Changing the Guard: Private Prisons and the Control of Crime - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0945999879 ISBN 13: 9780945999874

Publisher: Independent Institute,U.S., 2002

Synopsis

When prison privatization began in the United States in the early 1980s, many policy analysts claimed that the result would be higher costs, declining quality, and an erosion of state authority. Bringing together five of the leading researchers of prison privatization and criminology, this authoritative survey addresses the economic as well as the social implications of prison reform. Economist Ken Avio begins with an analysis of the broader issues surrounding the private-prison debate, such as punishment and recidivism, and crime deterrence. Charles Thomas, the world's leading authority on private prisons, provides the empirical context for understanding the debate, examining their historical origins, present status, and future prospects. Samuel Jan Brakel and Kimberly Ingersoll Gaylord examine the costs and quality of private prisons, and Bruce Benson argues that prison privatization be instituted in concert with certain aspects of the criminal justice system.

About this title

About the Author

Alexander Tabarrok, research director of the Independent Institute, edited The Voluntary City: Choice, Community, and Civil Society, and Entrepreneurial Economics. Charles H. Logan is the author of Private Prisons: Cons and Pros.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Changing the Guard

Private Prisons and the Control of Crime

By Alexander Tabarrok

The Independent Institute

Copyright © 2003 The Independent Institute
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-945999-87-4

Contents

Foreword Charles H. Logan, 
1 Introduction Alexander Tabarrok, 
2 The Economics of Prisons Kenneth L. Avio, 
3 Correctional Privatization in America: An Assessment of Its Historical Origins, Present Status, and Future Prospects Charles W. Thomas, 
4 Prison Privatization and Public Policy Samuel Jan Brakel and Kimberly Ingersoll Gaylord, 
5 Do We Want the Production of Prison Services to Be More "Efficient"? Bruce L. Benson, 
Index, 
About the Authors, 

CHAPTER 1

Introduction

Alexander Tabarrok

We now have several decades of experience with prison privatization. Judging from the continued controversy, we have learned little from this experience. Yet if we look behind the controversy and evaluate the accumulated evidence, it becomes clear that we have learned a great deal.

We now know that private prisons can be built more quickly, operated at lower cost, and maintained at a quality level at least as high as government-run prisons. To be sure, some private prisons are better than others, and the worst-run private prisons are not as good as the best-run government prisons. But as Samuel Jan Brakel and Kimberly Gaylord demonstrate in chapter 4, we now have ample evidence to say that on average private prisons offer substantial cost savings with no loss in quality. (All the authors in this volume discuss the cost issue but, in particular, see chapters 2 [Avio], 3 [Thomas], and 4 [Brakel and Gaylord].)

You Get What You Contract For

What we have learned from prison and other types of privatization is that you get what you contract for. The early critics of prison privatization were correct that if governments were to write prison contracts solely based on price, then they would get cheap prisons of low quality. What the critics didn't understand, however, was that with experience it has become possible to write effective multidimensional contracts that include procedures for the careful monitoring of prison output. Such contracts provide incentives to produce high-quality prisons that are nevertheless considerably less expensive to run than their government counterparts.

The argument that privatization works when governments write multidimensional contracts with procedures for the careful monitoring of output does contain a hint of inconsistency. One of the arguments for privatization is that owing to a lack of incentives, government tends to be inefficient. But if government is inefficient at producing the output of prisons, why should we expect it to be any more efficient at producing prison contracts? This point surely has merit, which is one reason to maintain a distinction between the terms contracting out (in which the government remains as buyer of privately produced goods and services) and privatization (in which the government exits the industry as both buyer and seller).

The inefficiency of government as a contract writer is a real problem. In his chapter, Charles Thomas points out that in many cases privatization has turned into "governmentalization" because contracts with private suppliers are made so detailed that the private suppliers in essence are required to duplicate public facilities down even to the prisoner meal plan (see also Benson's chapter). It is a tribute to private industry or perhaps an indictment of government production tha

Edition details

• Publisher: Independent Institute,U.S.
• Publication date: 2002
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0945999879
• ISBN 13: 9780945999874
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 270
• Editor: Tabarrok Alexander