Public opinion and correctional privatization

• Author: Steven Heinz,Jessica Trapassi,Natasha A. Frost
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9133.12441
• Date: 01 May 2019
• Published date: 01 May 2019

DOI: 10.1111/1745-9133.12441

RESEARCH ARTICLE

PUBLIC OPINION

Public opinion and correctional privatization

Natasha A. Frost Jessica Trapassi Steven Heinz

Northeastern University

Correspondence

NatashaA. Frost, School of Criminology and

Criminal Justice, Northeastern University,

413Churchill Hall, 360 Huntington Ave.,

Boston,MA 02115.

Email:n.frost@nor theastern.edu

Research Summary: Slightly more than half of all states

and the federal government currently have contracted with

private prison corporations for the incarceration of some

of their correctional populations. We use the literature on

privatization of prisons to argue that we know surprisingly

little about the public’s perception of this phenomenon. We

summarize what is known from the thin body of research

into public opinion in the correctional domain, and then we

argue for an expanded research agenda to develop a more

extensive (and nuanced) understanding of public percep-

tions in this context.

Policy Implications: Private correctional facilities run by

for-profit companies, and the privatization of correctional

services beyond institutions, have proliferateddespite little

knowledge regarding public support for the expansion

of privatization in the correctional domain. Given that

public opinion, or at least perceptions of those opinions,

can directly or indirectly influence policy, we argue that

expanding our knowledge of the nature, direction, and

malleability of public opinion has substantial policy

implications for the future of prison privatization.

KEYWORDS

corrections, for-profit prisons, private prisons, privatization, public

opinion, public perception(s), public support

According to the authors of a recent Sentencing Project (2018) report, 27 states and the federal

government currently incarcerate a portion of their correctional populations in privately owned and

operated prisons. Nationally, 8.5% of all those currently incarcerated across the United States are

incarcerated in privately owned prisons with New Mexico and Montana leading all other states by

incarcerating 43.1% and 38.8% of their prison populations in private prisons, respectively. In 2016,

Criminology & Public Policy. 2019;18:457–476. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/capp © 2019 American Society of Criminology 457

458 FROST ET AL.

the Obama administration signaled its intent to phase out federal use of private prisons (a position that

was quickly reversed by Attorney General Sessions on the part of the Trump administration). Despite

public rebukes of the use of private prisons, growth in the use of private prisons nationally has been

substantial, with the population incarcerated in private prisons growing by 46.6% between 2000 and

2016 (The Sentencing Project, 2018). Notably, despite national growth in the size of populations

incarcerated in private prisons, there has also been a considerable movement away from private

prisons. Nine states (including Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Michigan, Nevada, North

Dakota, Utah, and Wisconsin) that housed at least part of their correctional populations in private

facilities in 2000 no longer did so in 2016 (The Sentencing Project, 2018). The data then clearly

indicate movement to and away from privatization of corrections across the country, but surprisingly

little is known about the drivers of correctional privatization and particularly about the extent to which

public opinion has influenced state-level opt-in or opt-out decisions.

Other contributors to this special issue of CPP have documented the growth of privatization across

correctional domains that expand well beyond the privatization of prisons. We focus specifically on

public opinion related to privatization, summarizing what little there is covering privatization of pris-

ons specifically. Giventhe paucity of published research in this area, we extend our purview to include

what the findings from public opinion research have shownabout individual attitudes toward the priva-

tization of traditionally public delivered services (social security, health-care issues, and infrastructure)

to extrapolate possible public opinion toward the privatization of corrections and correctional services.

Research associated with privatization and partial privatization of traditionally government-supplied

services has often been focused on the economic and financial outcomes of privatization efforts

(Megginson, 2005; Sclar, 2000; Vedachalam, Kay, & Riha, 2014). The authors of these studies often

have discussed outcomes in terms of the perceived potential savingsto t axpayersas a result of competi-

tion in the delivery of services. Others have referenced the perceived improvements,or lack thereof, in

the quality and/or efficiencies of the services provided by for-profit companies as opposed to those pro-

vided by traditional government providers (Battaglio & Khankarli, 2008; Greene, 2002; Savas,2000).

Although we look to what we know in other domains to infer what we might expect to find in the

correctional domain, we also use the findings reported in the existing literature to demonstrate that,

in many ways, the privatization of correctional services as a form of coercive state control is different

and, therefore, deserving of increased study. We conclude by offering a public judgment research

agenda for the future arguing that, in addition to asking the public more nuanced questions about their

opinions on correctional privatization more frequently, more deliberative methods would produce

more meaningful results.

1PUBLIC OPINION RELATED TO CRIMINAL JUSTICE

ISSUES

Despite the centrality of public opinion to several dominant theories of governance and the emergence

of several theories on the nature of the relationship between public opinion, the media, and criminal

justice policy making, there has been little empirical research aimed at examining the explicit role of

public opinion in the criminal justice realm. Much of the public opinion research related to criminal

justice has been focused on increased punitiveness and mass incarceration.1In 2010, Frost published a

survey article in which she characterized the state of public opinion related to increased punitiveness as

“more complex, more contradictory, and more nuanced than the average opinion poll would suggest”

(p. 165). One of the core problems with public opinion polling tends to be that people are generally

not given enough information about the response sets they are asked to choose between.When phrased