Private Prisons and the Shift in Marketplace From the War on Drugs to the War on Terror

2018 ◽  
pp. 86-101
Author(s):  
Karina Moreno
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Public Support ◽  
War On Drugs ◽  
The United States ◽  
Private Prisons ◽  
Drug Law ◽  
Private Prison ◽  
States Immigration ◽  
Immigrant Detention ◽  
Prison Industry

This paper outlines the emergence of a new marketplace in the United States, immigration detention, especially after September 11th. This phenomenon is not limited to the United States, but is also observable in other countries as the result of the globalized economy. This paper first explains how the private prison industry adapted from shaping harsh drug law sentencing during the War on Drugs to now sponsoring legislative bills that target immigrants, the new “cash crop” for the private prison industry. Because of the securitization of immigration governance, politics of fear are easily used to justify and build public support for a tough stance on immigration. The end result is that immigrant detention is a highly lucrative and record-breaking profitable enterprise for private prison corporations, with little accountability in its treatment of immigrants and with more and more power in sponsoring and shaping legislation beneficial to their bottom line. Implications now that Trump, who ran a very xenophobic presidential campaign especially hostile to Mexicans and Muslims, are discussed.

Private Prisons and the Shift in Marketplace From the War on Drugs to the War on Terror

2019 ◽  
pp. 260-275
Author(s):  
Karina Moreno
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Public Support ◽  
War On Drugs ◽  
The United States ◽  
Private Prisons ◽  
Drug Law ◽  
Private Prison ◽  
States Immigration ◽  
Immigrant Detention ◽  
Prison Industry

This paper outlines the emergence of a new marketplace in the United States, immigration detention, especially after September 11th. This phenomenon is not limited to the United States, but is also observable in other countries as the result of the globalized economy. This paper first explains how the private prison industry adapted from shaping harsh drug law sentencing during the War on Drugs to now sponsoring legislative bills that target immigrants, the new “cash crop” for the private prison industry. Because of the securitization of immigration governance, politics of fear are easily used to justify and build public support for a tough stance on immigration. The end result is that immigrant detention is a highly lucrative and record-breaking profitable enterprise for private prison corporations, with little accountability in its treatment of immigrants and with more and more power in sponsoring and shaping legislation beneficial to their bottom line. Implications now that Trump, who ran a very xenophobic presidential campaign especially hostile to Mexicans and Muslims, are discussed.

Compounding Racialized Vulnerability: COVID-19 in Prisons, Jails, and Migrant Detention Centers

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew G.T. Denney ◽  
Ramon Garibaldo Valdez
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Harm Reduction ◽  
Public Support ◽  
The United States ◽  
Correctional Facilities ◽  
Racial Inequalities ◽  
Detention Centers ◽  
Life Saving ◽  
Improved Sanitation ◽  
Immigrant Detention

Abstract Context: Carceral institutions are among the largest clusters of COVID-19 in the United States. As outbreaks have spread throughout prisons and detention centers, detainees have organized collectively to demand life-saving measures. Chief among these demands has been the call for decarceration: the release of detainees and inmates to prevent exposure to COVID-19. This paper theorizes the compounding racial vulnerability that has led to such a marked spread behind bars, mainly among race-class subjugated communities. Methods: We use journalistic sources and administrative data to provide an in-depth account of the spread of COVID-19 in American correctional facilities and of the mobilization to reduce contagions. We also use two survey experiments to describe public support for harm reduction and decarceration demands and measure the effects of information about (a) racial inequalities in prison, and (b) poor conditions inside migrant detention centers. Findings: We find that only one-third to one-half of respondents believe that response to COVID-19 in prisons and immigrant detention centers should be a high priority. We also find that Americans are much more supportive of harm reduction measures like improved sanitation than of releasing people from prisons and detention centers. Information about racial disparities increases support for releasing more people from prison. We do not find any significant effect of information about poor conditions in migrant detention centers. Conclusions: The conditions in prisons and migrant detention centers during the pandemic—and public opinion about them—highlight the realities of compounding racialized vulnerability in the United States.

Changing of the Guard: A Case for Privatization of Texas Prisons

1996 ◽  
Vol 76 (3) ◽  
pp. 310-330 ◽  
Author(s):  
RICHARD C. BRISTER
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Private Sector ◽  
Present Article ◽  
The United States ◽  
Historical Record ◽  
Correctional Facilities ◽  
Private Prison ◽  
Accelerated Growth ◽  
Prison Industry ◽  
Correctional Privatization

The privatization of prisons is an idea whose time seems to have come in the United States. Although still a small fraction of the total number of correctional facilities and beds overall, the size of the private sector presence in recent years has increased rapidly. The present article reviews the historical record of correctional privatization in Texas and examines more recent data and issues in that state and elsewhere, to argue that the accelerated growth of the private prison industry is a change for the good.

Questions

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
James L. Gibson ◽  
Michael J. Nelson
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
African Americans ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
Legal System ◽  
Public Support ◽  
The United States ◽  
Future Research ◽  
White Americans ◽  
Two Factors ◽  
The U.S

We have investigated the differences in support for the U.S. Supreme Court among black, Hispanic, and white Americans, catalogued the variation in African Americans’ group attachments and experiences with legal authorities, and examined how those latter two factors shape individuals’ support for the U.S. Supreme Court, that Court’s decisions, and for their local legal system. We take this opportunity to weave our findings together, taking stock of what we have learned from our analyses and what seem like fruitful paths for future research. In the process, we revisit Positivity Theory. We present a modified version of the theory that we hope will guide future inquiry on public support for courts, both in the United States and abroad.

scholarly journals Frontlash: Race and the Development of Punitive Crime Policy

2007 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 230-265 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vesla M. Weaver
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Crime Control ◽  
War On Drugs ◽  
The United States ◽  
Turn Of The Century ◽  
Federal Sentencing Guidelines ◽  
State Supervision ◽  
Capital Crimes

Civil rights cemented its place on the national agenda with the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, fair housing legislation, federal enforcement of school integration, and the outlawing of discriminatory voting mechanisms in the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Less recognized but no less important, the Second Reconstruction also witnessed one of the most punitive interventions in United States history. The death penalty was reinstated, felon disenfranchisement statutes from the First Reconstruction were revived, and the chain gang returned. State and federal governments revised their criminal codes, effectively abolishing parole, imposing mandatory minimum sentences, and allowing juveniles to be incarcerated in adult prisons. Meanwhile, the Law Enforcement Assistance Act of 1965 gave the federal government an altogether new role in crime control; several subsequent policies, beginning with the Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 and culminating with the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, ‘war on drugs,’ and extension of capital crimes, significantly altered the approach. These and other developments had an exceptional and long-lasting effect, with imprisonment increasing six-fold between 1973 and the turn of the century. Certain groups felt the burden of these changes most acutely. As of the last census, fully half of those imprisoned are black and one in three black men between ages 20 and 29 are currently under state supervision. Compared to its advanced industrial counterparts in western Europe, the United States imprisons at least five times more of its citizens per capita.

Racial Sentiment and Public Support for Arming Teachers with Guns in the United States

2021 ◽  
pp. 215336872110389
Author(s):  
Andrew J. Baranauskas
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
African Americans ◽  
Minority Groups ◽  
Public Support ◽  
The United States ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Racial Issue ◽  
Racial Resentment ◽  
Nationally Representative ◽  
Negative Feelings

In the effort to prevent school shootings in the United States, policies that aim to arm teachers with guns have received considerable attention. Recent research on public support for these policies finds that African Americans are substantially less likely to support them, indicating that support for arming teachers is a racial issue. Given the racialized nature of support for punitive crime policies in the United States, it is possible that racial sentiment shapes support for arming teachers as well. This study aims to determine the association between two types of racial sentiment—explicit negative feelings toward racial/ethnic minority groups and racial resentment—and support for arming teachers using a nationally representative data set. While explicit negative feelings toward African Americans and Hispanics are not associated with support for arming teachers, those with racial resentments are significantly more likely to support arming teachers. Racial resentment also weakens the effect of other variables found to be associated with support for arming teachers, including conservative ideology and economic pessimism. Implications for policy and research are discussed.

Mobilising ‘Minutemen’: Predicting Public Support for Anti-Immigration Activism in the United States

2013 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 195-212
Author(s):  
Matthew Ward
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cultural Beliefs ◽  
Public Support ◽  
The United States ◽  
Political Orientation ◽  
Willingness To Participate ◽  
Sequential Process ◽  
Economic Threat ◽  
Nationally Representative ◽  
Actual Participation

Advances in social movement research conceptualise micromobilisation as – at least – a two-step sequential process in which willingness to participate must first be generated and then translated into actual participation. However, such research often ignores a more fundamental first step in this process: the generation of movement support. I address this gap by drawing on a nationally representative sample of adults in the United States – who either sympathised with or opposed anti-immigration activism – to identify individual attributes differentiating anti-immigration movement supporters and non-supporters. Perceptions of economic threat, waning confidence in political leadership, and prejudicial cultural beliefs about Latinos represent attributes differentiated movement supporters from non-supporters. Power devaluation theory is used as an overarching framework to meaningfully interpret these results. More generally, I argue that grievances play an important, yet under theorised role in jumpstarting conservative micromobilisation and that principles from power devaluation theory can help us understand the differentiation of movement support, irrespective of a social movement's political orientation.

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