Osama Ghani

903160750

Privatized Prisons From A Functionalist Perspective

Privatized prisons are a phenomenon that affect different groups in a society in

different ways. The different direct stakeholders include convicted criminals, prison staff

and the corporations that run the prison. However, on a larger scale, they affect

populations more likely to go to prison, as well as actual shareholders in corporations

that run prisons. Thus, it is a multifaceted issue, and so viewing this issue from multiple

different lenses can give us an insight into the driving forces behind this institution. From

the point of view of conflict theory, private prisons represent an opportunity to contain

the conflict between the general public and criminals. This conflict arises because of the

fears that the general public have of letting criminals run loose. Thus, a corporation

sees the possibility to profit from containing and formalizing this conflict, leading to

private prisons. However, it can be argued that this is a functionalist point of view as

well, because private prisons work to extend a function of the government, which is to

separate criminals from the public. Because the government is not able to do this

profitably, a corporation serves to fill this function. From a symbolic interactionist

perspective, private prisons show criminals that even if the government does not step

in, it is the will of the people to keep criminals off the streets. The profit in this case is a

symbol that this reflects the public’s desires.

 One of the roles that the government in the United States is tasked with is the

protection of its citizens. The taxes that citizens pay is indicative of the trust that citizens

have in the government. Protection of citizens includes ensuring a low rate of crime, and

a primary way of achieving this is keeping criminals in a correctional facility. Thus,

running prisons is one of the many functions of government. However, there are

different tiers of government, the federal, state and county levels in particular, each

concerned with crimes occurring in their jurisdictions. This multilayered prisons system

makes it difficult for government as a whole to systematically and effectively manage

prisoners. Thus, it becomes difficult for the government to perform its function. This is

where the role of private prisons comes in. Government bureaucracy and red tape

makes many operations in the government costlier than they should be. So, the

government delegates this work to the private sector to maximize the utility of tax

dollars.

However, private prisons serve an alternate role, which can often lead to a

conflict of objectives. By their very nature, private prisons serve to make a profit, and

hence pay dividends to shareholders. Thus, to maximize revenues, private prisons have

an incentive to accept as many prisoners they can to keep beds full. This in turn

requires a relatively high baseline rate of crime, which goes against the primary

objective of the government. This is only a possibility however. The profit maximizing

incentive represents a clash of two functions of private prisons, and they have to make

a choice about which one to prioritize. In an attempt to cut costs, some private prisons

are understaffed, which can lead to security issues. Thus, from a functionalism point of

view, private prisons are a sort of paradox, because the functions are often conflicting.
However, the prevalent use of private prisons in part is due to the necessity of prisons

and the inability of the government to perform this function by itself. So, even though

private prisons have to make a choice about which function is more important to them,

they can afford to compromise because the government has to meet and maintain this

function. Even though private prisons may not be an ideal solution to keeping criminals

off streets, it is economically viable and for the most part, serves its function. However,

the effects of the conflict of functions is most drastically felt by the prisoners themselves,

because this conflict between functions leads to prisoners being seen as inputs to an

business process rather than human beings with rights.

So, private prisons are the imperfect solution to a problem that needs to be

addressed, but they come with their own set of problems. To understand this further, we

can look at private prisons from alternate perspectives. The conflict between functions

echoes a larger conflict between profit and ethics, and begs the question about whether

private prisons, by violating human rights, are committing crimes of their own, and

hence are partly self-defeating in function. Thus, the conflict between criminals and the

public is subtle because in keeping criminals off the street, the public may indirectly

participate in unethical treatment of criminals. From a symbolic interactionism

perspective, private prisons are a symbol of the fact that people can choose to pay to

incarcerate others, which is an interesting social phenomenon, and links to the idea that

the running of private prisons is no different from slavery, both being race-making

institutions. We see that private prisons are at the interface of multiple conflicting ideas

and open themselves up to multiple different types of sociological analysis.