While Prisons Exist The story of the youngest member of a group of swindlers and pickpockets operating in La Rambla, Barcelona. Originally from Eastern Europe and named Jan, its main desire is to flee from the criminal organization to which he belongs.

According to a report from Think Progress, there are between 1.57 and 2.4 million people incarcerated in the U.S. prison system. These prisoners are there for a multitude of different crimes ranging from drug possession and petty larceny to grand theft auto and murder.

However, prison exists for multifarious reasons such as rehabilitation, security and discipline is one of those reasons. Prisoners are locked up in cells to separate them from other citizens for security reasons. If they are not locked up in prisons, citizens would be living in fear for any possibilities of further crimes.

Prior to the 1980s, private prisons didn’t exist in the United States. But thanks to the Reagan administration’s War on Drugs, which led to harsher sentencing policies and higher rates of incarceration, the inmate population skyrocketed beyond the capacity of the nation’s existing prisons, a fact that corporations were quick to take advantage of .

One of the great features of most prisons is that they are, in many ways, self-sustaining. Enterprising correctional facilities have long taken advantage of this fact to turn routine maintenance into a programming opportunity: that is, teaching inmates the combination of mental habits, self-determination,...

Modern private prisons have been around since the 1980s, though several historical antecedents exist. Today, private prisons hold more than 120,000 inmates – equivalent to 8 percent of all prisoners – for 29 states and the federal government.

And although the data do not exist to break down the “whole pie” by race or ethnicity, overall Black and American Indian women are markedly overrepresented in prisons and jails: Incarcerated women are 53% White, 29% Black, 14% Hispanic, 2.5% American Indian and Alaskan Native, 0.9% Asian, and 0.4% Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander. 9 While we are a long way away from having data on intersectional impacts of sexuality and race or ethnicity on women’s likelihood of incarceration, it ...

There Are Still 80 ‘Youth Prisons’ in the U.S. Here Are Five Things to Know About Them They’re harsh, dangerous and isolated — and may be around for a while.

Women in prison are often the primary or sole caregivers of children prior to incarceration. The Bureau provides female inmates with medical and social services related to pregnancy, birth control, child birth and placement. Inmates are medically screened for pregnancy upon admission.