Private-public partnerships have been a useful tool utilized by governments for many years. In such partnerships, the government utilizes funds in part from private organizations to accomplish certain development goals. This allows the government to use funds that would usually be provided by grants that take up to years to be approved, or from raised taxes on the government’s constituents. Private organizations benefit from these arrangements by utilizing the legitimacy the government carries with it as well as by increasing their potential profits. Some notable projects that have utilized public-private partnerships are the Brooklyn Navy Yard, the High Line in New York, and the BeltLine in Atlanta. Not all public-private partnerships are successes unfortunately. There is no greater example of this than the use of private prisons to house federal inmates. This is a partnership that has been proven to be unnecessary, unsafe, and not necessarily cost efficient.

Private prisons have served a useful role in managing the federal prison population in the past. However, the federal prison population has been declining in recent years, eliminating the need for private prisons. Former Deputy Attorney General Sally states (2016) “Private prisons served an important role during a difficult period, but time has shown that they compare poorly to our own Bureau facilities” (par. 3). The difficult time the former Deputy Attorney General refers to is the span of time from 1980 to 2013. During this time the federal prison population steadily increased, necessitating the use of private prisons to house inmates that the federal government did not have space to accommodate. According to statistics provided by the Federal Bureau of Prisons (2017), there has been a sharp decline in the federal prison population since in recent years. Overall federal prison population reached its peak in 2013 with a population of 219,238 inmates. There has been a decline in federal prison population every year since, with the number of federal inmates dropping to 189,130 in 2017. Of these 189,130 only 21,366 are currently being housed in private prisons. Given that the overall federal prison population has dropped by a little over 30,000 inmates there should be space for most, if not all, 21, 366 of the prisoners in private prison in government-run public prisons. Even if there were not space for these prisoners, the phasing out of private prisons would be a gradual process; the government-run prisons would not have to take 21,366 prisoners immediately. Seeing that there has been an indisputable drop in federal prisoners and the former Deputy Attorney General has stated that the prisons were only being used during “a difficult period” (par.3) it would be a logical decision to cease the use of the now unnecessary private prisons.

Private prisons aren’t just unnecessary; they are dangerous to both inmates and the staff employed at private prisons. This is due to the fact that private prisons do not have the same safety standards that government-run prisons do and do not provide the same level of inmate services. Inmates and staff employed at private prisons are placed in dangerous situations and submitted to potentially inhumane environments. As a society that prides itself on apportioning punishments for crimes that are not cruel or unusual this represents a threat to the values of the country itself. A review of private prisons from the Department of Justice (2016) states the following: “We found that in a majority of categories we examined, contract prisons incurred more safety and security incidents per capita than comparable BOP institutions.” (p.ii). These incidents included inmate-on-staff assaults, inmate-on-inmate assaults, contraband finds, and prison lockdowns. Prison lockdowns typically occur when there is a danger of a security breach in the prison. This study conducted by the Department of Justice also found that “Contract prison inmates submitted more than twice as many grievances regarding prison staff as inmates in the BOP institutions” (p.23) and that “There were more food grievances at the contract prisons” (p.23). Based off of this evidence it is clear that private prisons less are less secure, less safe, have less competent staff, and do not provide the same levels of services as government-run prisons.

Proponents of private prisons primarily justify their stance by saying that private prisons save the government and taxpayer’s money; however, there is a new body of evidence that suggests this is not necessarily the case. According to Richard Oppel (2011) of The Washington Post: “The research, by the Arizona Department of Corrections, also reveals a murky aspect of private prisons that helps them appear less expensive: They often house only relatively healthy inmates” (par. 6). Sasha Volokh (2014) of The Washington Post explains another deceptive practice of private prisons: “Another practice that undermines cost comparisons is contractual terms limiting the private contractor’s medical costs” (Par. 22). This makes it seem as if private prisons are more cost efficient in terms of medical costs, when in reality they have a cap of how much they can spend in medical costs that they cannot exceed. The private prisons are not providing the same medical services for less money; they are simply providing less medical services. In addition to this, cost comparisons between private and public prisons are nearly impossible to accurately measure. According to the Government Accountability Office (2007): “A methodologically sound cost comparison analysis of BOP and private low and minimum security facilities is not currently feasible because BOP does not gather data from private facilities that are comparable to the data collected on BOP facilities” (par.2). Considering how easily data can be manipulated and the difficulty in measuring savings provided by private prisons the cost effectiveness of prisons cannot be cited as a reason for their implementation.

For the reasons outlined above, private prisons must be abolished. The significant decline in the federal prison population, the safety concerns of private prisons, the inferior services provided by private prisons, and the lack of evidence to support the claim of private prisons being more cost effective combine to create a compelling argument for their abolishment.

Sources

• Gerstein, J. (2016). Justice Department to phase out use of private prisons. Politico. Retrieved from http://www.politico.com/story/2016/08/justice-department-no-private-prisons-227161
• Federal Bureau of Prisons (2017) Statistics. Federal Bureau of Prisons. Retrieved from https://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/populationstatistics.jsp
• Oppel, Richard (2011) Private Prisons Found to Offer Little in Savings. Washington Post. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/19/us/19prisons.html?_r=0.
• The Editorial Board (2016) First Step in Shutting Private Prisons. New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/22/opinion/first-step-in-shutting-private-prisons.html?_r=0
• Cohen, Donald (2014) Reality Has Turned the Tide Against Private Prisons. Huffington Post. Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/donald-cohen/for-profit-prisons_b_4619776.html
• Davidson, Joe (2016) Private Federal Prisons – Less Safe, Less Secure. Washington Post. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2...
• ACLU Private Prisons. ACLU. Retrieved from https://www.aclu.org/issues/mass-incarceration/privatization-criminal-justice/private-prisons
• Office of The Inspector General (2016) Review of the Federal Bureau Prisons’ Monitoring of Contract Prisons. U.S. Department of Justice. Retrieved from https://oig.justice.gov/reports/2016/e1606.pdf
• Government Accountability Office (2007) Bureau of Prisons Needs Better Data to Assess Alternatives for Acquiring Low and Minimum Security Facilities. Government Accountability Office. Retrieved from http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-08-6