Corrections Privatization

 

Improved Quality of Service

In addition to the proposed cost savings and associated efficient services, one must also remember that the nation's prison and jail systems were facing widespread allegations about the lack of quality of care afforded to staff and inmates. Since the 1980s, most of the state prison systems as well as the major urban jails have been under far-reaching consent decrees regarding medical, mental health, education, overcrowding, and protection-from-harm issues. There have also been major prison disturbances in California, Illinois, New Mexico, and New York, to name a few, that have added to the public perception that public agencies have not been doing a good job in managing prisons.

However, one of the central concerns raised by critics of correctional privatization is that firms motivated by financial gain might make decisions that enhance profits at the expense of the rights and well-being of inmates (Durham, 1994). History shows that privately operated prison facilities were plagued by problems associated with the quest for higher earnings. The profit motive produced such abominable conditions and exploitation of the inmates that public agencies were forced to assume responsibility. The lack of contract supervision contributed, in part, to the squalid and inhumane living conditions in privately run prisons.

The current movement to reprivatize primary facility management assumes that modern entrepreneurs are somehow more benevolent and humanistic so that the exploitations of the past will not reoccur (Walker, 1994). Critics, however, contend that privately managed facilities will bring new opportunities for corruption. Given poorly paid, undereducated, and inadequately trained staff, opponents question the professionalism and commitment that privatized staff will bring to the job.

Proponents, on the other hand, suggest that present-day judicial activism provides oversight over private prison operations. The threat of inmate lawsuits and court-mandated consent decrees act as a deterrent to abusive behavior. Further arguments suggest that tolerance of abusive behavior by staff defeats the long-term interests of private contractors and can be avoided with careful monitoring mechanisms. Moreover, it is presumed that competition between firms will hold down costs and provide for superior service because contract renewals will depend on job performance. To date, the limited experience with privately managed prisons does not allow a thorough evaluation of public and private prisons in terms of overall quality of inmate services.