Cost, efficiency, and policy in American prison privatization

Privatization of American Prisons

The history of Prison privatization as well as its merits and demerits

Cost

The Policy Recommendations and ability to adapt to Changes

The origin of Private prisons and why they were developed

Comparison and analysis of cost, efficiency, value and flexibility of private prisons vs. state and federal run facilities

In this paper, we present a discussion on the issue of the privatization of American prisons. We look at the current state of the prisons, the prevalence as well as the conflicts which they face. We then examine into detail the various problems which they face as well as the dominant issues. A presentation of the policy issues that should be adopted is also presented. A brief history of prisons and the reason for their establishment is also given. A comparison and analysis of cost, efficiency, value as and flexibility is also discussed. A comparison between the private prisons and the public ones is carried out. A third party policy recommendation is also presented.

Introduction

The concept of privatizing prisons is one that has attracted a lot of debate and issues alike. It is paramount that before we proceed with the discussion of privatization of American prisons, we fathom the exact definition of privatization of prisons. Private prisons can be best described in terms of a variety of manners such as:

A transfer involving public facilities to an organization which is deemed private or a contract given to organization in order to design as well as operate a new prison

A contract given in order to provide certain services to a public prison. These services may include transportation, food, medicate and maintenance.

It is important to highlight a certain misconception that usually rocks the concept of prison privatization such as the fact that they are never tied to the government. The reality however, is that the private prisons do enter into a contract with a specific government agency in order to house the inmates. The government on the other hand does its role in the regulation of the private prisons. It therefore becomes necessary to note that the difference that exists between the government and the private prisons is actually minute (Dolovich, 2005). The main distinction that exists between the private prisons and the public prisons is that in the private ones, an organization is in charge of the management and operation of the prison as opposed to the government. The relationship that exists can best be described as blurred and involves the act of outsourcing of thousands of prisoners by the government to the private prisons annually. The government is also involved via contracts in the extension of its tentacles of power in the placing of stringent limitations as well as regulations on the organizations in charge of the private prisons as pointed out by Mulone (2008).

The history of Prison privatization as well as its merits and demerits

The concept of privatizing prisons can never be considered as a new entrant in the management of inmates in the global correctional arena. Certain element of public prisons such as food services, transportation, security, maintenance and staff training have all been awarded to private organization. These suppliers in the private sectors are usually for profit and not for profit organizations. A big part of prison privatization in the past involved the contractual delegation of certain specific services of professional nature to private firms. However, the latest trend in prison privatization involves the turning over of the entire prison facility to the hands of the private firms. In America, most of the juvenile correctional facilities are privatized through specific community programs from the time of deinstitutionalization during the 1970s.The Okeechobee Juvenile Training Facility was however contacted later on (1982) to a certain nonprofit subsidiary of a major Unites States drug manufacturer called the Eckerd Foundation as pointed out by U.S. NIJ (1985,p.7).

In America, the very first federal agency to successfully enter into a contract involving the private facilities was in 1984 by the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (U.S. NIJ, 1985). The other federal agencies that currently contract are the Federal Bureau of Prisons and the U.S. Marshals Service. The very first local level prison privatization contract was awarded in Tennessee in 1984. The pioneering as private state prison was however opened in 1986 at Kentucky (Ring, 1987). The period between 1986 to 1995 marked a 10-year growth in the very capacity of the private secure adult correctional facilities. There was a 2,400% increase. This figure was however non-representative since it only reflected the result of more than two percent of the prisoners who were housed in private facilities in the United States (Thomas, 1996).

The perceived benefits of privatization are usually stated in the economic perspective or rather domain. This is because the private firms are considered to be more effective and efficient while being less expensive. They are also noted to be more flexible while having fewer limitations amidst high level of service quality. However, there are certain drawbacks that exist with the issue of prison privatization. These can be effectively expressed in economic terms. The first one is that the profits to be gained is a mere incentive to the delivered of low quality service so as to lead to profit maximization. The private firms also do face the payment of additional tax liability coupled with government controlled insurance.

There are certain drawbacks that can best be described as being less tangible;

The state for example loses a considerable amount of power as well as quality. This can lead to the operation of the private firms being more volatile due to the fact that the markets dynamics are resulting in disclosures and bankruptcy. The private firms are usually less accountable as well as less accountable due to the fact that their engagement in extra service are liable to the payment of additional payment coupled with the initiation of totally new negotiations. The implications of this are negative as there are possible cases of employment interruption as well as a loss in the level of experience. The other distinction that can be drawn is related to the fact that with time, the operation so the private prisons would be scrutinized and that competition is therefore a mere fact that results inevitably to change. History however indicates that the private correctional facility records are relatively few by virtue of possessing a shorter time in its existence. The fact that there are issues regarding quality while the public prison systems have been marred with quality and accountability problems has meant that court intervention is the only way of coming up with better and improved conditions of incarceration.

The statement of the problem

The current manner in which corrections of offenders is being handled has generated a heated debate in the recent few decades where most critics argue that the matter pertaining to penal corrections is a serious and sensitive matter that cannot be entrusted to the private sector since it should be a responsibility of the state to do so while the proponents doubt the ability of the public sector to meet the challenges in the prisons in the 21st century. Even though the private sector has been involved in the corrections of offenders in the history of America, it has not been given a good percentage of the public prisons to run as only less than 5% of the prisons are run by the sector to penalize offenders. This study seeks to review the genesis of privatization of prisons and also to present several reviews on the research on this issue, to compare and contrast some of the research findings from the Census of the state and federal correctional facilities, which was conducted in 1995 to that of the National survey of State Prison Privatization 1997

And the cost, efficiency, value, and flexibility of state prisons compared to the federal facilities.

It is noted that although the private prisons are only entrusted with the custody of minimum security offenders, this report indicates that the private sector prisons are run much in a satisfying way as the public prisons even though they try to cut costs by employing moderate staff, cut costs on fringe benefits of the prison warders and few other labor costs, it was found out that this cost cutting mission will not affect the way they are expected to run their facilities.

As human population grows large the criminal justice system is overburdened by the need to have more offenders in custody. This not only burdens the government faculties, but also the tax payer. This growing in the number of offenders in the American prisons has catalyzed the need to privatize the correctional facilities otherwise called prisons since the population of the adult offenders has more than doubled in the time between 1980 and 1995.

In 1995 alone, more than 5.5 million adults who translate to 1 in every 50, were under some form of correctional monitoring. This caused the rise in need of the additional bed space without the stretching the demands of public in terms more taxes. This gave the immediate need to contract the prison facilities.

Literature review

Extant literature has been dedicated to the topic of privatization of the rather publicly run correctional facilities in America. These literatures have been mixed and contain mixed views of proponent for privatization and its opponents alike. The literatures therefore have expressed favors of the system as well as critical of it. There also exists another category expressing pure criticism. The critical articles include the ones a large number of authors (Dixon et al.,1996; Puxty,1997; Broadbent et al.,1996; Shaoul,1997; English,2003; and Dillard and Ruchala,2005).The studies that are focused solely in the criticism of the system are also numerous (Cooper and Williams, 2005 and Andrew and Cahill, 2009). The initial group of literature has an argument having a multi-thronged perspective. In fact the perspectives of the prior literature can be grouped into three distinct perspectives: The initial perspective is concentrated on the fact that a great lack of accountability thrives in the various privately-managed prisons. This perspective holds a view that the inmates in such as system would be in a more worse off situation as compared to the ones held in publicly-run prisons. The second perspective is based on the theory that privatization is by principle derived neoliberalism, a philosophy which has become very persuasive in our contemporary society. This philosophy must be resisted t all costs in order for democracy to prevail. The third perspective attempt to explain the process of privatization in the form of a class warfare involving a sharp conflict between the interests of the public and that of the private world. The first and the second perspectives have been extensively been discussed while the third one has not been extensively discussed.

The initial perspective that postulates that there is a lack of accountability in the privately run prison systems and that the conditions of the inmates is most likely to worsen off a s compared to when they are in a public run system is still subject to further investigation via empirical and evidential analysis. In this perspective, the existing evidence has been mixed and thus making it apparent that indeed there exist a general lack of accountability in the privately managed correctional facilities. This fact has led to the termination of various contractual agreements between the government and the private operators as pointed out by VAGO (1999).

In regard to the second perspective, that is based on the argument that the process of privatization is a derivative of neoliberalism, a lot of criticism has been generated over an extended period of time in regard to the process of privatization of various governmental services and functions general (Puxty, 1997 and Andrew, 2009).The criticisms are all based on the single viewpoint that states that profit-making as well as the provision of various governmental services are extremely incompatible and therefore government ownership coupled with its management is regarded as the most effective and efficient method in the provision of all public services. Further, there is still a large piece of literature dedicated to the perspective that challenges the concept of privatization of government services with an argument that the government inspectors together with the auditors are never objective and that they employ extremely flawed evaluation methodologies as pointed out by (Andrew and Cahill, 2009)

The Policy Recommendations and ability to adapt to Changes

A core issue in the public domain and the concern of the federal government is the responsibility for the well being of the society. In terms of maintaining the rule of law and the security of the citizen as well as the correction of the offenders, whether minimum or maximum security inmates, the responsibility of the apprehension and eventual conviction of offenders lies with the state or federal governments, private entrepreneurs who are motivated by profits may seem contradictory in a shallower sense as (Walker, 1994) notes.

Some policy makers argue that the government has not duly executed the handing over the penal institutions to the private sector as Durham (1993 ) notes. They reason that the public is not safe and that the well-being of the inmates is not well addressed appropriately. This can be disastrous if not well executed.

The courts on the other hand, have often in many occasions advocated for the assignment of same responsibilities as those expected of the state and local governments to the private prisons. This does not imply the government can wholly assign their mandate to the privately run prisons but only in cases where need arises and it would not burden the tax payer.

The policy makers, who advocate for the contracting of prison services, also reason that contracted firms compete and this will ensure conformity with the rules of engagement since no firm would want its contract awarded to another firm for non-compliance at the end of the contract period. This would make the private prison easily adapt to the changes to offer services better than or same as those required of the public or state run prisons. Consequently, another grave concern is the operation of the private prisons so as to reduce the number of litigations against the American government on the human rights abuses in such correctional facilities.

As a result of the decision to privatize these facilities, many proponents and opponents have made observations concerning the topic. Cunningham (1999) put the points for and against the concept of privatization. Many of the reasons, according to him, are the urgent desire by both local and federal governments to increase the bed capacity in the prisons to avoid overcrowding and again to reduce the operational costs of running prisons. Increment of quality of care given to inmates was also a burning issue to protect them from harm from the inmates and other errant staff this was meant to reduce the litigation and help the government save money. According to Thomas (1998), the research that was carried out in Florida which indicated that the inmates who were incarcerated in privately manned prisons were likely to undergo rehabilitation as opposed to those in public prisons. This research provides the basis of the debate on whether to increase more prisons under private sector or to discard the privatization idea altogether.

The origin of Private prisons and why they were developed

Privatization is can be defined as a contractual initiative that enables that the government to move public responsibilities, functions and capital investments, in full or in part, from the public to the private sector (Roth, 2004 ) .Privatization may assume a number of characteristics. For example, the most common type of privatization in corrections of offenders is the outsourcing of specific services that involve competition among private firms to perform governmental jobs or activities at a competitive rate.

The delegation of correction facilities began in America in Mid 1980s amid need to increase the capacity for the offenders who were serving the custodial sentences after the state run facilities were overwhelmed by the number of convicts. This soon spread to other countries like Australia, United Kingdom, Queensland and Victoria. Presently, the United States alone has over 100 privately run prisons.

According to Lenny Roth (2004),there were the three major arguments that necessitated the establishment of the privately run correctional centers. It was seen as a better way of beating bureaucracy, instilling the spirit of competition, and innovativeness. This was seen as a way of obtaining cheaper and better services for the state without passing the additional burden of correcting the offenders to the public coffers. Secondly, the private custodial sentence service-givers were seen as the would-be bench-mark setters for the public institution of prisons and also catalyze the reforms in the entire prison establishment within America. Thirdly, the privatization was to instill accountability through competition and establish the objective performance standards sine the state monitors than it is able to monitor itself.

However noble the reasons sound for the establishments of the privately run prisons, its has not gone down with some people who criticize it on the grounds that the private companies cannot save money without compromising standard and they also doubt the whether innovation can take place without putting the highly complex nature of prison administration at risk. Fundamentally, the critics further argue that the act of imprisonment is an important state function that should not be classified as a delegated responsibility and moreover, they continue to argue that this is a public wrong and should attract public punishment as opposed to private punishment as is always the case. Conversely, profits being made as a result of administering punishment are morally wrong. The other school of thought is that privatization weakens accountability of the government in such a critical issue.

Comparison and analysis of cost, efficiency, value and flexibility of private prisons vs. state and federal run facilities

The remaining issues are related to the moral, legal, differences in philosophy and opinion. These categories of issues may not have been fully addressed at the time the concept of privatization was conceived and brought into action. The concept of incarceration is the "business" of dispensing justice involving the use of corporal punishment as well as the loss of liberty. Certain theorists do believe that the process of correction should be exclusively left to the state and not be delegated since its administration is to be done by the state on behalf of the public. Yet again, a certain class of theorists do believe that it is a rather an inappropriate domain to be left to the market dynamics which is largely colonized by the urge and motivation of making profits. However, the fact that by1995,at least 22 federal states were already involved in the privatization of their facilities (Thomas, 1996) is indicative that various policymakers do not deem it inappropriate and are therefore employing the privatization strategy in assisting the government in the solving of the crises associated with corrections. Nevertheless, the state will still be responsible for the incarceration of convicts since this mandate lies within its jurisdiction.

Conclusions

The issue of privatization is justifiable in order to ensure that the government concentrates on its key functions of protecting the citizens. The accountability issue should be tackled through proper mechanisms instilled by the government in the regulation of the private prison facilities. Either way, every inmate deserves to serve their incarceration terms under quality conditions be it a public run or a privately run prison facility.