Private Sector in Juvenile Corrections (From Juvenile Justice and Public Policy: Toward a National Agenda, 1992, P 196-213, Ira M Schwartz, ed. -- See NCJ-138726)

• NCJ Number: 138736
• Author(s): Y Bakal; H Lowell
• Date Published: 1992
• Length: 18 pages
• Sale Source: Macmillan
• Publication Type: Legislation/Policy Analysis
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This chapter explores the opportunities and the risks posed by increasing reliance on the private sector to accomplish juvenile justice goals.

Abstract

The overall composition of the juvenile justice system in the United States is changing. A system once almost entirely reliant on public facilities and institutions has evolved into a network of private facilities and programs that service a significant proportion of total admissions. The private sector serves at least three major functions in the administration of juvenile justice systems. The first of these relates to the processes of reform in juvenile justice: making systems more effective, more efficient, and more humane. Second, the private sector has a role in the mundane, daily management of the systems that use private services extensively. Third, the private sector is often used by astute juvenile justice administrators to counterbalance other formidable forces in their systems, including the State bureaucracy, the civil service, and the unions. Some potential dangers of corrections privatization are that the private sector will oppose change; a dual system of public and private corrections will develop; stagnation will occur; the State will control the private sector; line-item micromismanagement will occur; and the profit motive will dominate corrections policy. Opportunities in privatization are improvement in administrative flexibility, the implementation of diversity, the development of an independent systems program assessment, the unification of case management, and the development of programs for every type of offender. 15 references