Private vs. Public Prisons

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Private vs. Public Prisons

• A Meta-Analysis of Evaluation Research Studies

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Issue

• Costs of incarceration rising
• Larger incarcerated population than ever before
• Inconclusive evidence regarding cost savings of
  private facilities
• Long term incarceration more common
• Aging prison population

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Research Design

• Meta-analysis of 24 independent studies
• Included 33 cost effectiveness evaluations
• Results indicate that private facilities no more
  cost effective than public prisons
• Institutional characteristics such as facilitys
  scale, age, security level strongest predictors
  of per diem costs

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Debated Options

• Privatization has become growth industry
• Privatization movement increasingly supported
• Some studies show private facilities less
  expensive
• Some studies show private facilities more
  efficient
• Economy of scale (buying in bulk)

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Public Choice Theory

• Market economy makes private market more cost
  effective alternative
• Economy of scale
• Bulk rate services cheaper
• BUT, no real quantitative research conducted on
  this issue yet

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Public Choice Arguments

• Competitive free market
• Big government discourages economic rationality
  and efficiency
• Big government is undemocratic in corrections
  it forces citizens to accept inferior goods at
  elevated prices

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Privatization in Corrections

• More of a continuum
• Public facilities do (or can) contract various
  services
• Construction
• Food service
• Medical services
• financing

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Pro Privatization

• Deteriorating conditions in public facilities
• Increased violence in public facilities
• Waste in public facilities
• Crowding in public facilities 1.7 million as of
  1996
• There has been an expansion of corrections-commer
  cial complex in recent years

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Empirical Evaluations

• Inconclusive
• Private facilities fails to consistently provide
  more efficiency
• Most evaluations have focused on small number of
  facilities
• No large studies completed
• Some researchers biased in favor of their
  privatization agenda

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Present Study

• Subjected literature to cost-effectiveness
  comparison of public v. private facilities
• Unit of analysis was the independent study
• Meta analysis good tool for comparing project
  with inconsistent results
• Look for common statistical patterns
• BUT poor studies can be grouped with good studies

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Sample

• National Criminal Justice Referencing Service
  electronic database
• Only evaluations of adult male facilities
  included
• Studies selected had to include
• a reported measure of per inmate per day costs
• Information on characteristics of facility itself

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Results

• Not favorable to public choice perspective
• Ownership of a facility was not significantly
  associated with predictions of cost to house
  inmates
• Consistent with privatization critics arguments
  the age of a facility is related positively to
  cost of housing inmate

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Results Against Privatization

• Age of facility related to cost of operation of
  facility
• Security level related positively to cost of
  operation
• Larger number of inmates cheaper operation
• No empirical support for privatization

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