NCJ Number
86692
Journal
Corrections Magazine Volume: 9 Issue: 1 Dated: (February 1983) Pages: 36-39,42-43
Date Published
1983
Length
6 pages
Annotation
The increasing reliance by private providers of correctional services on lobbying to obtain contracts and funding for their services is described.
Abstract
The recession, local government cutbacks, and the end of Federal grants have hurt most private correctional vendors. Some experts estimate that one-fourth of these private programs have been eliminated or seriously damaged in the last 2 years. However, many private providers have prospered, even in states without laws requiring corrections departments to contract with the private sector to help relieve prison overcrowding. The successful private social service agencies have survived because they have found ways of influencing legislators and officials of correctional bureaucracies. Lobbying efforts have ranged from ad hoc, grassroots efforts to highly organized campaigns. For example, in 1976 halfway house administrators initiated vigorous lobbying efforts when the Federal Bureau of Prisons eliminated all of its funds for community-based programs. The efforts succeeded in getting Congress to replace the funds. At the State level, halfway house organizations have transformed themselves from apolitical support groups to determined political action committees. However, smaller agencies are failing while larger, interstate networks of private vendors are growing bigger. Legal concerns over nonprofit status also make some private agency administrators reluctant to discuss their profession's new political strength. A further concern is that social service monopolies will begin to resemble the military industrial complex. Nevertheless, many believe that the growing political and financial power of the strongest private agencies may help produce some of the reforms long wanted by leaders of the private sector in corrections.