Remember the days of elementary school, when hundreds of kids would start lining up for food in the cafeteria. Now imagine this cafeteria filled with a multitude of side-by-side bunk beds in which the entire school must sleep. Any parent would disapprove of a living situation similar to this, but prisoners across the country face these exact issues. With the United States' prison population increasing, prisons across the country are fearing extremely negative consequences, including overcrowding. What started as buildings intended to house only a few thousand dangerous criminals, drug addicts, etc., are now turning into inmate towns with more prisoners than it can accommodate. Many factors contribute to prison overcrowding, but are government-funded prisons the best way to solve this problem? The expansion of private prisons has been the subject of much debate in the United States, particularly in California, due to the many problems that arise in public prisons. Third-party prisons would not only solve the huge dilemma of overcrowding, but also many other problems in the prison. Establishing more private prisons would satisfy both taxpayers and prisoners, and the transition to prison privatization would overall benefit the nation as a whole. As new criminal offenses are added to the penal code and the war on drugs accelerates, the rate at which the number of inmates incarcerated has exploded. Although these stricter rules may benefit the public through illegal activities, they are a leading cause of prison overcrowding, which is a major problem in many prisons. Overcrowded prisons usually have rooms that can accommodate more inmates than expected. In case of overcrowding... middle of paper ... Releases from private state prisons in Florida. " Florida Department of Corrections. (2003): n. page. Web. December 10, 2011. .Gilroy, Leonard, Adam Summers et al. "Public-private partnerships for corrections in California: Bridging the gap between crisis and reform” Reason (2010): webpage, December 10, 2011. Solve the Prison Problem: The Pros and Cons of Privatized Prisons in Alabama. (2007): no. page. Web. December 10, 2011. .Miller, David. “The Drain of Public Prison Systems and the Role of Privatization: A Case Study of State Correctional Systems.” Corplan Corrections. Np, nd Web. December 10. 2011.