Privatization of prisons and jails

Privatization of Jails & Prisons

Privatization of Jails and Prisons: Its Advantages and Disadvantages

The issue of privatizing a social service such as the establishment and development of jails and prisons in counties and cities in the U.S. has become most controversial and prevalent with the increasing number of practicing this new trend in criminal justice systems all over the country.

The idea of making jails and prisons private is motivated by the reality that most prisons, especially jails, lack the facilities and services that inmates duly deserve even though they were accused or already judged as guilty of committing a crime or offense. These facilities include the provision of entertainment and recreation for inmates, which is a crucial factor in order to improve living conditions within prisons and jails. Moreover, services extend further from merely providing food and sleeping amenities to inmates, but these services should also include ensuring that inmates are given the chance to develop themselves through continuous adult learning, income generating projects, and vocational courses that would enhance an inmate's skills and creating useful and commercially saleable items and products.

With the present state of America's jails, it becomes apparent that these facilities and services are underserved among the country's convicted offenders. This poses a problem for the government, because underserving these services to people who would need improved social services signify the ineptness and its lack of capability to provide for its people. In effect, because of the increasing prison and jail problems in the country, jail inmates are increasingly becoming marginalized in terms of their privilege and right to receive continued support and self-improvement from the government.

In line with these developments in the social structure of the criminal justice system, a growing need for better services must be addressed. Two options have become a popular practice today in the jail systems of counties and cities: sub-contracting a private developer to establish and manage jails, and forging partnerships between the public and private sectors to better provide for the needs and development of the inmates while serving their jail term.

Watts (2003) reported about the need to establish a public-private jail system, wherein both the government and private sectors will oversee the management of jails, specifically in the case of cities and counties in the Southwest region. The report, however, also relayed the problem that may arise when such a practice will be enacted more prevalently. There is a possibility that because a partnership is forged between the private and public sectors, accountability would solely still rest on the government, with the construction and establishment of facilities committed only initially by the private sector. This means that over time, private contractors, after earning its profits from the contract, could possibly "disappear" and leave management and service provision duties to the government again, resulting to an ineffective partnership and a more inefficient jail management system (14).