More and more, federal and state governments are delegating authority to private organizations, including private prisons. There are several benefits to privatizing such as the expertise of private organizations, higher productivity, reduced government size, and more. Although this often results in more efficient functioning, critics of privatization claim that it threatens the public good. "They point out that efficiency was not foremost on the minds of the framers of our nation when they designed our governmental architecture" (Hall, 2020).

The text explains that about 92,000 prisoners were housed in private prisons by 2001 (Hall, 2020). In 2019, there were over 115,000 prisoners in private prisons, 8% of the total state and federal prison population (Muhitch, 2021). The issue that most have with this is about serving the public interest, rather than primarily a financial interest. However, I don’t think that the US should stop using private prisons for a variety of reasons. First, they help decrease overcrowding in prisons, and with the extremely high incarceration rates in the US, this is important. Second, prisons should be about rehabilitation and decreasing recidivism, and it seems that private prisons may have more expertise and access toward achieving this.

Muhitch, K. (2021, March 3). Private prisons in the United States. The Sentencing Project. Retrieved February 22, 2022, from https://www.sentencingproject.org/publications/private-prisons-united-states/