What questions emerge regarding the practice of contracting with private, for-profit organizations to operate correctional facilities?
What’s the most important aspect of operating a prison? Cost, safety, rehabilitation, overcrowding? Should a corporation profit from a prison, even if it’s unsafe for the community and/or the prisoners? These are some questions surrounding private, for-profit organizations regarding operating correctional facilities.
Prison privatization has prospered because of claims that for-profit facilities are more cost efficient at providing services than publicly-run institutions. The evidence does not support this assertion.
In 1996, the U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) looked at four state-funded studies and one commissioned by the federal government assessing the cost benefits of private prisons. The outcomes of the research varied, leading the authors to conclude that “…these studies do not offer substantial evidence that savings have occurred.” Similar conclusions were reached in a 2009 meta-analysis by researchers at the University of Utah that looked at eight cost comparison studies resulting in vastly different conclusions. The analysis led the researchers to state, “…prison privatization provides neither a clear advantage nor disadvantage compared to publicly managed prisons” and that “…cost savings from privatization are not guaranteed.”
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