To date, there have been some 13 empirical studies of private and public correctional facilities in the United States undertaken to measure various differences between these modes of ownership and operation:
These studies have varied widely in both design and findings, a situation which makes it difficult to infer expected outcomes in ongoing privatization. A brief review of the body of research helps to illustrate this point and show an emerging trend in findings: that private prisons are indeed less expensive to run than public facilities (4% to 14% less) and that these cost savings have not been attained by compromising prisoner conditions of confinement or the working conditions of correctional officers.
1. Okeechobee (Levinson, 1985)
One of the earliest correctional privatization efforts involved the Okeechobee School for Boys, a large (425 bed), secure juvenile training school located in southern Florida. Contracted out for operation to the non-profit Eckerd Foundation by the State of Florida, the school was subsequently compared with a state-operated training school in 1985 (Levinson) in a study that is frequently cited by both proponents and opponents of privatization in the ongoing debate (Mullen, 1985; Geis, 1987; Logan,1990; Bowman, 1992; Shichor, 1995).
The Levinson (1985) study found the two facilities to be similar in population housed and in the general quality of program outcome. However, the evaluation noted that, despite the Eckerd Foundation’s claim that it could reduce operating costs by 10% to 15%, the actual costs of the two programs were quite similar. Further, the study reported several negative findings about the Eckerd program, including a higher staff turnover rate than Dozier, lower staff morale, and a less orderly and well maintained facility in general (Levinson, 1985; Shichor, 1995).
The Hamilton County jail in Chattanooga, Tennessee was the first local jail in the U.S. to "go private." The Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) was awarded a contract in 1984 to operate the secure adult facility. In 1989, Logan and McGriff completed a cost analysis of the facility and compared it with a hypothetical situation had the county maintained operational responsibility for the facility. The study found that the CCA operated the facility at a cost of 4% to 8% less than what the county would have spent in operating it. (Logan and McGriff, 1989; McDonald, 1991; Shichor, 1995).
Sellers (1989) conducted a comparative analysis of the costs and level of services provided by three private and three public correctional facilities spread across Tennessee, Pensylvania, and New Jersey. In three matched pair comparisons, Sellers found that the Weaversville (private) facility operated at a significantly lower per diem cost ($91) than the public Danville facility ($136) but that the level of services were about the same. In comparing the private Butler County Prison with the publicly-operated Salem County facility, Sellers found Butler to be slightly more expensive ($28.52 vs. $25.11) but that Butler was better maintained, less crowded, and had more inmate programs. The facilities were comparable in guard/inmate ratio. In the third comparison, Silverdale (private) was matched with the public Warren County facility in New Jersey. Both were maximum security facilities. Dramatic cost differences were found between the two facilities - a per diem of $19 at Silverdale and $43 at Warren County. The Warren County facility had a much higher guard/inmate ratio (1:2 vs. 1:6.25 at Silverdale), yet Silverdale provided more inmate programs than Warren County (Sellers, 1989; Shichor, 1995).
4. The Urban Institute (Haltry et al. 1989)
Under a grant from the National Institute of Justice, the Urban Institute (Hatry et al., 1989) conducted a study of two pairs of public and private facilities in Kentucky and Massachusetts. The study attempted to control for the social, political, and economic environment in making the comparisons (Shichor, 1995). In Kentucky, the Urban Institute compared the Marian Adjustment Center, a private minimum-security adult facility operated by the U.S. Corrections Corporation with the publicly run Blackburn Correctional Complex. The actual per diem of the private facility was found to be higher (about 10%) but the analysis did not take into account the capital costs of the public facility. Generally, the private facility scored higher marks in the quality of inmate conditions of confinement. The Massachusetts programs were small (12-16 bed) juvenile facilities, both located in buildings owned by the state. The difference in cost between these programs was less than 1% although the private facility was rated higher in service performance.
5. Logan (1991)
In another study sponsored by the National Institute of Justice, Logan (1991) examined the effects of the privatization of a woman's prison in New Mexico and compared it with a public woman's facility operated by the U.S. Bureau of Prisons. This evaluation focused more on program effectiveness than program cost and involved the development of a Prison Quality Index which Logan has further refined and used in ongoing privatization research (The Privatization Research Site, 1997). The Prison Quality Index measures eight dimensions of the prison environment from the point of view of both inmates and staff: security, safety, order, care, activity, justice, living conditions, and management. The findings of this evaluation were mixed. While the private prison was reportedly cheaper - $69.75/day vs. $80/day for the public prison - variations occurred across the eight dimensions evaluated on the Prison Quality Index. In general, the private prison outscored the state and federal prisons on six of the eight dimensions.
6. Texas Sunset Advisory Commission (1991)
In 1991, the Texas State Auditor looked at the costs of operating four 500 bed prisons under contract to the Wackenhutt Corrections Corporation and the CCA (Texas Sunset Advisory Commission, 1991). Like the Logan and McGriff study (1989), this evaluation compared the cost of operating these prisons with a hypothetical situation had the state operated them. The report was required by a legislative mandate that all contracted prisons in the state must operate at a savings of at least 10% of what it would cost the Department of Corrections to operate them. The study found the prisons to be operating at between 10%-14% less than what it would have cost the State of Texas to run them.
7. General Accounting Office (1992)
In May, 1992, the U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) issued a report which examined the costs of construction and operations of federal and state prisons throughout the United States (U.S. General Accounting Office, 1992). The study established baselines for comparing prison costs across the country given such wide variability in reported costs. For example, the GAO report found a per diem range from $22.85 to $81.08 and per bed construction costs variations from $11,243 to $93,333 across the country. The report identifies three categories of prison design (integrated structure, cluster, and campus) which accounted for a significant amount of the disparity in costs and which will be useful in making more valid cost comparisons in the future.
8. Sechrest and Schicor (1993)
Sechrest and Shichor (1991) compared a number of public and private parole violator facilities in California to determine cost efficiency and program quality differences. In the area of cost, the private facilities’ per diems averaged $54.49, the public facilities averaged $50.08. Both figures were less than the $59.04 average of operating all state prisons in California. Quality was measured with an inmate questionnaire on items related to order, amenity, and service. Results were split - the inmates rated the private prisons more orderly but the public prisons better in service. On the four item amenity construct, the results were split two to two between public and private.
9. State of Washington Legislative Budget Committee (1995)
The Legislative Budget Committee (LBC) of the State of Washington conducted a review of the state's correctional institutions to see if cost savings could be realized through the privatization of a new 1,936 bed facility being considered in the legislature (State of Washington, 1995). The LBC looked at privatized facilities in other states and made recommendations that any privatization should include: (a) a legislative requirement for cost savings (like in Texas), (b) should set design and construction standards to lower costs (as in the GAO report), (c) develop a contingency plan in the event a private contractor ceased to operate a facility, (d) place an on-site monitor at the facility to assure the contractor complies with legislation and court ordered mandates, and (e) establish comparative efficiency and effectiveness criteria to permit subsequent evaluation of the private prison. A synopsis of the Department of Corrections Privatization Feasibility Study is available on-line at: http://leginfo.leg.wa.gov/www/lbc/docpriv.htm (click here).
10. State of Tennessee Fiscal Review Committee (1995)
The State of Tennessee has been among the earliest entries into the practice of privatization and its private correctional facilities have been the subject of previous evaluations as noted elsewhere. In 1991, the state legislature directed the state Select Oversight Committee on Corrections to compare both the quality of services and the cost of operating three new, prototype, 1,336 bed prisons that became operational in 1992 (State of Tennessee Fiscal Review Committee, 1995). Two were state operated and the third privately managed by the CCA. All three were judged to be without significant difference in security, safety, and overall program quality. Cost difference was equally insignificant, with the facilities all operating within plus or minus 1% of each other.
11. General Accounting Office (1996)
In August, 1996, the General Accounting Office released a report that reviewed five prior evaluation studies in the area of privatization and summarized the current status of uncertainty regarding the differences in program efficiency and effectiveness between public and private correctional facilities (General Accounting Office 1996) and critiques the methodological problems of the prior comparative studies. One such problem, addressed earlier by Shichor (1995), involves how the political pressure on legislators to deal with prison overcrowding in their home states may have influenced the objectivity of several of these evaluations. A full copy of the GAO report is available on-line at: http://www.securitymanagement.com/library/000231.html (click here).
12. Logan (1996)
In 1995, Logan completed a follow-up study of his 1991 evaluation of the privatization of a prison for women in Arizona. He focused on the dimension of management in comparing the state-operated woman’s prison with a private facility that was built to replace it. Logan utilized a staff survey and an examination of personnel records to assemble quantitative data and conducted a number of staff interviews and field observations to build a qualitative data base. The concept of management is operationalized by Logan through the use of the Prison Social Climate Survey, an inmate and prison staff questionnaire developed by the U.S. Bureau of Prisons (Saylor, 1984). He found the private prison outperforming the state operated facility on several dimensions including: staff morale, communications, experience and leadership among administrators and strict adherence to the governance of inmates. One of his findings, that the salaries, training, and education level of correctional workers in both facilities were generally equivalent, is particularly important in addressing the argument voiced by some privatization critics that private companies turn a profit by hiring low paid, less qualified workers (Logan, 1995).
13. Archambeault and Deis (1996)
Most recently, Archambeault and Deis (1996) completed a comprehensive evaluation of cost-effectiveness in three prisons in Louisiana (two private, one public). In addition to a comparison of general cost data (they found the private prisons to be less expensive), they conducted an in-depth examination of institutional records to determine rates of serious incidents and the overall climate of safety within each of the prisons. The private prisons were found to be safer places to work (fewer assaults on staff), significantly safer for prisoners (fewer inmate assaults on inmates), and more effective at providing treatment programs such as literacy, vocational training, and adult education. The study also found that the private prisons employed a higher percentage of minorities and women than the public facilities and that this higher rate of minorities and women in the work force was linked to higher levels of inmate and staff safety. An executive summary of this study is available on-line at: http://www.ucc.uconn.edu/~wwwsoci/exsumla.html (click here).
Discussion
While private prisons generally appear to be operating more economically
than public facilities, many private facilities are accomplishing
this cost savings while actually improving the conditions of confinement
for prisoners. On an absurd twist to the ongoing argument about
privatization in Florida, the Wackenhut's new South Bay facility
came under criticism in February, 1997 for providing their inmates
with television, air conditioning, and recreational equipment.
The state-run facilities have been under pressure to dispense
with these amenities in the interest of "getting tough on
criminals" and some politicians are questioning whether inmates
in private prisons should continue to have them (The Miami Herald,
02/10/97, p. 2B). The ideological rhetoric advanced by both sides
in the privatization debate has drowned out the asking of a fundamental
question: are recidivism and rehabilitative outcomes any different
for prisoners in public and private prisons? As the number of
private prisons continues to grow, perhaps new research opportunities
will open up that can give us a clearer picture of long-term privatization
outcomes and whether or not this privatization business is worth
all the fuss.
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