Corrections Corp. received a 10-year, $300 million contract to operate a federal prison in Taft, California -- which is the first time the federal government has turned a jail over to a private contractor.

Source: Gail DeGeorge and Julia Flynn, "Go Directly to Jail," Business Week, December 15, 1997.
 

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