Volume VIII, Fall 2017 | Law Journal for Social Justice

Editor’s Note:

For the first time in the history of the Law Journal for Social Justice, we are publishing two volumes in one year. This first issue, Fall 2017, is also special in that it deals exclusively in one topic: the proliferation of, and the issues surrounding, private for-profit prisons. Over-incarceration is a pressing issue in the United States and while this problem has advanced, an industry of private prisons has stepped in to cover the overflow and perpetuate the trend.

While social justice is a perennial concern in society, recent political events have accelerated the urgency and necessity of law and legal literacy as a bulkhead against a wave of regression. It is this journal’s mission to provide accessible legal thought and scholarship to motivate people to those ends. Thanks goes out to the LJSJ executive board, editors, and to the wonderful authors without whom this issue would not exist. Special thanks also to Yvonne Lindgren of Indiana Tech School of Law for putting us in touch with the authors and institutions you will see featured in this article.

This issue begins with an examination of the growth and consequences of private, for-profit prisons in Private Prisons: Profiting from, and Contributing to, Mass Incarceration, written by Cynthia Elaine Tompkins, JD. Next, Caroline Isaacs, MSW, reflects on the ways in which for-profit prison companies are adapting to maintain profits to a similarly detrimental effect in The Treatment Industrial Complex: How the For-Profit Prison Industry is Hijacking Sentencing Reform for Corporate Gain. Jayanti Singh and Sayan Kundu examine how the abundant supply of private detention facilities is being used to dictate immigration policy in Profiteering from the Suffering of Immigrants – An Analysis of Judicial Responsibilities and Legislative Burdens. Finally, Hillel Sommer and Guy I. Seidman reflect on two monumental Israeli Supreme Court decisions that have shaped basic standards for funding and treating prisoners in Courts, Prisons, Budgets, and Human Dignity: An Israeli Perspective.

John A. Burnett, 2017-2018 Editor-in-Chief, Law Journal for Social Justice

Articles

Private Prisons: Profiting from, and Contributing to, Mass Incarceration by Cynthia Elaine Tompkins, JD

The Treatment Industrial Complex: How the For-Profit Prison Industry is Hijacking Sentencing Reform for Corporate Gain by Caroline Isaacs, MSW

Profiteering from the Suffering of Immigrants – An Analysis of Judicial Responsibilities and Legislative Burdens by Jayanti Singh and Sayan Kundu

Courts, Prisons, Budgets, and Human Dignity: An Israeli Perspective by Hillel Sommer, JSD, and Guy I. Seidman, JSD