Beginning in the 1980s, federal budgetary constraints and increasing incarceration rates moved the U.S. government to issue its first contracts with the private prison industry.
This action fired off a trend that saw states incorporate for-profit models into their own prison systems. As of 2022, 28 states had contracts with private prison firms.
Connecticut stands apart from these 28, as all its correctional centers are state-owned. Connecticut’s Department of Correction is tasked with managing and supervising its correctional facilities, overseeing everything from high-security central prisons to local correctional facilities. The DOC is responsible for keeping facilities accountable and ensuring that the needs of both incoming and outgoing inmates are sufficiently met; this includes enforcing internal operating standards and supporting reintegration programs for transitioning inmates.
In an effort to reinforce the current system’s integrity and prevent the abuses perpetrated by private prison institutions, Connecticut state legislators have raised bill S.B. 1328. This bill, if made law, would categorically prohibit private companies from owning, operating, or managing correctional facilities in Connecticut. Such a forward-thinking policy would safeguard Connecticut’s criminal justice system from succumbing to the harmful private prison industrial complex. A look into the many ills privatization has brought to many states across our country makes clear the necessity for taking S.B. 1328’s preventative action.
Research surrounding America’s private prisons reveals to us the negligence that privatization opens up prison management to. A comprehensive 2016 report by the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Inspector General analyzed 14 American federal prisons run by private companies alongside a set of 14 comparable facilities operated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP). Using data from 2011-2014, they investigated these facilities’ levels of contraband, reports of incidents, lockdowns, inmate discipline, telephone monitoring, selected grievances, urinalysis drug testing, and sexual misconduct. The study revealed that, in all categories except for drug tests and sexual misconduct, private prisons had more transgressions per capita than BOP institutions.
Most shockingly, the private prisons had significantly higher rates of assault —both by inmates on other inmates and by inmates on staff— and had confiscated eight times as many contraband phones annually.
Many technical causes might help explain the failures captured here. But, even then, it is clear that these specific shortcomings are only symptoms of a greater disease: the model’s sickening for-profit essence. Incentivized to keep costs low, private prisons tend to sacrifice their quality of service for financial gain. The prevalent belief that electronic surveillance —a relatively cheap mode of monitoring— can replace certain employees leads to substantial staffing and supervisional inadequacies; and, overall, cost-cutting efforts can lend themselves to drastic dips in living conditions for inmates.
Having been raised in Florida, a state with seven private prisons, I am all too aware of the staggering waste, fraud, and abuse that follow. A 2017 investigation by Florida Rep. David Richardson revealed that, during a seven-year period, the state government had paid well over $16 million in overcharges to CoreCivic, a private prison goliath. Rep. Richardson identified this waste as the consequence of either governmental mismanagement or calculated fraud.
In addition to the pernicious corruption exemplified by this instance, the internal management of Florida’s private prisons presents severe operational deficiencies. An audit from the Florida Auditor General of the Department of Management Services found that the state’s three private prison providers failed to comply with basic standards: they had failed to maintain sufficient levels of security personnel, they had failed to procure functional fire safety systems, and they had failed to provide proper training for security personnel. The violation of these basic, regulatory necessities unambiguously shows the lack of integrity plaguing for-profit correctional facilities.
But perhaps the most egregious reality of the for-profit system is the common practice of incorporating minimum occupancy clauses. These clauses require the government to maintain a specific percentage of occupancy in the private prison, typically ranging from 80% to 100%. If the government fails to meet this occupancy requirement, it must pay a compensatory penalty to the private prison company for unused beds. In Florida, the minimum occupancy clause guarantees a ridiculous 90 percent occupancy of their facilities. If such a policy were to ever take root in Connecticut, it would likely present taxpayers with additional burdens and terribly increase incarceration rates.
One of President Donald Trump’s first actions of the year reversed former President Joe Biden’s 2021 executive order against the renewal of federal contracts with private prison corporations. As this new administration launches a slew of regressive criminal justice policies, it is more important than ever for states to take a stand at the local level.
Connecticut has the opportunity to do just this with S.B. 1328. Recent history has taught us that the restorative services of correctional facilities can be most faithfully delivered through public ownership and regulation.
America’s incarceration system is steeped in a legacy of pain and trauma. This legislative act is by no means enough to redress the iniquities perpetuated by the current system —but it is a necessary step in the long path towards extensive reform. For the enduring health of today’s criminal justice system, we must be proactive.
Now is the time to contact the offices of your local representatives and senators and demand their support in keeping correctional facilities free from the corruption of privatization.
Anthony Dominguez is a member of the Yale College Democrats.
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