Xinhua News Agency, Beijing, March 24th (International Observer) Private prisons in the United States: the management of prisoners is chaotic
Xinhua News Agency reporter Song Ying Guo Yuqi
In February of this year, the mother of inmate Terry DeShawn Childress took the US private prison giant Correctional Corporation (formerly known as “Correctional Corporation”) to court. Childress was beaten to death by another inmate last year in a cell at one of the company’s correctional centers. The family believes that the correctional company, in pursuit of profit, cut the number of guards regardless of the safety of inmates, which ultimately led to the tragedy.
American journalist Ted Conover called the private prison industry in the United States a “painful industry.” In recent years, the private prison industry in the United States has continued to expand in pursuit of profits. Problems such as constant violence, chaotic management, and extreme oppression have become prominent. It should have been a place to save lost people, but it has become a dark world where crimes are created.
talk about color change
Many prisoners talk about the discoloration of private prisons in the United States. Kansas federal public defender Melody Brannon said in an interview with the media that inmates are afraid of the correctional company’s private prisons because their lives are at risk every day. According to the “Gold Digger” weekly report, private prisons in the United States continue to experience violence, with 28% more inmate attacks than public prisons.
The Associated Press reported that correctional companies at the Leavenworth, Kansas, detention center experienced an average of more than 36 violent incidents per month between May and July last year. Drugs and weapons are common there, and the cell area is often filled with a synthetic marijuana odor, according to CNN.
The victimization of women and youth groups is even more of a concern in private prison violence. In 2010, there were more than a dozen cases of guards sexually abusing female inmates at a private prison in Kentucky by the American Corrections Corporation. In 2012, GEO Group, another giant in the private prison industry in the United States, exposed a scandal of sexual abuse of minors by managers at a juvenile correctional facility in Mississippi, which the judge called “a cesspool of illegal brutality.”
manage chaos
“This prison should really be shut down completely,” lamented the resignation of caretaker Shari Ritchie, who worked at the Leavenworth Detention Center for nearly 13 years.
The Leavenworth Detention Center has been severely understaffed for years. In 2017, a U.S. Attorney’s Department report noted that as many as 23 percent of guard positions at the detention center were vacant. Since the outbreak of the new crown epidemic, the loss of guards has become more serious, and some important positions are often unguarded.
Many private prisons in the United States are in the midst of such a management chaos. It took hours after a criminal escaped before guards realized someone had escaped. The Netherlands-based multinational research institute analyzed that the main goal of private prison companies in the United States, like other businesses, is to make as much profit as possible.
extreme pressing
“Selling[private prisons]is like selling a car, or a house, or a burger,” said Thomas Beasley, co-founder of American Corrections Corporation. In their eyes, prisons are business and prisoners are money.
The US private prison industry claims to be able to reform prisoners with economical and efficient methods, but in fact it exploits prisoners and accumulates huge wealth. Detained illegal immigrants have also become one of the targets of exploitation. The Washington Post reported in February that many illegal immigrants are being held in private U.S. detention centers. Some media pointed out that private prison companies in the United States have long forced illegal immigrants to work for them at low prices. Once they refuse or resist, they will face severe punishment.
Shuaib Ahmed, from Bangladesh, was detained at the Stewart Immigration Detention Center in Georgia in 2017, the Guardian reported. The correctional company that runs the center does not give the illegal immigrants enough food and daily necessities, and they have to go to the center canteen to buy them at high prices.
An article published on the website of the Transnational Institute pointed out that the American prison system is not to reform prisoners, but to keep them in it for a long time, with the purpose of severely punishing and incapacitating them.
Article source: Xinhua News Agency
Responsible editor: Xu Yamin