The Pros And Cons Of Privatizing Prisons

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Privatizing prisons is not an avenue in which I would advise. When looking at the rationales for contracting out, and comparing them to the evidence from already established privatized prisons, the comparison and results are not favorable. Thus, because the evidence and results given from private prison performance, I am against the privatization of prisons. The rationales supporting contracting out include: cost savings, need for skilled staff, quality improvement, flexibility and political support. Privatizing prisons has resulted in the failure of over half of these rationales. According to an article by Sclar (2000), the assumptions of contracting and the reality, often fall short of each other. In reality, privatization advocacy amounts …show more content…
It is estimated that between 2008 and 2010, Arizona overpaid for these prisons by around ten million dollars (Isaacs, 2012, p. iii). Staffing within multiple private prisons around the United States include poor background checks of hired employees (California, Red Rock and La Palma), sexual-harassment lawsuits filed against workers by female inmates (Florence), and lack of staff being searched for contraband (p. 58). In Kingman (MTC), there was evidence of health services not being consistent, fire detection devices being inoperable or silent, staff not logging the sealing of weapons, tool-checkout forms not being filled out or kept track of, pat searches not regular, and other inconsistencies (p. 32). Thus, the report illustrations that the rationalities listed for contracting out are lacking and inconsistent within several private prisons within the United …show more content…
As John Donahue observed, “full effective monitoring is a tall order”, and the act of monitoring is a hit or miss situation. For example, the ACA, who’s incentives come from accreditation fees, which amounted to almost five million dollars in 2011, provides an accreditation process dealing with nothing more than a paper review. They do not provide oversight or monitoring, they only verify that the facilities are in accordance with the standards of their accreditation at the time (Friedmann,

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