Private prison sustainability: shifting the focus

Increasingly, countries, such as the United States, Australia, and the United Kingdom, are turning to privately run prisons to house both criminal and immigrant populations. One purpose is to relieve financial pressure on the government and allow for a more sustainable prison system holding more prisoners at a lower cost. However, private prisons, which are not subject to the same government regulations and oversight as government run prisons, can result in both larger prison populations and greater human rights abuses. Thus, while private prisons may increase the prison system’s sustainability in the short term – by housing people at less expense for the government, in the long term – they are a result of an unsustainable criminal justice and immigration systems that have an over-reliance on imprisonment. Rather than focusing on prison sustainability, the focus should shift to the sustainability of criminal and immigration law and policy that results in imprisonment with an increased focus on human rights. This paper will discuss these issues and conclude that to create a system that is sustainable, fair, and focused on justice, the law and policy surrounding imprisonment should explore alternatives to imprisonment and create long-term sustainability from both a financial and human rights perspective.