Private Prisons Are Not More Efficient Than Public Prisons (From America's Prisons: Opposing Viewpoints, P 184-193, 1991, Stacey L. Tipp, ed. - See NCJ-159858)

• NCJ Number: 159882
• Author(s): C Bowditch; R S Everett
• Date Published: 1991
• Length: 10 pages
• Sale Source: Greenhaven Press
• Publication Type: Survey
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This article disputes claims that private prisons can operate more efficiently and flexibly than public prisons.

Abstract

Proponents of privatization cite a number of advantages to private prisons, all of which rest on the assumption that private industry can respond quickly and cost-efficiently to the current pressures for more prison space. While privatization has worked well in other sectors of the economy, prisons carry out a task fundamentally different from other government services. These authors contend that the argument for the inherent efficiency of private prisons is seriously flawed, as prisons do not operate in a completely competitive free market. Privatization in corrections could easily expand the availability of prison space, which would encourage a continued, possibly unwise, reliance on imprisonment as a sanction.