The Economics of Private Prisons
نویسندگان
چکیده
In the two decades following 1980, the United States incarceration rate more than tripled. State officials carrying out stricter criminal justice measures faced increasingly crowded facilities and some turned to private companies to build or run their prisons. Recently, private prisons have become the focus of considerable attention as scandals resulted in major prison closings (e.g., Walnut Grove in Mississippi) and the Bureau of Prisons decided in September to phase out federal use of private prisons. This economic analysis explores the growth of private prisons and provides an economic framework for evaluating them.
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