In the United States, privately owned prisons are not about justice; they are about profit.
When incarceration becomes a business, there’s incentive to keep prisons full, not to rehabilitate people or reduce crime. Private prison companies use millions of dollars to lobby for harsher sentencing laws, immigration detention, and policies that increase incarceration rates. This creates a system where human lives equal financial gain, disastrously intersecting with racist policing and judicial systems that disproportionately impact marginalized communities. True justice prioritizes rehabilitation, prevention, and reintegration — not turning incarceration into a revenue stream for corporations. Private prisons run the majority of immigrant detention facilities currently in operation in the United States and are well-positioned to benefit from ICE’s recently expanded need for beds to house detained immigrant families. Until we eradicate “for-profit” prisons, human lives will remain a commodity to be exploited for financial gain in America.