Private Prisons and Mass Incarceration – Profits Over Justice

2nd place winner of the 2025 Hesburgh Library First Year Student Research Award. This project critically examines the role of private prisons in sustaining and intensifying mass incarceration in the United States. Maria Eduarda Grill da Silveira presents a well-researched and impassioned exploration of how private prison corporations—such as CoreCivic and GEO Group—have become central architects of a system driven by profit rather than justice. Through analysis of historical policy shifts, lobbying records, demographic trends, and legal scholarship, the paper demonstrates how these companies embed themselves in the justice system by securing occupancy-based contracts, inflating costs for inmates, and influencing legislation through targeted political donations.

Far from being passive participants, these corporations actively shape punitive laws and resist decarceration reforms. The paper draws from restorative justice theory to offer a powerful critique of commodified punishment and proposes justice models centered on healing, equity, and community repair. Racial and economic disparities are foregrounded throughout the analysis, highlighting how the private prison industry disproportionately exploits marginalized populations.

By connecting economic incentives to systemic injustice, the project calls for transformative reform—including abolition of private prisons, divestment campaigns, and restorative alternatives. It offers a timely and urgent argument for dismantling the carceral-industrial complex and reimagining a justice system rooted in dignity, accountability, and repair.