The real issue, IMO, is not who owns or manages the prison, it is the laws we have on the books in the US that hinder or prevent individuals released from jails/prisons from becoming productive members of society. Often the easiest path for them is the path back to jail. For example, we expect an ex-offender to get out of jail, get a job, have a stable housing environment, pay taxes, and not break any more laws. Instead, we release individuals, hinder their ability to find gainful employment because of their arrest, deny them loans, deny access to public housing, tell them they can't go to some schools and deny them grants/scholarship opportunities for the ones they can, and then we tell them they can't vote in elections. While I am all for you do the crime you do the time, but when does that time end exactly? Do we tell someone that committed a non-violent petty felony at age 18, serves a year in jail, gets their HS diploma in that time, and is otherwise a decent person that even when they get out of jail they are no longer welcome in our society because of their crime? What do we as a society expect is going to happen to that person? And the cycle begins.
There's a group that did a short film highlighting these issues: https://vimeo.com/121718382
Ok, rant over :)