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I’ve Been Saying This for Years…
An excellent article in the New York Times from last week discusses how private prisons have failed to deliver on their promises of cost-savings in Arizona. In fact, “privately operated prisons can cost more to operate than state-run prisons — even though they often steer clear of the sickest, costliest inmates.”
Private prisons essentially cherry-pick their prisoners. They take primarily low-level, nonviolent offenders, who cost less to house and maintain. They take mostly younger guys, and force the state to take older prisoners, who are more prone to costly health problems. They also rarely house high-security inmates.
In addition to all this, they cut corners on maintenance, have a horrible track record of denying medical care, and use significantly less staff than government-run institutions (staff costs being among the most expensive components of a prison’s budget). They pay and train their staff less, and offer less benefits, which results in their staff being by and large less qualified and professional than you’d find in a government prisons.
Yet even after all of this, they still don’t save a significant amount of money, and can even cost more to operate than a government-run facility. This study is just the latest of numerous reports that have all found essentially the same thing, going back nearly a decade. But our country’s inability to enact effective sentencing and parole/probation reform to reduce our over-reliance on incarceration has caused governments to continue to perform this failed experiment with privatization. Hopefully, the decision that came down today in Plata v. Schwarzenneger will demonstrate that we cannot just continue to expand our prison population indefinitely.
3 Comments
In fact, “privately operated prisons can cost more to operate than state-run prisons…
Duh! How can any logical, sane person, even begin to think otherwise?
And, of course, this is the same for health insurance. Once an insurance company adds on 20% to cover profits and excess executive benefits, using insurance companies logically will cost 20% more than single-payer. And, as you mention with the prison industry, the private corporation is going to cherry-pick and exclude the most expensive.
(The war on drugs/private prison combination is for the purpose of funneling middle-class taxpayer dollars to the upper 20% of the US who own 80% of stocks … and don’t even get me started on the human rights … see: )
Unfortunately, far too many politicians have been persuaded that this is the case. Or at least I’d like to give them that much credit; it would really sadden me to think that legislators who promote and help get contracts for private prisons actually realize this, and ignore it, for whatever purposes. I know they spend boatloads of money lobbying, but I want to continue to believe that politicians must be blind to the fact that they cost more, and aren’t just completely influenced by the money.
Same goes for pretty much every instance of privatization; I feel like it should be common sense that a private corporation, driven primarily by a profit motive, will cost more to taxpayers to provide a given service than a government, a nonprofit entity designed to serve the interests of its constituents. And if a government doesn’t serve the interests of its constituents (by, for example, outsourcing government services to companies with long records of abuse and contract noncompliance), then it becomes “the right of the people to alter or abolish it.”
“Or at least I’d like to give them that much credit”
I think you are too kind.
“I feel like it should be common sense that a private corporation, driven primarily by a profit motive, will cost more to taxpayers to provide a given service…”
For instance, Rick Scott, here in Fla., owns $20 million in Solantic stock, and is scaling back state clinics and hospitals and is advancing efforts to require drug testing for all state employees — among the things he is blatantly doing that will increase profits at Solantic.
It is beyond obvious [to me] that he spent a million to become gov and expects to be able to double his stock’s value by the time he leaves…