The Unconvincing Case Against Private Prisons (original) (raw)

INQUIRY INTO THE PRIVATISATION OF PRISONS AND ' PRISON-RELATED SERVICES

2009

And, we need to balance, yes, the need to pay people appropriately, but it's also taxpayer money. And, privatised prisons, and the way we want to reform the prison system, it's cheaper for the taxpayer" (Nathan Rees, 20/2/2009, WS FM Breakfast). "It is proven with our experience with Junee that they can run a very efficient prison much cheaper than we can in the public system" (Mr Woodham, 23/02/2009, transcript from the lnquity into the Privatisation of Prisons and Prison-Related Services).

Private Prisons in Perspective: Some Conceptual Isues

The Howard Journal of Criminal Justice, 1998

This article deals with several conceptual issues concerning the privatisation of prisons. The focus is on the private operation rather than the financing and the construction of facilities. Typically, the issue of correctional privatisation is debated on utilitarian grounds, the main supporting argument centring on cost effectiveness, while such issues as ethics, symbolism, motivation, and accountability are neglected. The article highlights problems of separation between the determination and administration of punishment, the adoption of the free market model to the provision of human services, the symbolic messages of private prisons, corporate ethics, and organisational accountability.

Judgment, Communication, and Coercion: What's Wrong with Private Prisons?

2015

This comment focuses on Harel’s argument of principle against the privatization of the state’s institutions of criminal punishment and of war-making. After summarizing what I take to be the core of that argument, I consider two objections as a way of suggesting that there is something missing in the way he makes the case against privatization. I then propose a different and more compelling sort of argument against the privatization of criminal punishment, based on a republican theory of government that Harel embraces elsewhere in the book.

Privatization of Prisons in Israel: Gains and Risks

Isr. L. Rev., 2006

The Knesset recently authorized privatized prisons in Israel. The rationale is primarily economic, based on claims about savings as high as 25%. Various studies contradict each other with regard both to cutting costs and to the efficacy of privatization. Not all agree that quality of life, daily functioning, and the quality of educational and rehabilitative activities are better in privatized than public prisons. The Ministries of Finance and Internal Security decided on privatization for financial reasons without holding a meaningful public debate on the social, value-based and moral aspects. such as whether it is appropriate for the state to transfer coercive power over prisoners lacking autonomy to private parties motivated by economic interests who could possibly exploit their power to profit at the expense of the prisoners' living conditions, treatment, training and rehabilitation upon return to the community. The notion of justice will likely suffer when subordinated to private profit motives. The Privatization of Prisons Law in Israel partially discusses these problems by means of various clauses that restrict the possibility of harming prisoners' rights and require care, education and rehabilitative activities, in addition to requiring strict supervision over activities in privatized prisons. However, in Israel, public supervision of privatized entities is inadequate. The rigor of the law is seldom invoked with private parties who violate laws or the terms of contracts they themselves have signed. Hence, the effectiveness of supervision is also somewhat suspect. The disadvantages of privatization render its merits questionable when compared with Israel's current public prisons system. Despite extreme overcrowding and substandard facilities in some Israeli prisons, these function reasonably well. There is relatively little violence, and prisoners enjoy care, education, and vocational training. We may conclude that it is preferable to improve facilities in public prisons, expanding them and strengthening their rehabilitative orientation. This can be done by partially privatizing the care, education and rehabilitation components as well as the services and maintenance, while leaving the security and administration in the hands of the Prison Service.

Privatising public prisons: Penality, law and practice

Australian & New Zealand Journal of Criminology

In October 2011, HM Prison Birmingham was transferred from public to private management, under G4S. This was the first time that an existing operational public prison was privatised in the UK. The move marked the third and most far reaching phase of prison privatisation policy, and was intended both to increase quality of life for prisoners, from a low baseline, and to reduce costs. Prior to 2011, private prisons had all been new-builds. Private contractors had thus far avoided the additional challenges of inheriting a pre-existing workforce and operating in old, often unsuitable, buildings. This article reports on a longitudinal evaluation of the complex process of the transition, and some outcomes for both staff and prisoners. As an experiment in the reorganisation of work and life in a 'traditional' public sector prison, the exercise was unprecedented, has set the agenda for future transformations. The example illustrates the intense, distinctive and rapidly changing nature of penality as it makes itself felt in the lived prison experience, and raises important questions about the changing use of State power.

Neoliberal Penal Policy and Prison Privatization

Društvene i humanističke studije (Online)

The paper analyzes the relationship between neoliberal penalty transformation and prison privatization as part of neoliberal market reform. The neoliberal political and economic project characterized by deregulation, individualization, privatization, and commodification has introduced competition, entrepreneurship, and economic efficiency in areas that previously belonged exclusively to the public sector. The alleged need for greater efficiency has led to an increase in private prisons, and the results of this transformation have shown that it is more about achieving economic efficiency at the expense of quality, competencies, and outcomes of services provided in this sector. In this paper, the starting assumption is that the increase in the number of private prisons does not imply the withdrawal of the state concerning the market. In contrast, it raises the question of the regulatory role of the neoliberal state that enables the market of new fields for profit. As a consequence of ...