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A private prison or for-profit prison, jail, or detention center is a place in which individuals are physically confined or interned by a third party that is contracted by a government agency. Private prison companies typically enter into contractual agreements with governments that commit prisoners and then pay a per diem or monthly rate for each prisoner confined in the facility.

Today, the privatization of prisons refers both to the takeover of existing public facilities by private operators and to the building and operation of new and additional prisons by for-profit prison companies.

Private prisons in the United Kingdom

Development of private prisons in the United Kingdom

In the modern era, the United Kingdom was the first country in all of Europe to use prisons run by the private sector to hold its prisoners. Wolds Prison opened as the first privately managed prison in the UK in 1992.,[1] as one of a number of prisons built by the public sector but contracted to the private sector to operate under 5 year contracts. Soon private prisons were established under the government's Private Finance Initiative, where contracts are awarded for the entire design, construction, management and finance of a prison under 25 year contracts. Later, Government attempted to 'market test' prisons operated by the public sector, though no prison transferred from public to private operation through this route until Birmingham in 2011.[2] Prisons operated by the private sector are subject to re-competition at the end of the contract, when the public sector may bid, and on 3 occasions has done so successfully.

Privately run prisons are run under contracts which set out the standards that must be met. Payments may be deducted for poor performance against the contract. Government monitors ('controllers') work permanently within each privately managed prison to check on conditions and treatment of prisoners, and privately run prisons are subject to inspection by HM Chief Inspector of Prisons in the same way as publicly run ones. There are now 14 prisons in England and Wales operated under contract by private companies. Between them they have the capacity to hold about 13,500 prisoners or approximately 15% of the entire prison population. There are also 2 privately run prisons in Scotland. Current operators in the United Kingdom are G4S (6), Sodexo Justice services (formerly know as Kalyx, and prior to that UKDS) (4) and Serco (6).

A competition is in progress to run 9 prisons in England and Wales. The first stage of the results was announced on 8 November 2012: the public sector will retain 3 and also take over Wolds Prison, currently run by G4S. The other 5 prisons will be subject of further competition between Serco, Sodexo and a new company, MTC/Amey.[3] At the same time, Ministers outlined plans to contract out all but core custodial functions at all public sector prisons with the aim of saving £450m over 6 years. The loss of G4S of Wolds Prison and its failure to win any new contracts was widely linked to the company's failures with its contract for the 2012 Olympics.

Criticisms

Not all private prisons in the United Kingdom have been successful. Ashfield Prison opened in 1999 and was the first private prison in the UK to house young offenders. The prison was soon mired in controversy after repeated riots and reports of poor management. Conditions at the prison became so bad in 2003 that the Youth Justice Board withdrew prisoners from Ashfield, and threatened to recommend that the prison should be taken over by the public sector.[4] Conditions at the prison improved however and the jail remained privately managed. Buckley Hall Prison was originally opened as a privately managed prison in 1994, but after a competitive tendering process in 2000, management of the prison was transferred to Her Majesty's Prison Service[5]

Private prisons in the United States

Early history of prison privatization in the United States

The privatization movement can be traced to the contracting out of confinement and care of prisoners after the American Revolution. Deprived of the ability to ship reefer and undesirables to the Colonies, Great Britain began placing them on hulks (used as prison ships) moored in English ports.[6]

The partial transfer of San Quentin prison administration from private to public did not mark the end of privatization. The next phase began with the Reconstruction Period (1865–1876) in the south, after the end of the Civil War. Farmers and businessmen needed to find replacements for the labor force once their slaves had been freed. Beginning in 1868, convict leases were issued to private parties to supplement their workforce.[7][8] This system remained in place until the early 20th century.

Development of private prisons in the United States

Federal and state government has a long history of contracting out specific services to private firms, including medical services, food preparation, vocational training, and inmate transportation. The 1980s, though, ushered in a new era of prison privatization. With a burgeoning prison population resulting from the War on Drugs and increased use of incarceration, prison overcrowding and rising costs became increasingly problematic for local, state, and federal governments. In response to this expanding criminal justice system, private business interests saw an opportunity for expansion, and consequently, private-sector involvement in prisons moved from the simple contracting of services to contracting for the complete management and operation of entire prisons.[9]

The modern private prison business first emerged and established itself publicly in 1984 when the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) was awarded a contract to take over a facility in Hamilton County, Tennessee. This marked the first time that any government in the country had contracted out the complete operation of a jail to a private operator.[10] The following year, CCA gained further public attention when it offered to take over the entire state prison system of Tennessee for $200 million. The bid was ultimately defeated due to strong opposition from public employees and the skepticism of the state legislature.[11] Despite that initial defeat, CCA since then has successfully expanded, as have other for-profit prison companies. As of December 2000, there were 153 private correctional facilities (prisons, jails and detention centers) operating in the United States with a capacity of over 119,000.[12]

The trend toward privately operated correctional facilities has continued with 85,604 adults (3.7% of the total US prison population) now housed in 107 privately operated prisons.2011[13] Companies operating such facilities include the Corrections Corporation of America, the GEO Group, Inc. (formerly known as Wackenhut Securities), and Community Education Centers.

Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) has a capacity of more than 80,000 beds in 65 correctional facilities. The GEO Group operates 61 facilities with a capacity of 49,000 offender beds.[14] The company owns or runs more than 100 properties that operate more than 73,000 beds in sites across the world.[15]

Most privately run facilities are located in the southern and western portions of the United States and include both state and federal offenders.[13]

Cost/Benefit analysis

Industry-funded studies often conclude that states can save money by using private prisons. However, state-funded studies have found that private prisons keep only low-cost inmates and send others back to state-run prisons.[16]

Others have suggested that cost savings come at the expense of security. In the wake of the escape of three murderers from the minimum/medium security Kingman Prison, Arizona operated by Management and Training Corporation (MTC) attorney general and gubernatorial candidate Terry Goddard said "I believe a big part of our problem is that the very violent inmates, like the three that escaped, ended up getting reclassified [as a lower risk] quickly and sent to private prisons that were just not up to the job."[17] The private prison had inadequate patrols and prisoner movement, excessive false alarms, a lax culture, and inconsistencies in visitor screening procedures.[18]

One escapee was also involved in a Colorado shootout, where he was captured by a deputy and police in Rifle Colorado. Though he still "owed" Arizona 32 years on his sentence, he was sentenced to sixty years to be served first in Colorado.

The state of Arizona, as well as Dominion, an Edmunds, Oklahoma corporation that spec-built the prison, and MTC that managed it, are being sued for $40 million [19] by the family of Gary and Linda Haas, retirees who were murdered in New Mexico by the fugitives.[20] The remaining two escapees and their accomplice are being held on federal murder charges in New Mexico. The three were first convicted of hijackings, kidnappings and robberies in Arizona and charged with the same in New Mexico. The ringleader and his accomplice also committed a robbery in Arkansas.[21]

Criticisms

Many organizations have called for a moratorium on construction of private prisons, or for their outright abolition.[22] The religious denominations Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and United Methodist Church have also joined the call, as well as the Catholic Bishops of the South organization.[23]

Proponents of privately run prisons contend that cost-savings and efficiency of operation place private prisons at an advantage over public prisons and support the argument for privatization, but some research casts doubt on the validity of these arguments, as evidence has shown that private prisons are neither demonstrably more cost-effective, nor more efficient than public prisons.[9] An evaluation of 24 different studies on cost-effectiveness revealed that, at best, results of the question are inconclusive and, at worst, there is no difference in cost-effectiveness.[24]

A study by the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics found that the cost-savings promised by private prisons “have simply not materialized.”[25] Some research has concluded that for-profit prisons cost more than public prisons.[26] Furthermore, cost estimates from privatization advocates may be misleading, because private facilities often refuse to accept inmates that cost the most to house. A 2001 study concluded that a pattern of sending less expensive inmates to privately run facilities artificially inflated cost savings.[27] A 2005 study found that Arizona’s public facilities were seven times more likely to house violent offenders and three times more likely to house those convicted of more serious offenses.[28] A 2011 report by the American Civil Liberties Union point out that private prisons are more costly, more violent and less accountable than public prisons, and are actually a major contributor to increased mass incarceration.[29] This is most apparent in Louisiana, which has the highest incarceration rate in the world and houses the majority of its inmates in for-profit facilities.[30]

Evidence suggests that lower staff levels and training at private facilities may lead to increases in incidences of violence and escapes. A nationwide study found that assaults on guards by inmates were 49 percent more frequent in private prisons than in government-run prisons. The same study revealed that assaults on fellow inmates were 65 percent more frequent in private prisons.[31]

CCA and The GEO Group have been major contributors to the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a Washington, D.C. based public policy organization that develops model legislation that advances free-market principles such as privatization. Under their Criminal Justice Task Force, ALEC has developed model bills which State legislators can then consult when proposing “tough on crime” initiatives including “Truth in Sentencing” and “Three Strikes” laws. By funding and participating in ALEC’s Criminal Justice Task Forces, critics argue, private prison companies directly influence legislation for tougher, longer sentences.[32] According to a 2010 report by NPR, ALEC arranged meetings between the Corrections Corporation of America and Arizona’s state legislators such as Russell Pearce at the Grand Hyatt in Washington, D.C. to write Arizona SB 1070, which would keep CCA's immigrant detention centers stuffed with detainees.[33]

CCA and GEO have both engaged in state initiatives to increase sentences for offenders and to create new crimes, including, CCA helping to finance Proposition 6 in California in 2008 and GEO lobbying for Jessica's Law[34] in Kansas in 2006. The legal system may also be manipulated more directly: in the Kids for cash scandal, Mid-Atlantic Youth Services Corp, a private prison company which runs juvenile facilities, was found guilty of paying two judges, Mark Ciavarella and Michael Conahan, $2.6m to send 2000 children to their prisons for such crimes as trespassing in vacant buildings and stealing DVDs from Wal-Mart.[35][36][37]

Legislation passed with links to private prisons, reported in the media:[33][38][39][40]

Private prisons do not replicate free enterprise in terms of prison industries. Instead, private prison companies today merely continue the warehouse function of prisons. Prisoners in private prisons do not have significantly more employment than in state prisons. Restrictive legislation still inhibits the manufacture, transportation and sale of prison-made goods across state lines in the U.S., while Chinese prison-made goods enter the U.S. with impunity. It is not true that private enterprise is taking over the running of prisons, because private prison companies today simply privatize the warehouse function without creating factories, jobs and products behind fences.

Attempts to limit privatization and increase oversight

Some U.S. states have imposed bans, population limits, and strict operational guidelines on private prisons:

  • Banning privatization of state and local facilities—Illinois in 1990 (Private Correctional Facility Moratorium Act), and New York in 2000, enacted laws that ban the privatization of prisons, correctional facilities and any services related to their operation. Louisiana enacted a moratorium on private prisons in 2001.
  • Banning speculative private prison construction—For-profit prison companies have built new prisons before they were awarded privatization contracts in order to lure state contract approval. In 2001, Wisconsin’s joint budget committee recommended language to ban all future speculative prison construction in the state. Such anticipatory building dates back to at least 1997, when Corrections Corporation of America built a 2,000-bed facility in California at a cost of $80–100 million with no contract from the California Department of Corrections; a CCA official was quoted as saying, "If we build it, they will come".[41]
  • Banning exportation and importation of prisoners—To ensure that the state retains control over the quality and security of correctional facilities, North Dakota passed a bill in 2001 that banned the export of Class A and AA felons outside the state. Similarly, Oregon allowed an existing exportation law to sunset in 2001, effectively banning the export of prisoners. Several states have considered banning the importation of prisoners to private facilities.
  • Requiring standards comparable to state prisons—New Mexico enacted legislation that transfers supervision of private prisons to the state Secretary of Corrections, ensuring that private prisons meet the same standards as public facilities. In 2001, Nebraska legislation that requires private prisons to meet public prison standards was overwhelmingly approved by the legislature, but pocket-vetoed by the governor. Oklahoma passed a law in 2005 that requires private prisons to have emergency plans in place and mandates state notification of any safety incidents.

Private prisons in Israel

In 2004, the Israeli Knesset passed a law permitting the establishment of private prisons in Israel. The State's motivation was to save money by transferring prisoners to facilities managed by a private firm. The state would pay the franchisee $50 per day for each inmate, sparing itself the cost of building new prisons and expanding the staff of the Israel Prison Service. In 2005, the human rights department of the Academic College of Law in Ramat Gan filed a petition to the Israeli Supreme Court challenging the law. The petition relied on two arguments. First, it said, transferring prison powers to private hands would violate the prisoners' fundamental human rights to liberty and dignity. Secondly, a private organization always aims to maximize profit, and would therefore seek to cut costs by, for instance, skimping on prison facilities and paying its guards poorly, thus further undermining the prisoners' rights. As the case awaited decision, the first prison was built by the concessionaire, Lev Leviev's Africa-Israel - a facility near Beersheba planned to accommodate 2,000 prisoners.

In November 2009, an expanded panel of 9 judges of the Israeli Supreme Court ruled that privately run prisons are unconstitutional, finding that for the State to transfer authority for managing the prison to a private contractor whose aim is monetary profit would severely violate the prisoners' basic human rights to dignity and freedom. Supreme Court President Dorit Beinisch, wrote that "Israel's basic legal principles hold that the right to use force in general, and the right to enforce criminal law by putting people behind bars in particular, is one of the most fundamental and one of the most invasive powers in the state's jurisdiction. Thus when the power to incarcerate is transferred to a private corporation whose purpose is making money, the act of depriving a person of [their] liberty loses much of its legitimacy. Because of this loss of legitimacy, the violation of the prisoner's right to liberty goes beyond the violation entailed in the incarceration itself."[42]

In fiction

  • Oldboy (Movie, 2003) -- Story of Oh Dae-su, who is locked in a private prison (run by prison manager, Oh Dal-su as Park Cheol-woong) for 15 years. The story is based on a web of conspiracy and violence after his release. See also, Old Boy (manga)
  • Ghosts... of the Civil Dead (Movie, 1988) is an Australian film directed by John Hillcoat. The script was written by Hillcoat, Evan English, Gene Conkie, Nick Cave and Hugo Race. It is set in Central Industrial Prison, a privately run maximum security prison in the middle of the Australian desert.
  • Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky (Movie, 1991) -- Set in the future of 2001, when all prison institutions have been privatized.
  • Seeing I (Novel) -- Partly set in a private prison called the Oliver Bainbridge Functional Stabilisation Centre, in which corporate spies and those who know too much are held.
  • White Triangle (Fictional organization) -- Racist organization in the post-Zero Hour continuity of DC Comics' Legion of Super-Heroes. Part of the plot involves the release of prisoners of a supermax private prison called Planet Hell.
  • Lock-Up (comics)—Lock-Up (Lyle Bolton) is a DC Comics villain and an enemy of Batman. His first full appearance was in Detective Comics #697-699 (June-Aug 1996), which began with him capturing Two-Face, and taking him to his private prison.
  • A Scanner Darkly (film)—A rehabilitative private prison for drug criminals proves to be the farm in which the drugs are grown.
  • Death Race (film) -- a remake of Death Race 2000, and the prequels Death Race 2 and Death Race 3: Inferno.
  • Adjudication (short story 2007) -- Australian speculative short story about a privately owned prison which arms prisoners in an attempt to end industrial action by prison guards.

Games

See also

References

  1. ^ http://www.hmpwolds.co.uk/
  2. ^ Birmingham Prison: 123 jobs could go". BBC News. 1 July 2011.
  3. ^ The Guardian, 8 November 2012, 'G4S loses Wolds contract'
  4. ^ "Youngsters removed from 'worst' jail". BBC News. February 5, 2003. Retrieved May 22, 2010.
  5. ^ "Group 4 loses prison contract". BBC News. October 22, 1999. Retrieved May 22, 2010.
  6. ^ Charles Campbell, "The Intolerable Hulks." (2001)
  7. ^ Todd, W. (2005). Convict Lease System. In The New Georgia Encyclopedia. Retrieved October 1, 2006, from http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-2635
  8. ^ Zito, M. (2003, December). Prison Privatization: Past and Present. Retrieved October 1, 2006, from the International Foundation for Protection Officers Web site: http://www.ifpo.org/articlebank/prison_privatization.html
  9. ^ a b The Sentencing Project, "Prison Privatization and the Use of Incarceration" (2004)
  10. ^ Good Jobs First, “ Jail Breaks: Economic Development Subsidies Given to Private Prisons,” October 2001, p. 2.
  11. ^ Eric Bates, “Private Prisons,” The Nation, Jan. 5, 1998, p. 13.
  12. ^ Number of Private Facilities by Geographical Location, 09/04/2001, Dr. Charles W. Thomas, Private Corrections Project.
  13. ^ a b Schmalleger, F., & Smykla, J. (2011,2007, 2005, 2002). Corrections in the 21st Century. New York: McGraw-Hill.
  14. ^ The GEO Group, Inc. (2005). Retrieved October 2, 2006, from http://www.thegeogroupinc.com/corporate.asp
  15. ^ [1]
  16. ^ Richard A. Oppel, jr. (May 18, 2011). "Private Prisons Found to Offer Little in Savings". New York Times.
  17. ^ D.M. Levine (August 18, 2010). "What's costlier than a government run prison? A private one". Fortune.
  18. ^ Dru Stevenson (10 November 2011). "A Corporate Perspective of Prison Privatization".
  19. ^ J.J. Hensely (18 March 2011). "Family of Couple Killed by Arizona Inmates Files Lawsuit Against State". AZCentral.com. Retrieved 27 November 2011.
  20. ^ "The Family of Gary and Linda Haas Filed a Lawsuit Today Against MTC, the State/ADC and Dominion Asset Services, LLC". PRWEB.
  21. ^ "Kingman Prison Still Under Scrutiny". AzCentral.com. January 30, 2011. {{cite news}}: Unknown parameter |authors= ignored (help)
  22. ^ Center for Policy Alternatives. (n.d.). Privatizing Prisons. Retrieved October 3, 2006, from the Center for Policy Alternatives Web site: http://www.stateaction.org/issues/issue.cfm/issue/PrivatizingPrisons.xml
  23. ^ PCI Religious Statements
  24. ^ Maahs, J. & Pratt, T. (1999). Are Private Prisons More Cost-Effective Than Public Prisons? A Meta-Analysis of Evaluation Research Studies. Crime & Delinquency, 45(3), 358-371. Retrieved October 2, 2006, from SAGE database.
  25. ^ Bureau of Justice Statistics, “Prison and Jail Inmates at Midyear 2004,” April 2005. http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/index.cfm?ty=pbdetail&iid=843[failed verification]
  26. ^ Dennis Cunningham, “Projected FY 2000 Cost of DOC Operated Medium Security Beds Compared to Private Prison Contracts,” 4th Annual Privatizing Correctional Facilities Conference, September 24, 1999.
  27. ^ Policy Matters Ohio, “Selective Celling: Inmate Population in Ohio’s Private Prisons,” May 2001.
  28. ^ Kevin Pranis, “Cost-Saving or Cost-Shifting—The Fiscal Impact of Prison Privatization in Arizona,” Private Corrections Institute, Inc., February 2005.
  29. ^ Shapiro, David. "Banking on Bondage: Private Prisons and Mass Incarceration" (PDF). American Civil Liberties Union. Retrieved 31 March 2013.
  30. ^ Chang, Cindy (29 May 2012). "Louisiana is the world's prison capital". The Times-Picayune. Retrieved 4 April 2013.
  31. ^ James Austin and Garry Coventry, “Emerging Issues on Privatized Prisons,” Bureau of Justice Assistance, February 2001.
  32. ^ http://www.sentencingproject.org/Admin/Documents/publications/inc_prisonprivatization.pdf
  33. ^ a b Sullivan, Laura (2010). Prison Economics Help Drive Ariz. Immigration Law. National Public Radio.
  34. ^ http://www.kansascity-criminal-attorney.com/PracticeAreas/Jessicas-Law.pdf
  35. ^ George Monbiot, The Guardian, 3 March 2009, This revolting trade in human lives is an incentive to lock people up
  36. ^ Pilkington, Ed (March 7, 2009). "Jailed for a MySpace parody, the student who exposed America's cash for kids scandal". The Guardian. London. Retrieved May 22, 2010.
  37. ^ Whitehead, John (April 10, 2012). "Jailing Americans for Profit: The Rise of the Prison Industrial Complex". The Rutherford Institute. Retrieved April 2, 2013.
  38. ^ http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130891396
  39. ^ http://www.bellinghamherald.com/2010/11/17/1724396/commentary-was-arizonas-immigration.html
  40. ^ http://www.kpho.com/news/24834877/detail.html
  41. ^ Gunnison, Robert B. (August 1). "Privately Run Prison Planned for Mojave: Firm Says It Can House Inmates Cheaper" (Document). San Francisco Chronicle. p. A22. {{cite document}}: Check date values in: |date= and |year= / |date= mismatch (help)
  42. ^ article from Haaretz newspaper
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