Current status of prison privatization research on American prisons and jails

• Author: Gerald G. Gaes
• Published date: 01 May 2019
• Date: 01 May 2019
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9133.12428

DOI: 10.1111/1745-9133.12428

RESEARCH ARTICLE

PRIVATIZED PRISONS AND JAILS

Current status of prison privatization research

on American prisons and jails

Gerald G. Gaes

Florida State University

Correspondence

GeraldG. Gaes, College of Cr iminology and

Criminal Justice, Florida State University,

EppesHall, 112 S. Copeland Street,

Tallahassee,FL 32306-1273.

Email:ggaes@comcast.net

Thisar ticle is based on a previouslyunpub-

lishedar ticle I wrote in whichI reviewed the

statusof pr ison privatization research.In t his

article, I updated the previous one byadding

researchconducted in the past several years as

wellas data on jails and contract ser vices.

Research Summary: Private companies manage 8.4% of

the U.S. prison population and 5.4% of the jail population.

On average, the costs and quality of privatized facilities

seem to be about the same as publicly operated prisons, but

the lack of high-quality studies limits a strong inference.

Although states with increases in prison privatization have

lower public-sector costs, this may be a result of strong cost

controls, not of their level of privatization. An increase in

recidivism seems to occur for people placed in private facil-

ities. This assertion is based on the findings of several stud-

ies in which regression controls are used and on only one

study in which a strong counterfactual design is applied.

Finally, there is no evidence that prison privatization was

responsible for the dramatic growth in incarceration that

peaked in 2009.

Policy Implications: Because many jurisdictions will con-

tinue to use privately operated facilities, it is incumbent

on them to create monitoring mechanisms to ensure high-

quality services and efficient use of resources. In this arti-

cle, I suggest many ways in which research findings can

contribute to a better assessment of prison and jail perfor-

mance promoting accountability for both the private and the

public sector.

KEYWORDS

jail privatization, prison and jail performance metrics, prison privatization,

prison quality/cost comparisons

Criminology & Public Policy. 2019;18:269–293. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/capp © 2019 American Society of Criminology 269

270 GAES

1INTRODUCTION

Do private prisons improve performance at a lower cost? By now, after 36 years of prison and jail

privatization, one might expect a definitive answer to that question. Unfortunately, we still havemostly

a rudimentary knowledge of privatization effects. An appraisal of prison and jail privatization strikes

at the heart of the fundamental goals and purposes of corrections. The discussion elevates such themes

as the role of the private sector in administering punishment, the importance of metrics to compare

privately and publicly operated facilities, the structure of accountability to ensure services are properly

delivered, the function of oversight to secure just and fair punishment, and the measurement of cost

and efficiency. These issues are crucial even in the absence of a privatization debate. Because there

are impassioned proponents and opponents on both sides of the issue, however, the findings reported

in the prison privatization literature have provoked both earnest debate and fractious polemic.

One might expect that the importance of this topic would have inspired a prodigious amount of

research, motivating the funding of large-scale studies. In fact,t here are few studies in which privately

and publicly operated facilities are compared, and even fewer large-scale evaluations. Although I

focus this article on the quality of confinement, I also discuss cost. The two topics are inseparable in

any discussion of privatization. To reinforce that idea, we need to assume every prison and jail could

be measured on equitable dimensions of cost and quality. We might imagine a regression line with

low-quality, low-cost prisons at one end and high-cost, high-quality prisons at the other end of this

continuum. Efficient prisons would be observations that are outliers having lower costs and higher

quality. Inefficient prisons would be outliers with higher costs and lower quality. There is no way to

evaluate prison and jail privatization without including both cost and quality dimensions.

2PRIVATE CORRECTIONS IN THE UNITED STATES

Corporate management of prison operations is a recent historical event. CoreCivic, formerly Correc-

tions Corporation of America, began operations in 1983 and has the largest privatization footprint. The

GEO Group, originally Wackenhut Corrections Corporation, is a close second. These companies have

expanded their businesses into reentry centers, transportation services, halfway houses, correctional

health providers, and community supervision services. CoreCivic and GEO are publicly traded

companies with December 2018 stock values in the $22 to $23 range. MTC is a later entry into the

business. It was first founded as a jobs training organization operating U.S. Department of Labor Job

Corps centers as early as 1966. Although other firms provide prison management services, these three

are the largest and manage a large proportion of American privatized prisons and jails.

3NUMBER OF PRISONERS HELD IN PRIVATE PRISONS

The Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) tracks the number of private prison beds using its National

Prisoner Statistics data collection (Kaeble & Cowhig, 2018). In the most recent BJS report, it is

revealed that 128,323 inmates were held in private prisons as of December 31, 2016 (Table 1). This

number represented 8.5% of the 1,506,757 inmates held in all state and federal prisons on that date. Of

the total number of inmates held in privately operated prisons, 34,159 (26.6%) were imprisoned under

federal authority and 94,164 (73.4%) were confined under state authority. The number of prisoners

held in privately operated prisons grew by 42% from 2000 to 2016. In 2000, private prisons held 6.5%

of all federal and state inmates. The private sector’s share of inmates, however, grew from 6.5% in