"Private Prisons Don't Work"

In the spring of 1999 in western Tennessee, a convicted murderer serving a 220-year sentence scaled the wall of the privately run Mason Correctional Facility in broad daylight. He eluded search teams for six days. The incident alarmed nearby residents and whipped media coverage into a frenzy.

The episode is just one of many escapes, murders, and other mishaps that have plagued the private prison industry since it burst on the scene in 1983. Always controversial, for-profit prisons were initially hailed by political conservatives as a cost-effective way to relieve the overcrowded penal system. And for a while private prisons relieved some pressure and initially turned a nice profit for such companies as Prison Realty Trust and Wackenhut Corrections Corp. Indeed, Wackenhut did too well for some. Its South Florida facility was publicly criticized for treating inmates as if they were on vacation, giving them access to televisions and gyms.