Managing the Costs of Modern Corrections: Implications of Nineteenth-Century Privatized Prison-Labor Programs

• NCJ Number: 121366
• Journal: Journal of Criminal Justice Volume: 17 Issue: 6 Dated: (1989) Pages: 441-455
• Author(s): A M Durham III
• Date Published: 1989
• Length: 15 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Issue Overview
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

The increasing use of incarceration during the 1980s has resulted in substantial enlargement of the American prison population.

Abstract

In addition, the costs of providing correctional services to this enlarged population has grown dramatically. One solution proposed to address the issue of escalating correctional costs is privatization. Through an examination of the early nineteenth-century New York experience with private-sector prisons industrial programs, this article considers the value of privatization as a remedy to unacceptable correctional costs. Nineteenth-century problems are identified, and the implications of these problems for current privatization initiatives, both related and unrelated to prison industries, are discussed. (Author abstract)