Overcrowding of our nation's prisons is one of the biggest challenges tackling our criminal justice system today. During the 1980s, the public's disappointment over an apparent failure of the nation's prison system to rehabilitate prisoners and an unwillingness to provide more money for correctional institutions. One proposed solution that emerged was the privatizing of prisons and jails by contracting out, in part or in whole, their operations. In 1987, the number of inmates incarcerated in privately operated correctional facilities worldwide was 3,100; by 1998 the number had risen to 132,000 (Assistance, 2001). In the United States today there is a total of 158 private correctional facilities. Proponents of privatization have suggested that allowing the facilities to be operated by the private sector could result in cost reductions of 20 percent (Assistance, 2001). Since 1984, the U.S. prison population has more than tripled, according to U.S. Department of Justice data (Gad, 2009). The ultimate amount a government pays to a private company to run a prison can be less than if the government were to run the prison itself. Factors such as lower labor costs affect that. Public service employees usually make more in overall wages -- salary plus benefits -- than private employees do. These wages add up to more than half the operating expenses of a prison. Private firms still pay similar salaries as governments do, but payments for overtime, health care and workers' compensation claims are generally lower. Private firms claim that because the contracts they have with governments can be canceled, they have a greater incentive to provide better service than public prisons. This means that private prisons are generally safer; living conditions are better; and, most important, the rehabilitation of the prisoners back into society is more effective. The danger exists