EP 266 Do Private Prisons Have a Role in Our Society?

EP 266 Do Private Prisons Have a Role in Our Society?

 Private prisons have been a controversial topic over the recent years,
but some thought that they had been all but set aside as an option for
incarceration at the end of the Obama Administration.  However, the
Trump Administration didn’t feel as unkindly toward them and the talk of
their demise has been exaggerated.  It’s a resilient industry and
looking for new ways to survive in a period when both parties are
looking for ways to limit the use of prisons for many offenses as part
of criminal justice reform.  In this podcast, Brett Burkhardt, Ph.D, a
sociology professor at Oregon State University joins us to discuss the
key elements of the debate over prison privatization: cost, quality and
morality.  To cut to the chase, is a profit driven enterprise truly
interested in rehabilitation when logic would dictate that recidivism is
the way to greater profitability?  And if the administration of
punishment, meted out by public institutions, isn’t the purview of a
public agency of correction, what is?  We explore these points and more
in this podcast.


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