Topic Analysis by Anna Waters
Initial Thoughts
“The rest of us are much happier completely ignoring it, perhaps because it's so easy not to care about prisoners.” – John Oliver, “Last Week Tonight”
The December topic for Public Forum is fascinating because it examines something that is commonly accepted and ignored by nearly everyone. We are all aware that the prison system exists, but debate about its privatization is rarely a hot button issue in politics. As the selection of this topic implies, perhaps it should be. As debaters research the pros and cons of prison privatization, they should keep in mind that the arguments they are debating affect the people of the United States, and that at least for citizens here, we have the power to change this system.
Though most Public Forum topics have human impacts, few have the scope and specificity of this one. There are over 2 million adults incarcerated at the United States1, making up about 1% of the population. The United States is also home to just under one quarter of all of the world’s prisoners2, the most out of any country, an impressive and saddening feat for a country that makes up less than 5% of the global population3. Thus,
the stakes are high in rounds on the December topic. Debaters should keep their role as voters and citizens of this country in mind while researching and debating this fascinatingly complex topic.









Resolution Analysis and Background

Understanding the very beginning of this resolution, “for-profit prisons,” is key to making topical and relevant arguments. This term is often used synonymously in literature with private prisons, and debaters should be able to understand why. In a definition from the Bureau of Justice Statistics, an agency within the US Department of Justice, prisons are defined as “longer-term facilities owned by a state or by the Federal Government”4 that “typically hold felons and persons with sentences of more than a year.” Later on in the definition, they note, “There are a small number of private prisons, facilities that are run by private prison corporations whose services and beds are contracted out by state or federal governments.” Private in this context means in contrast to public, so it refers to a business as opposed to a government. In this sense, private and for-profit can be seen as synonymous.
Those who build and run the prisons are called prison contractors, and they have been present in the American corrections system decades. Beginning in the 1980s during the beginning of the War on Drugs, a rapidly increasing prison population necessitated prison expansion. The first completely contracted prison was built in 1984, and by 2013 there were over 130,000 prisoners in private prisons, around 8% of all prisoners in America. The companies that receive these contracts have also become incredibly successful, with just the two largest taking in nearly $3 billion in revenue in just 20105.
Moving on to the rest of the resolution, the phrase “in the United States” is intuitive enough: all arguments should be US-centric. That being said, if debaters come up against an argument citing a prison that is not in the United States, their sole response should not be that “it is not in the US, so it does not matter”. Instead, debaters need a warrant: either that this country is fundamentally different from the US economically, governmentally, or in some other way that would significantly change their prisons from prisons in the United States.
The phrase “should be banned” is an interesting one, because it marks a change from the past two topics’ use of a simple, on-balance weighing mechanism. The word “ban” is defined as “to officially or legally prohibit”6, so putting that in the context of the resolution it likely means a constitutional amendment or piece of legislation prohibiting the privatization of prisons, or any prison system that turns a profit. Though it will likely be irrelevant to most debates, the question of implementation could come up. Different debaters have different perspectives on whether or not “should” requires feasibility. The word is defined as “used to indicate obligation, duty, or correctness, typically
when criticizing someone’s actions.”7 On one hand, it can be argued that there are things people should do that they may not necessarily be capable of doing, like ending poverty or correctly completing my Arabic homework. However, it is certainly logical to say hat no obligation or duty can exist for an action that is impossible. On this topic, Pro teams could argue that the United States should ban private stadiums even if not congressionally viable because it is the right thing to do. Likewise, Con teams could say that it would be futile to attempt to ban private stadiums because of the immense lobbying and massive presence of these contractors. Different judges will have widely varying perspectives on this, but debaters have certainly argued both sides on topics before; the single gender classrooms topic comes to mind.








Framework Strategy

As the first resolution of the year without an “on balance” in it, some debaters may need to be reminded (or new debaters may need to learn) about frameworks other than basic utilitarianism. Keep in mind though that utilitarianism is still the default framework for Public Forum unless otherwise stated, so debaters will still be weighing impacts the way they normally do.
For rounds where both teams are running economic impacts, a simple utilitarian weighing analysis will suffice, but many arguments on this topic go deeper than that. Take, for example, arguments about human rights abuses in privatized prisons. Debaters could use a framework arguing that the United States has an obligation to protect human rights at all costs (literally), and discount any economic benefit if they can prove any abridgement human rights. Debaters could also bring up questions of constitutionality, arguing that if for-profit prisons violate the constitution, they must be banned regardless of benefit. Any framework like this that puts a prerequisite of sorts before any impacts should be taken with a grain of salt, because there must be a solid warrant as to why that impact matters most. For example, a debater cannot simply assert at the beginning of their case that the constitution is more important than economic benefit; they must say why.
An important part of the resolution to note in terms of framework, and one that should definitely be taken into account by both teams (perhaps with an observation), is the phrase “should be banned.” Pro teams may have a bit more ground in terms of research and variance of argumentation, but Con teams might make up for that with the wording of the resolution. To negate, a judge must simply be convinced that completely banning private prisons should not happen. If almost every private prison in the entire country were demolished, but one single successful prison stayed, that would justify a Con ballot. While no Con team should go into rounds with the goal of only showing one good prison, it is an important thing to remind the judge about. On the other hand, Pro teams must keep in mind that they need sufficiently convincing argumentation to prove that no private prison should be allowed in the United States, no matter the scope.











Affirmative: Strategy and Major Arguments

The first major argument area relates to the motivations of for-profit prisons, and how they are counterintuitive to what the real goal of a prison system should be. Countless studies point to increased recidivism, or rate of relapse into criminal behavior, in for-profit prisons (this8 one is especially good), but good affirmative teams will go beyond mere description and build a strong narrative as to why the description is true. To do so, Pro teams should devote a decent amount of time in case to explaining how for- profit prisons garner profit. These prisons only earn money by imprisoning people, so it is undeniably true that a decrease in prisoners would hurt their business. Logically then, like any other business, private prisons seek to increase their revenue by increasing their customer base: prisoners. As the United States’ prison population has ballooned, the profits of these companies have as well. Therefore, these businesses lobby federal and state government officials and legislators heavily, up to more than six million dollars during the last five election cycles9. This lobbying, Pro teams can argue, leads to policies focused on retribution rather than rehabilitation, and laws that imprison more nonviolent offenders, policies that harm not only the War on Drugs, but the United States as a whole.
While that argument will most likely be the centerfold of most Pro cases, the other general area of argumentation relates to economic harms from these prisons, and the subsequent decrease in their quality. Pro teams can argue that for-profit prisons simply do not fulfill their main purpose of saving money. Many studies in this area point to a central flaw in studies showing a Con economic benefit; that is, for-profit prisons tend to take in healthier inmates, so they do not have to cover high medical costs10. Once those are equalized, many studies show little or no difference in cost-effectiveness. For studies that show an increase in cost in the private sector, potential warrants range from the monopolies in the prison system, the lack of innovation in the private sector prison system, and the idea that any cost-effectiveness is mitigated by increased profits for the contractors, not for the government or taxpayers.
Going slightly deeper than overall cost-effectiveness, Pro teams can argue that for-profit prisons’ attempts to cut costs have led to worse healthcare, worse food supplies, and harmful (and potentially violent) treatment of prisoners, especially immigrants. These worsened supplies could come from cutting costs, but the worsened treatment of prisoners and increased violence would most likely be due to shortened training hours for employees and less oversight11. Private prisons also see significantly higher rates of turnover for employees, so they are even less well trained and even more likely to lead to incidents.










Negative: Strategy and Major Arguments

The overarching strategy for the Con will probably rely on for-profit prisons being a necessity, rather than a perfect solution. Con teams should keep in mind that they do not need to win in an on-balance way, they simply need to prove that this option should not be banned. If the Con cases on this topic match the topic literature, the most common argument will focus on cost-effectiveness. By operating in the private sector, capitalist economics suggest that private prisons should be cheaper. By reducing labor costs, buying supplies in bulk, and not having any obligation to convince the public that building a prison is good, private prisons can operate more effectively, according to many studies13 (and prison contractors themselves). These benefits can, according to some studies, empirically decrease cost from 10% to 15% (in Texas14) or between 12% and 24% (in Louisiana15).
Con teams that argue a decrease in cost should also try to argue an increase in quality. Otherwise, Pro teams will easily be able to spin their decreased costs as directly harmful to the conditions in the prisons. Many studies find better quality in the private sector16, perhaps because of competition in the private prison business. Regardless of which warrant used, a study like this can also just be added to the end of a cost- effectiveness contention to remind the judge that this economic benefit does not hurt prison quality.
Cost aside, the other main way Con teams will be able to justify the necessity of private prisons is due to prison overcrowding. Even if Pro teams argue that this overcrowding is due to laws that private prisons lobby for, the status quo reality is that there are not enough public sector prisons to hold the entirety of the incarcerated population in the United States. The numbers are daunting: 19 state prison systems are more than 25% over capacity, and the state of California specifically is nearly 100% over capacity17. A solution is necessary, even if it is not ideal. The private sector can build prisons significantly more quickly than the public sector (two years versus one and a half18), so Con teams can certainly frame them as the solution America needs to deal with the current overcrowding in prisons.