Quality of prison operations in the US federal sector: A comparison with a private prison (original) (raw)
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Quality of prison operations in the US federal sector
Punishment & Society, 2002
An examination of the quality of operations at private and public prisons is essential to making informed decisions about the desirability of using private and public prisons. Previous studies have used survey data collected from staff and inmates to compare prisons based on the proportions or percentages of staff making favorable evaluations of different items. As argued here and
Criminal Justice Review, 2002
The public sector needs to monitor the performance of the private prisons, and it is necessary to conduct the monitoring as objectively as possible. This article demonstrates that an often overlooked source of data, surveys of inmates, can be used to differentiate prisons on such Was a gag activity, and security, sanitation, and food service delivery. Hierarchical line models were used to generate the prison performance measures. We also show that inmates and staff largely agreed in in their assessments of conditions at the prison. Finally, we demonstrate that although there is considerable consistency for different measures within the topical areas that we examined, there is no necessary correspondence in performance across the different topical areas of gang management, safety and security, sanitation, and food service delivery. Although survey will never and should never replace operational reviews and audits, we demonstrate that they can be effectively used to obtain information...
Assessing Prison Performance from the Inmates' View: Comparing Private and Public Prisons
The public sector needs to monitor the performance of the private prisons, and it is necessary to conduct the monitoring as objectively as possible. This paper demonstrates that an often overlooked source of data, surveys of inmates, can be used to differentiate prisons on areas such as gang activity, safety and security, sanitation, and food service delivery. Hierarchical linear models were used to generate the prison performance measures. Second, we show that inmates and staff largely agree in their assessments of conditions at the prison. Finally, we demonstrate that while there is considerable consistency for different measures within the topical areas examined, there is no necessary correspondence in performance across the different topical areas of gang management, safety and security, sanitation, and food service delivery. While surveys will and should never replace operational reviews and audits, we demonstrated that they can be effectively used to obtain information about operational differences between prisons.
Growth and Quality of U.S. Private Prisons: Evidence from a National Survey*
Criminology <html_ent glyph="@amp;" ascii="&"/> Public Policy, 2002
Private prisons incarcerate 5.3% of the sentenced, adult population in the United States. The present study presents selected results from a 1999 survey of administrators who monitored private prisons in the United States (or US. territories). Among the findings of interest, the private sector experienced significant problems with staff turnover, escapes, and drug use. Where possible, private prison operations were compared with those of the Federal Bureau of Prisons. Policy Implications: Given the issues raised here with public safety, public sector agencies contracting for private prisons need to develop incentives or other means to ensure that private sector operators retain experienced custody staf$
Prison Privatization: Driving Influences and Performance Evaluation
2015
United States conservatism and neoliberalism have created a market for prison privatization. The business of making money from incarcerated bodies is in direct conflict with the goals of the justice system. Driving economic and political forces are examined and used to explain the rising prison-industrial complex. Private prison performance is measured by recidivism, cost, inmate rights, and quality of confinement. This paper suggests that prison privatization must be reformed or abolished to improve the corrections system in the United States.
Inmate Recidivism as a Measure of Private Prison Performance
Crime & Delinquency, 2008
The growth of the private corrections industry has elicited interest in the comparative performance of state and private prisons. One way to measure the service quality of private prisons is to examine inmates' postrelease performance. Current empirical evidence is limited to four studies, all conducted in Florida. This analysis replicates and adds to the Florida measures in a different state and enhances previous methods. It uses data for a large cohort of Oklahoma state prison inmates released between 1997 and 2001. Controlling for known covariates, multivariate survival analysis revealed comparative rates of reincarceration for inmates in multiple exposure and comparison groups. These results are unique among prior studies on this topic; private prison inmates had a greater hazard of recidivism in all eight models tested, six of which were statistically significant. Finding no empirical support for claims of superior service from private corrections, the authors discuss policy implications and prospects for future research.
Criminology & Public Policy, 2008
Between 1980 and 2005, the number of federal and state prisoners grew by over 350% in the United States, from 319,598 to 1, 446,269 (Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2007;. According to one international comparison, prison populations have been increasing around the world, but the increase has been more dramatic in America, which results in the country holding roughly one fifth of all people held in penal institutions worldwide . Such growth is unprecedented in the history of America and raises the specter of significant threats to three dimensions of performance-accountability, efficiency, and effectiveness-which are relevant not only to prison systems in this country but also to similar systems worldwide, especially those that have experienced increased population growth.
Prison Privatization in Florida: Promise, Premise, and Performance*
Criminology & Public Policy, 2005
The original promise was that prison privatization would increase service quality. The premise was that the free market would introduce efficiency previously unknown in the Florida state adult correctional system. The resulting performance suggests that neither promise nor premise was correct. The research results are clear. The Bales et al. study in this issue empirically confirms that the State of Florida has not achieved reductions in recidivism levels among released offenders by contracting for privately operated prisons. The original findings that appeared to support lower recidivism rates among inmates released from privately operated prisons (Lanza-Kaduce et al., 1999) were probably based on a model with important omitted variables. Better control measures for the risk of reoffending leveled the playing field between the public and the private operators, which showed that prior results favoring the private sector were most likely an artifact. In this case, improvements in methodology by both Farabee and Knight (2002) and Bales et al. changed the entire framework of the public policy debate. Given the sometimes fractious debate about self-interest and science in the Florida privatization analysis (Geis et al., 1999; Lanza-Kaduce et al., 2000), and given the overarching political and academic imbroglio that has been the backdrop of government outsourcing (Yergin and Stanislaw, 1998), it is time to pause, catch our collective breath, and think clearly about the role of social science in informing criminal justice policy, particularly on this issue. Many of the arguments and issues I raise here are discussed in greater detail in a book I recently coauthored, Measuring Prison Performance: Government Privatization and Accountability (Gaes et al., 2004). Let us consider why this group of studies is so important. Some scholars have argued that to evaluate a private prison, or indeed any prison, we (the research community, citizens, government officials) should not hold prison administrators accountable for crimes committed by released offenders (c.f. Logan, 1993). Wilson (1993) makes a similar argument that