In my experience, the most passionate opposition to private prisons comes from people who have never spent a damn minute in a prison of any kind. It just drives me nuts that people who have no idea what they're talking about are so vocal.
And, I'm sorry, I'm gonna pull rank on a lot of you. Most of my time in DC was devoted to criminal justice reform issues. I've visited several prisons either to visit a prisoner or as a documentarian. I'm not Radley Balko; but, I'm at least educated enough on criminal justice issues to know who Balko is.
If I ever had to serve prison time, I would hope that I'd be sent to either of the private prisons that I visited in Texas rather than any of the public prisons that I've visited in Arizona. Public prisons in Arizona have these things called "Tent City" where prisoners are kept outdoors in blazing Arizona heat. When Arpaio was in power, prisoners were fed bologna sandwiches on a good day. The private prisons that I visited in Texas were well air conditioned, comfortable, and most importantly, they were the only prisons allowing nonprofits to operate in the prisons to help prisoners to rehabilitate and reduce recidivism. The public prisons in Texas, if a prisoner is released and doesn't have somebody to pick him up, stick him on a bus to drop him off at the station nearest to his arrest with an amount of cash $5 less than what he needs to get in ID.
I'm not saying that private prisons are necessarily good. I'm sure that there are some abuses that happen in private prisons, too. But, this absolute push against private prisons will inevitably do more harm than good so-far as I can tell.