Corporate Lobbying Detention Watch Network - 1869 Words

Figure 1, A 10 Years Record of Corporate Lobbying: Detention Watch Network Another strategy is a system known as occupancy requirement. Such is a case in which a private company requires a state to keep prisons the company is building or taking over filled to a minimum percentage. This policy is made to stand no matter how crime in the state may fluctuate. Occupancy requirements are common practice within the private prison industry. The In the Public Interest group reviewed 62 contracts for private prisons operating around the country at the local and state level. The group found that 41 of those contracts included occupancy requirements that demand local or state government keep those facilities between 80 to 100 percent full. This†¦show more content†¦Unlike all of the above mentioned problems either caused by or support private prisons, the flaws in the legal system that results in imprisonment of innocent people or the over sentence of small crimes is an issue of it’s own. It has many motivated, social and legal aspects outside the pri son industry. Yet it is also supported by and benefits companies that have invested on prisons. â€Å"Ninety-seven percent of 125,000 federal inmates have been convicted of nonviolent crimes.† (Pelaez, 2014). It is believed that more than half of the 623,000 inmates in municipal or county jails are innocent while two-thirds of one million state prisoners have committed nonviolent offenses. The three strikes, life imprisonment after being convicted of three felonies, law is one of the legal system that cause the overpopulation of prisons. â€Å"Private prison companies have supported and helped write three-strike and truth-in-sentencing laws that drive up prison populations.† (Dupp, 2013). The three strike law was ruled unconstitutional by the US Supreme Court in 2015. Some individuals arrested under it have been realised. However, during its existence, it had made the building of 20 new federal prisons necessary. Another law that benefits private prisons is mandatory minimum sentences. This is law that ensures a minimal number of years is sentenced for a certain crime, as