Private prisons are widely acknowledged as being utter hell holes, and spawn corruption at the highest levels.
A description of a Youth "correctional" facility in Mississippi:
"Federal Judge Carlton Reeves wrote that the youth prison "has allowed a cesspool of unconstitutional and inhuman acts and conditions to germinate, the sum of which places the offenders at substantial ongoing risk."
http://www.npr.org/2012/04/24/151276620/firm-leaves-miss-aft...
Also, there are things like the "Kids for Cash" scandal:
"Two judges, President Judge Mark Ciavarella and Senior Judge Michael Conahan, were accused of accepting money from Robert Mericle, builder of two private, for-profit youth centers for the detention of juveniles, in return for contracting with the facilities and imposing harsh adjudications on juveniles brought before their courts to increase the number of residents in the centers."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kids_for_cash_scandal
Not to mention the that the private prison industry lobbies for harsher sentences and basically are a bunch of soulless vampires.
Prisons are already getting paid based on their capacity and not occupancy, so sentencing would not affect their bottom line the same way public prisons would be.
Yes it would, capacity is created to match expected occupancy, increases in sentences pre-empt the contracting of greater capacity for the expected increase in occupancy. All but the smallest increases in sentencing duration equate to additional prisons, not merely the picking up of some slack in existing ones.
Was actually just reading today that several states are being "sued" by private prisons because they have guaranteed minimum occupancy clauses that the states are not "meeting"
A description of a Youth "correctional" facility in Mississippi:
"Federal Judge Carlton Reeves wrote that the youth prison "has allowed a cesspool of unconstitutional and inhuman acts and conditions to germinate, the sum of which places the offenders at substantial ongoing risk." http://www.npr.org/2012/04/24/151276620/firm-leaves-miss-aft...
Also, there are things like the "Kids for Cash" scandal: "Two judges, President Judge Mark Ciavarella and Senior Judge Michael Conahan, were accused of accepting money from Robert Mericle, builder of two private, for-profit youth centers for the detention of juveniles, in return for contracting with the facilities and imposing harsh adjudications on juveniles brought before their courts to increase the number of residents in the centers." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kids_for_cash_scandal
Not to mention the that the private prison industry lobbies for harsher sentences and basically are a bunch of soulless vampires.