Private prisons: justice and profits

Incarcerating criminal convicts is part of the justice system, which is run by government. So, why do we have private prisons? It goes back to the Reagan Administration, the War on Drugs and the crackdown on crime, which led federal prisons to be overcrowded. But the government refused to build new ones. Privatization was said to be cheaper and more efficient — and a new, very profitable, industry was born. Now, the Obama Administration says private prisons are unsafe, unhealthy and too expensive. As it ends the practice, will states and the Immigration Service go along?