Private Prisons in Texas - Research Paper Example

The aim of the creation of private prisons has been for the purpose of making a profit by private entities through the taking over the tasks of convict rehabilitation that were conducted by the government. While this has been the case, the fact remains that there has been a lot of concern about the shifting of legal punishment from the public to the private sector, the logic being that governments, being accountable to the public, are more concerned about the welfare of those imprisoned than private institutions, which have no real interests in the inmates except for the economic benefits that they receive.

Therefore, the concerns raised are based on the fact that private prisons may be lax in their establishment of a corrections system that is effective as compared to government held prisons, which have such guarantees. Private prisons in the state of Texas have been criticized to be business institutions whose main aim is to ensure that they maximize their profits, since their driving incentive is to make as much money as possible. Plenty of skepticism in such prisons have been raised because of the fact that prisons have now become profit yielding institutions through the imprisoning of individuals caught committing crimes and sentenced.

Despite the concerns that have been raised above about the establishment of private prisons, the government of Texas has continued to be adamant that private corporations can run prisons as well as the government itself and that there is no need to worry about these institutions’ doing a bad job. The state of Texas has attempted to delegate the functions of punishment to private companies with the intention of relieving itself of the burden, but also ensuring that these companies remain accountable to the public.

While this has been the case, there has developed the need to ensure that these private entities are indeed performing the functions that have been delegated to them with as much diligence as would have the government.1 This has created a situation where studies have to be conducted so that it can be established how the contractual relationship between private prisons and the government, relating to how the formation, maintenance and other aspects of the prisons are worked out between them. When dealing with the formation, the expectations of the private institution as well as those of the government concerning what the prison’s management will require are considered so that it is known how the prison will be developed as well as how it will be staffed.

The maintenance of the prison has been outlined as the affairs which will be involved in the daily running of the prison as well as the establishment of the definitions of how the prisoners will relate to each other as well as how they will relate with the members of the prison staff.2 When one considers liability in private prisons, it basically deals with the failure of the parties involved, either the government or the private entity, to fulfill their obligations as stated in the contract between them and the consequences that are likely to follow.

Through the insistence of these obligations, it becomes an obligation for both the government and the private entities running the prison to ensure that there is accountability to the public in the process. Thus, accountability can be enforced, whereby there is the protection of the various social groups within the