The prison institution remains fundamentally as the means by which a ‘just’ society can deter, punish, and rehabilitate it’s offenders. Until recent years, it’s power has been bestowed by society, and directed by government empowered bodies. Present day society, and it’s introduction of privatised institutions has seen the development of new direction being placed on the prison structure. No longer are deterrence, punishment, and rehabilitation of offenders the only goals. Privatisation now seeks to also gain financial wealth from the incarceration of it’s offenders. This new approach is intended to allow for the ironing out current faults within public prisons (over crowding and recidivism), but in doing so, suffers negative criticism and resistance as to it’s ability and underpinnings.

Privatisation is surprisingly not a new concept. During the mid 1800s, the United States of America contracted several of their institutions (including the Louisiana and New York Auburn penitentiaries) to private investors who in turn contracted prisoners to other private businesses as labour. The duration of this activity was short lived, due to the large amount of corruption that took place, and the fierce opposition by other business entities who claimed unpaid workers caused "unfair" competition. But today’s private prisons work on a completely different level to the early models, with new features that look rather promising.

The cost of crime is relative to the ever increasing crime rate. During 1993, it was estimated to cost over six billion dollars a year in construction, just to keep up with the inmate population growth. This figure did not include the cost of employing fifty thousand guards, nor the additional tens of thousands of administrators, health, education and food service providers. By allowing private firms to take over, cost associated to these expenses would not be generated directly from tax payers pocket, allowing governments to better use their revenue to better service other public areas in need of assistance. Further more, such industries reduce costs associated to public prisons through reduced waste and increased productivity, in order to be more competitive. Costs associated to bedding in a government run minimum security prison have been recorded to run up to twice as much as that of private developments. Whilst other studies of the Wackenhut and CCA institutions have noted savings of twenty percent off construction, and five to fifteen percent off management costs. In direct opposition, lobby groups believe that the profit motive will undermine the cost reduction activities by inevitably causing the cutting of corners, leading to poor or unsafe conditions. As such no evidence exists to support this theory; but interviews with prisoners and staff alike - who were in the position to compare both facilities - stated they were more comfortable in the privatised prisons.

Profit is the prime motivation behind privatisation - so much so that fast food giants like Kentucky Fried Chicken have taken up the position of financial backers to such institutions. For this reason, a huge conflict of interests can arise. The purpose of prisons is not only to remove an offender from society and punish them (which in itself would cause more problems than it would sole) but to also rehabilitate them to reduce the recidivism rate. By reducing this rate, privatised prisons are in effect reducing their supply of profit producing customers. "It is in the material interest of these companies, therefore, to not produce prisoners who have ‘paid their debt to society’, but ones who will continue to pay and pay on the installment plan". The only option available in this instance would be to contract such facilities to non profit groups, such as faith based organisations. Professor Richard Moran was noted stating that "a private, none profit foundation is in the best position to organise a prison around a set of principles intended to reshape criminals into honest, productive citizens". Despite this perfect potential, no such activity has taken place.

Other critics have voiced their worries that contractors may engage in ‘lowballing’, a technique that works by under biding competitors in order to obtain government approval, and then later when they are depended on for their services, increase their costs to ridiculous amounts. Worse yet, contractors stand the possibility of becoming bankrupt, leaving the government without any correctional capacity. As to the ‘lowballing’ strategy, it’s realism is lacking simply because no private organisation can expect to raise it’s fees higher than that of a reasonable profit margin without inviting an onslaught by it’s competitors.

One element of obvious advantage to the privatisation of this industry, revolves around the fact that private industries have a tendency to allow greater management flexibility, which in turn is meant to create better response times regarding issues of innovation, expansion, staff promotions and terminations. Public prisons have in past been very much stuck in their ways, unable to keep up with technological changes or changing needs of the individual staff and inmates within the walls. These changes are useful in handling incidences of outbreaks and riots, and have proven to reduce such incidences. While it remains unclear as to whether or not contracted prison guards would have the right to strike, the absence of such a right has not stopped public guards from engaging in walk outs, which at one stage in a coordinated action, saw 7 American penal institutes in complete chaos. In terms of escapes, the experience of private jails and their counter parts has been equal. Though incidences like those that took place at the Prince George County (U.S.A), where eleven prisoners where mistakenly released, has never happened in private institutions.

The issue of accountability is very much in a stalemate when it comes to which of the two organisations would be best. Critics of privatisation tend to believe that incidences that occur within prison will be isolated from the public’s view, and thus not subjected to those same political controls that are faced by the government prisons. Proponents reply that "contracting increases accountability because the government is more willing to monitor and control contractors than it is to monitor and control itself. Contractors - just like their government counterparts - are accountable to the law, to government supervisors, and ultimately, to the voting public through the political system. In addition, they are accountable, through a competitive market, to certain forces not faced by government agencies. They are answerable to insurers, investors, stockholders, and competitors. As a mechanism of accountability and control, the force of market competition is unmatched".

"Economic theory implies that if there were better markets to buy, sell and rent prison cells, the problems of funding and efficiently allocating prison space would decrease". The privatised prison system is based in such a way as to exploit these opportunities by introducing factories behind bars, reducing their own costs and allowing for prisoners to earn and pay their own way, whilst also putting back into the society they effected with their initial actions. Public prisons to a degree already do exactly this through such industries as plate making for motor vehicles, but by no means to the extent of privatised prisons. In 1997, the American private sector prison industry had nearly 100 private firms employing two thousand four hundred inmates manufacturing goods ranging from circuit boards to bird feeders, allowing for prisons to retain fifty six percent of all earned to cover room and board, taxes, victim restitution and family support. Any skills that convicts acquire from this kind of work can later be used to ease their process of re-integrating back into society.

It should also be noted that privatisation can lead to other methods of criminal control other than jail. These includes the use of electronic monitoring and surveillance through the use of bracelets, allowing for criminals to be detained within their own dwelling. Obviously these methods cause even greater concerns to the general public than that of privatised prisons, but due to the limited size of this document, it shall not be covered.

Considering all the factors mentioned here in, the ‘best’ method for prison organisations would seem to be private. All the financial benefits, security aspects, prisoner well being, and accountabilities make it an obvious choice. But the issue of morality seems to have been totally ignored. Should we, the peers of society shift the responsibility for the ultimate sanction by which we measure normative behaviour, to those whose soul motive is profit? Michel Foucault stated that prisons are a model, the point of origin, for the entire model of social control that characterised society through it’s "improvement in morals". Has our society become one of opportunists, motivated purely by greed? Foucault further stated that punishment was paid out in "days, months and years and draws up a quantitative equivalence between offence and duration". By forcing inmates to work, is the system not making the criminal pay back more than his crime entailed? Is it not possible to presume that the private prison approach is a symptom or "a response by private capitalism to the ‘opportunities’ created by society’s temper tantrum approach to the problem of criminality in the context of free market supremacy"? In the calculation of what is or should be the best system to protect and control social corruption, not only should we calculate the cost, but also the effect it will take on our morals.

The privatisation of prisons is an interesting concept, and holds many positive features that deserve further investigation. The concept will undoubtedly flourish - but much care is needed in regulations, to assure that society’s interests come before those of the corporations, and not developed by hucksters with the soul intention of turning a quick buck causing the sacrifice of quality. It should also be remembered that for each positive point, there will be an equal amount of rebuttal to counter its benefits, just as there is with public prisons. There is no potential problem with private prisons that is not matched by an identical or closely related problem within government based institutions. "It is primarily because they are prisons, not because they are contractual, that private operations face challenges of authority, legitimacy, procedural justice, accountability, liability" and so on. A possible consideration would be the combination of both systems, creating a union with safeguards, quick response times, technological changes, safety catering, educating and training inmates, whilst addressing the issue of morality within our legal system. As to their advantages and disadvantages as stand alone units, both organisations have good and bad points; both suffer equal criticism and similar failings.

Foucault, M, "Discipline and punishment", Penguin Books, 1977
Logan, C, "Prison Privatization: Objections and Refutations", http://www.ucc.uconn.edu, 1997
Sloane, D, "Private and Public Prisons", GAO, 1996
Smith, P, "Private Prisons: Profits of crime", Covert Action, 1993
William, A, "Cost effectiveness and comparisons of private versus public prisons", Baton Rouge, 1996
Author Unknown, "Crime and Punishment in America", NCPA Policy Report No. 219, 1998

Written By Evan Sycamnias email