Revisiting Prison Privatization

• DOI: 10.1177/0095399712451897
• Date: 01 April 2014
• Published date: 01 April 2014
• Author: Byron E. Price,Younhee Kim
• Subject Matter: Articles

Administration & Society

2014, Vol. 46(3) 255 –275

© 2012 SAGE Publications

DOI: 10.1177/0095399712451897

aas.sagepub.com

451897AAS46310.1177/00953997124518

97Kim and PriceAdministration & Society

© 2012 SAGE Publications

1East Carolina University, Greenville, NC, USA

2Medgar Evers College of the City University of New York, Brooklyn, NY, USA

Corresponding Author:

Younhee Kim, East Carolina University, Brewster Building A-115, Greenville,

NC 27858, USA.

Email: kimy@ecu.edu

Revisiting Prison

Privatization: An

Examination of the

Magnitude of Prison

Privatization

Younhee Kim1 and Byron E. Price2

Abstract

This study examines the effects of capacity-oriented and institutional-based

factors on the proliferation of prison privatization by extending the first

generation of empirical research. This study found that correction expen-

ditures, prison capacity, and regional identity are factors that significantly

affect the magnitude of prison privatization, whereas political pressures,

government ideology, and unionization were found not to have a significant

influence on the growth of private prisons. The results imply that, once

adopted, prison privatization became institutionalized over time and suggest

that state governments should develop well-structured evaluation systems

for private prisons to ensure and maintain effective correction management.

Keywords

institutional constraints, organizational capacity, prison privatization, public–

private partnership

Article

256 Administration & Society 46(3)

The private correctional industry in the United States has expanded since the

mid-1980s. This trend was bolstered by an increased emphasis on the priva-

tization of minimum-security prisons. In addition, the nation’s economic

downturn over the past 10 years, coupled by discrepancy between the demand

and supply of additional space, led many states to consider prison privatiza-

tion. Expansion of the private correctional industry has continued unabated,

although reservations about the effectiveness of prison privatization still lin-

ger. Most states privatized their prisons under the guise that private prisons

were more cost-effective, provided better quality, and offered a viable alter-

native to publicly funded prisons. However, as most voters do not want to pay

higher taxes, legislators have refused to support the financing and construc-

tion of new prisons. This sentiment is echoed by Lukemeyer and McCorkle

(2006) who found a relationship between taxpayer willingness to transfer

such costs to the private sector and the public’s low tolerance for financing

prisons.

Since the mid-1980s, debates surrounding the applicability of prison

privatization continue to be ideologically driven. Most conservatives favor

prison privatization, and conversely, most liberals oppose prison privatiza-

tion (e.g., Gold, 1996; Pozen, 2003). A 1996 report by the U.S. General

Accounting Office (U.S. GAO, 1996) provided fodder for prison privatiza-

tion opponents when they found that there was no discernible difference

between private prisons’ and public prisons’ ability to provide better quality

services or their ability to provide the service at a lower cost. Although the

privatization trend waned after 1996, it has recently reemerged largely due to

government strategies that emphasize the use of innovative entrepreneurial

opportunities, which create economic development through competition

(Morris, 2007), to overcome fiscal challenges.

Despite some positive aspects of prison privatization, evidence of improved

operational efficiency and service quality of private prisons has remained

inconclusive (e.g., Lundahl, Kunz, Brownell, Harris, & Van Vleet, 2009;

Perrone & Pratt, 2003; Segal & Moore, 2002). Persistent debates over prison

privatization, which focus primarily on cost reduction and quality improve-

ment in an effort to fill a gap between the steady growth of private prisons

and inconclusive evidence of their effectiveness and efficiency (Lukemeyer

& McCorkle, 2006), may overlook legitimate concerns with the practice of

privatization. Although there are extensive studies on prison privatization,

only a few have conducted empirical investigations to explain the impact of

political influences on the proliferation of prison privatization. Although

these studies limited in scopes as they fail to evaluate the trends of prison

privatization over time, findings suggest that government decisions to privatize