History of privatized corrections

• Author: Richard W. Harding,Lisa Thomsen,John Rynne
• Published date: 01 May 2019
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9133.12426
• Date: 01 May 2019

DOI: 10.1111/1745-9133.12426

RESEARCH ARTICLE

PRIVATIZED CORRECTIONS

History of privatized corrections

Richard W. Harding1John Rynne2Lisa Thomsen2

1University of Western Australia

2Griffith University

Correspondence

RichardW. Harding, Emeritus Professor of

Law,University of WesternAustralia,

M253,35 Stirling Highway, 6009, Perth.

Email:r ichard.harding@UWA.edu.au

Research Summary: In this historical reviewof pr ison pri-

vatization, we identify interconnected events in the United

States, Australia, and the United Kingdom and their dis-

tinctiveness from other nations. The political and economic

catalysts for the post-1980 reemergenceof pr ivatizationare

also analyzed. Privatization exists on a continuum from

ancillary service delivery to full custodial operations and

management. As privatization seems to have lost some of

its momentum, it is unclear whether its advent has produced

the intended system-wide improvements.

Policy Implications: Modern privatization spawned an

enormous amount of research in which a comparison of

the private and public sectors was attempted. Despite the

plethora of research, the findings are mainly inconclusive.

Policy makers should focus on privatization as a subset of

mainstream prisons research, with investigation of system-

wide key issues like confinement quality, preparation for

release, and accountability. These matters bear, in turn, on

outcomes such as reduced recidivism and the ability to lead

a useful life postrelease.

KEYWORDS

prisons’ research, private prisons, privatization history

1INTRODUCTION

Detaining people involuntarily requires the legislative and executive authority of the government.

Building prisons and managing prisoners is a core government function, not something that individual

citizens or corporations can lawfully decide to do on their own. A widely held view is that custodial

functions should thus not be outsourced or privatized. The contrary view is that the government does

not surrender its responsibility and accountability for this core function by contracting out or privatiz-

ing the day-to-day management of prisons, including custodial practices and arrangements. Prisoners

Criminology & Public Policy. 2019;18:241–267. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/capp © 2019 American Society of Criminology 241

242 HARDING ET AL.

cannot be detained without legitimate judicial or administrative action having been authorized by laws.

The core function is not compromised.

By and large, this latter approach has found more favor in English-speaking, common law nations

than it has elsewhere. Privatized prisons, in this sense, can be found in the United States, Australia, the

United Kingdom, New Zealand, and South Africa.

The European approach, and by extension the approach found in the former colonies of France,

Spain, Portugal, and Holland, has been that the custodial function in relation to detained persons must

be carried out by government employees; it is nondelegable. “The prison officer is my man. I would

hold a hand on his key. …The communal character of punishments evaporates in the proposals for

private prisons” (Christie, 1993, p. 102).

These contrasting approaches might seem to span a sharp divide. The complexity and specialization

of service provision in the modern world, however, has arguably led to a situation where they exist on

a continuum. The modern prison needs health, education, training, welfare, food, transport, building

maintenance, internal communication systems, and many other services. Government entities increas-

ingly cannot deliver each of these things directly. Accordingly, theymust be contracted in—by prisons

managed by the public authority as well as by those that have been privatized.

The European approach has recognized that a wide range of services can be contracted out or pri-

vatized. The notion of prisons semi-privees has developed to cover situations in which a wide range,

almost all, of such services—other than custodial functions—have been privatized. This is particularly

the case in France. The same notion, however,covers arrangements that can now be found in Germany

and in some South American states.

The complexities and paradoxes do not stop there. Some privatized prisons contract in government-

provided services, such as health and education. Public prisons, privatized prisons, and prisons semi-

privees may contract in services from the not-for-profit, nongovernment sector, such as the Salvation

Army in relation to welfare services.

The not-for-profit sector can also be involved as the primary nongovernment operator of a custodial

institution. This is particularly so in the case of juvenile institutions in the United States (McDonald,

1992). In such cases, they also may contract in some services from the private sector or even from the

government sector.

It is evident, then, that one must be careful in the use of such phrases as privatized corrections,

prison privatization, or private prisons. In this article, these notions will refer to a situation in which

the privatized arrangements include contracting out the custodial functions to the private sector; where

the routine management of systems to keep the detainees in, to keep them safe, and to keep the overall

regime compliant with prevailing legal and human rights standards are each carried out by private-

sector employees rather than by government functionaries.

Other types of detention where this form of privatization has occurred include juvenile detention,

immigration detention, prisoner transportation, and court security. Each of these functions is quanti-

tatively significant in some government agencies. The policy dilemmas and challenges they raise are

broadly similar to those raised by prison privatization. Accordingly, this is where our discussion will

principally be focused.

The purpose of this article is as follows: (a) to explore the historical origins of prison privatiza-

tion; (b) to identify the factors that underpinned its reemergence from 1980 onward; (c) to differentiate

prison privatization where custodial responsibility is contracted out to the private sector from the sit-

uation where numerous service and supply functions are contracted into prisons; (d) to evaluate from

perusal of the available research whether privatization has reduced costs and/or improved regimes and

outcomes; and (e) to explore the question of future research agenda.In doing so, reference will be made

to other areas of privatized detention or correction, particularly to immigration detention.