Assignment 8: Blog Entry: Locate a popular magazine article and a scholarly journal article on your research topic. Please identify each article in APA works cited format, and compare/contrast the structure and content of each article.

          In the journal article called, The Drain of Public Prison Systems and the Role of Privatization: A Case Study of State Correctional Systems
released February 2010 by David W. Miller the issue of the prison system’s struggle with overcrowding while meeting the financial needs to meet the legal standards. From the increased fees for medical and psychiatric care that strain from the overcrowding problem, which as an outcome has the criminal justice policy must provide higher wages from overtime of workers.  Prisons seem to be placing a dent state budgets (Miller, 2010). A way to fix this was to raise the cost of approval for private prisons. From the beginning of their existence in the 1980s, privatized prisons were recognized as the new must have service and with several private companies, in particular the Wackenhut Corrections and Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), went public in the stock market.  From this many private organizations contract with state entities to offer services with Wackenhut and CCA. As a result, control of half of these prisons in the United States and sometimes more estimates reaching as high as 75% leaving this power in the hands of Wackenhut and CCA (2010). 

       The article I chose for my research project was informative and offered many statistics.  Bob Ortega from 12 news wrote the article I used called, Amnesty International Accuses Arizona of Abuse in Prisons where I learned the purpose of such heavy security is to confine prisoners with highest threat to security in the solitary confinement system.  These types of people have a violent history in prison; threaten the security of national and international life.  For example, a person that has a violent history in prison and then murders a fellow inmate would be found in supermax confinement (Ortega, 2012).  Bob Ortega from 12 news, published an article called Amnesty International Accuses Arizona of Abuse in Prisons expressed that in a Maximum security prison in Arizona, inmates faced 22-24 hour windowless or go with out daylight for days.  The inmates are limited to exercising inside their cells and lack any recreational activities.  The legal and appropriate regulated aid to be given to inmates for mental or medical care is not adequate (Ortega, 2012).  Some of these inmates included children from 14 to 17 years old and because children at this age have not yet reached their full development this could damage it. At the prison in Arizona called Amnesty state prison, 35% of inmates were not held in the supermax prison due to violent crimes or cause a threat (Ortega, 2012). This creates questioning of the humanity and purpose of such imprisonment.

       The topics of the news article and journal were different and the structure of the two was also very different.  David Miller’s journal article was divided into sections and easy to locate topics of interest within the journal but the 12 new article was just in a long paper formation.  The information was fully provided and expressed in the journal.  No lose ends or lack of explanations.  There were not many statistical components like many other journal articles I have used in the passed.  Some parts of the article were difficult to understand or analyze because they were very sophisticated.  As for the new article, the statistics provided were abundant through out the entire article.  The article was very informative and fully developed the topic like Millers journal did.  Both of these sources were very helpful for my research.

David W. Miller. (2010). The drain of public prison systems and the role of privatization: A case study of             state correctional systems.

Ortega, B. (2012, ). Amnesty international accuses Arizona of abuse in prisons. 12 News.